Bill Cosgrave - Love Her Madly: Jim Morrison, Mary, and Me

Jim Morrison, Mary, and Me

BILL COSGRAVE

Copyright Bill Cosgrave, 2020

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise (except for brief passages for purpose of review) without the prior permission of Dundurn Press. Permission to photocopy should be requested from Access Copyright.

Publisher: Scott Fraser | Editor: Allison Hirst

Cover designer: Laura Boyle

Cover image: istockphoto.com/Pgiam

Printer: Marquis Book Printing Inc.

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Title: Love her madly : Jim Morrison, Mary, and me / Bill Cosgrave.

Names: Cosgrave, Bill, 1947- author

Identifiers: Canadiana (print) 20190208384 | Canadiana (ebook) 20190209313 | ISBN 9781459746602 (softcover) | ISBN 9781459746619 (PDF) | ISBN 9781459746626 (EPUB)

Subjects: LCSH: Morrison, Jim, 1943-1971Friends and associates. | LCSH: SingersUnited StatesBiography. | LCSH: Rock musiciansUnited StatesBiography. | LCSH: Werbelow, Mary. | LCSH: Cosgrave, Bill, 1947

Classification: LCC ML420 M62 C67 2020 | LCC ML420 M688 C67 2020 | DDC 782.42166092dc23

We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council for our publishing program. We also acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Ontario, through the Ontario Book Publishing Tax Credit and Ontario Creates, and the Government of Canada.

Care has been taken to trace the ownership of copyright material used in this book. The author and the publisher welcome any information enabling them to rectify any references or credits in subsequent editions.

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To my wife, Julie

Im leaving LA. We pledge to keep in touch the first one to make some money will contact the other.

Jims bemused. Ive made arrangements to rendezvous with two strangers for a ride across the country. Another of my weird, seat-of-my-pants adventures that makes Jim shake his head and smile.

Mary hands me a ten-dollar bill as I climb out of her VW Beetle. Im almost broke, as always. Jims a little stoned, as always. And Mary beautiful Mary is practical and in charge. As always.

I want this back one day, Billy Cosgrave, she says. I mean it.

My ride arrives. My eyes are welling up. I hug my dear friends goodbye, tell them I love them, and hop into a car with strangers.

Typical.

Two years later, Jim would be on the cover of major magazines, rocketing to fame as an international rock star and sex symbol. Four years later, television, newspapers, and radio would stun the world with news of his shocking death in a Paris apartment.

During our last conversation after a Doors concert, Jim told me that Mary had gone to India. Mary the girl Jim planned to marry, the girl Id secretly loved had disappeared.

Years later, I would find her in circumstances I could never have imagined.

My last visit to her home was as strange as the first. Mysterious Mary had disappeared again, along with her remarkable memories and her treasure box filled with Jims personal notes, letters, and memorabilia. She was gone.

Alligator Alley slices through the prehistoric Everglades, a straight cut from the Gulf Coast to the Atlantic. I have my thumb out in the torrid heat. Destination: Fort Lauderdale.

A battered pickup truck pulls over, with rusted, mud-caked shovels in the back. I climb into the filthy cab. The driver is wearing a dirty T-shirt and faded jeans. Hes balding, with stringy black hair slick along the sides of his head. Crooked, yellow teeth, tobacco-stained fingers, nails chewed to the quick. He reeks of stale sweat and cigarettes. He looks at me with dull eyes. I ask him how far hes going. He mutters Fort Lauderdale. Its going to be a long drive.

Hot air blasts through the windows. The baked dashboard is cracked, the windshield peppered with rock chips. The guy doesnt talk, he broods. The asphalt surface quivers in the visible heat.

A half hour later, theres a major furor on the road. What the hells going on? Brooder slows down. Crimson-headed vultures are furiously devouring a crushed alligator that has met a semi-truck.

Look at that! Weirdly excited, Brooder brakes and pulls up beside the frenzied feast. Cutting the engine, he leans out his window. The vultures jerk their heads up from the festering corpse. A dozen cold, beady eyes stare at him, then plunge back into the carcass. Its dead quiet except for the sound of their beaks frantically tearing flesh, yanking out white strands of sinew. Horrible snapping sounds. Bits of blood and flesh spattered on their faces. Jesus, the stench.

Thats a nine-foot gator, probably four hundred pounds. Hes talking to himself.

The guy watches too long.

The hot air is filled with the putrid odour of death. I start gagging. Brooder stares at me while slowly reaching for the ignition, a strange look in his eyes.

Who or what is this guy?

We drive on in an eerie silence through seemingly endless swampland. Finally, a hint of civilization appears: a faded ALLIGATOR WRESTLING sign, a rundown trailer park, an unpainted shack CURLYS BEER AND LIQUOR. A sideways Coca Cola sign hangs by a rusted chain. I begin to relax. Soon a suburb, then another, stretching out forever on this flattest of land. Buildings appear in the distance, their office lights twinkling in the dark blue of dusk.

Fort Lauderdale.

He drops me off at a gas station. With a strange, sardonic look in his eyes, he reaches out to shake my hand.

I get the key to the washroom and scrub my hands, thinking Ill take the Greyhound back.

I show the gas attendant the address. Not too far, he says. Straight down about four miles, then in three blocks.

I hesitate to stick out my thumb, but this time my ride is a pleasant-faced woman with bleach-blond hair looking just so. The scent of hairspray. Her companion in the back seat is a nervous chihuahua. Its okay, Princess, its okay, she tells the dog. Princess has the shakes.

The nice lady drops me off with a happy wave.

I walk the last three blocks to a tidy white house with green shutters and black street numbers. I have arrived at the house of Mary. Trembling with anticipation, I ring the doorbell.