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anonymousewrites · 2 years

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There's a Soldier; There's a Savior Chapter Seven

Chapter Seven: Allies from the Afterlife

“It was her,” said Chuuya. He sat in the back of the ADA, really DoA’s, truck with heavy restraints on his hands across from (Y/N) and Dazai. Still, the only thing he could think of was Akira. “But she looked at me like she didn’t even know me,” he murmured. He had explained to the others that Akira had been his friend, ally in arms so many years ago. He had not said the true extent of his feelings, for Chuuya would not dare speak them out loud, but he had made Akira’s identity clear. And how he saw her fall from icy slopes to her death, breaking his heart.

“How is that possible? It was seventy years ago,” said (Y/N), furrowing her brow.

“Rimbaud. Akira and her unit were captured once,” said Chuuya. “Rimbaud experimented on her. Whatever he did helped her survive the fall. They must have found and messed with her mind…” Chuuya took a deep breath.

“It’s not your fault, Chuuya,” said (Y/N), wincing as her bullet wound throbbed.

Dazai narrowed his eyes in concern. “We need a doctor.” He looked over at the DoA agents. “If we don’t put pressure on that wound, she’s going to bleed out.”

The agent flipped an electric baton out, and the trio eyed it warily. They were shocked when the agent plunged it into their partner’s side and then kicked them unconscious. The first agent pulled off their helmet to reveal the unperturbed face of Kunikida Doppo.

“Well, it seems now is the time to move,” he said sternly, not beating around the bush (very Kunikida). He looked Dazai up and down, not at all concealing his judgement. “Who’s he?”

“Dazai,” said (Y/N). She smiled. “He’s good.”

Kunikida sighed. “Fine. Now we need to go.” He pulled out a laser and began cutting out the bottom of the car. “You ready for a change of vehicle?”

“From this place? Oh, yeah,” said Dazai.

An hour later, they were walking into a forested safe house with Kunikida where trusted ADA members were hard at work.

“Let me take her to get help,” said Dazai, eyes narrowed.

“She’ll want to see him first,” said Kunikida. He escorted them to a small hospital room. In the bed lay Yukichi Fukuzawa, alive and well. Or, as well as someone shot could be.

Fukuzawa smiled. “Hello. I was hoping I’d see you soon.”

“Fukuzawa!” exclaimed (Y/N) happily. A doctor appeared at her side and began tending her wound as everyone sat and listened to Fukuzawa.

“Lacerated spinal column, cracked sternum, shattered collarbone, perforated liver, and a headache is what I currently suffer,” he said solemnly. “Otherwise, I am well.”

“They cut you open. Your heart stopped,” said Chuuya in confusion.

“Tetrodotoxin B. Slows the pulse to one beat a minute,” explained Fukuzawa.

“Why all the secrecy? Why not just tell us?” asked Chuuya.

“Any attempt on the Director’s life had to look successful,” said Kunikida.

“I wasn’t sure who to trust,” said Fukuzawa. He looked at them all. “I do know.”

Far away, in an underground laboratory, Akira sat in a mechanical chair as DoA scientists paced around her. One of them repaired her metal arm where (Y/N) had electrocuted it. Akira stared blankly ahead, her mind a buzz of thoughts centered around the redheaded man.

He knew me. And the name…”Akira” is so familiar, she thought. Flashes of snow, a train, someone calling her name passed through her mind. The picture of someone experimenting with her arm jerked through her, and she thrashed in her seat. Akira sent the scientist working on her arm flying.

The other men raised their guns to her as she panted from the onset of what felt like her memories. One brought out a walky-talky and reported the incident in. Akira remained still and thoughtful as the minutes ticked by until Fukuchi entered the room.

He approached, and Akira’s hair stood on end. She had always mechanically done as he ordered because…Akira frowned inwardly. Why had she? For that reason, why did it feel like she hadn’t properly thought until now? She had so many questioned and, unfortunately, suspected she would get no answers.

“Mission Report,” ordered Fukuchi. She did not reply. “Mission Report now.” Fukuchi frowned and walked closer.

Whack!

The sound echoed off the stone walls. Fukuchi had backhanded Akira across the face.

But she did not flinch. She simply furrowed her brow. “The man on the bridge. Who was he?”

“You met him earlier this week on another assignment,” said Fukuchi, trying to create a plausible reason.

“I knew him,” said Akira.

Fukuchi sighed and put on a fatherly smile. “Your work has been a gift to mankind. You shaped the century. And I need you to do it one more time. Society’s at a tipping point between order and chaos.”

“Life is better with a little chaos. That’s why I like you.” Akira heard her own voice in her mind. Another memory, and this one felt important.

“And tomorrow morning, we’re going to give it a push. But if you don’t do your part, I can’t do mine,” said Fukuchi, in the sickly-sweet sound of a father chastising a child. “And the Decay of the Angels can’t give the world the freedom it deserves.”

“But I knew him,” repeated Akira, almost to herself instead of to any person present.

Fukuchi sighed in disappointed. “Prep her.”

“She’s been out of cryofreeze for too long,” said a scientist.

“Then wipe her and start over,” hissed Fukuchi. “I will not have Chuuya Nakahara and (Y/N) (L/N) destroy everything I’ve worked for.”

Fukuzawa sighed as he looked at a photo of Fukuchi. “This man turned down a Nobel Peace Prize. He said, ‘Peace wasn’t an achievement, it was a responsibility.’ ” He crossed his arms. “It’s things like these that mean I cannot trust many people.”

“We have to stop the launch,” said (Y/N), rolling her shoulder to test its maneuverability.

“I don’t believe the Council is willing to listen to a dead man,” said Fukuzawa wryly. “But we have something.” He opened a briefcase to show three microchips.

“What’s that?” asked Dazai.

“Once the helicarriers reach three thousand feet, they’ll triangulate with Insight satellites, becoming fully weaponized,” explained Kunikida. “We need to breach those carriers and replace their targeting blades with our own. One or two won’t cut it. We need to link all three carriers for this to work. If even one of those ships remains operational, countless lives will be lost.

“Furthermore, we have to assume everyone aboard those carriers is DoA. We have to get past them to insert the server blades,” continued Kunikida. “And maybe, once this is all over, we can salvage what’s left—”

“We’re not salvaging anything,” cut in (Y/N). “Carriers go down.”

“And so does the ADA,” said Chuuya.

“The ADA had nothing to do with this,” said Fukuzawa.

“The ADA is compromised,” murmured (Y/N). “The DoA grew under our nose.”

“We’re meeting her because I did,” said Fukuzawa.

“Too many are paying the price of it taking this long,” said Chuuya, crossing his arms.

Fukuzawa sighed. “I didn’t know about Captain Akira.”

“You wouldn’t have told me if you did,” said Chuuya. “Compartmentalization, right?”

“I would have told you,” said Fukuzawa honestly.

“It all goes,” reiterated Chuuya.

“It has to,” said (Y/N).

Fukuzawa was silent for a moment and then nodded. “Alright. Agent—” he looked at Chuuya “—it seems you’re giving the orders now.”

Chuuya stood above the base and looked out over the forest and river below him. The thoughts and feelings of so many days rose in his mind and weighed him down. There were so many memories floating up out of the dark recesses of his mind where he had locked them away when the pain was too much.

“Halt!” shouted the police as a raven haired and a ginger teenager ran down an alley, laughing with spray paint cans tucked into bags under their arms.

The pair dodged into a corner and let the policemen run by, holding in their laughs and snickers as they got away safely.

“The mayor definitely isn’t going to be happy when he wakes up,” breathed Chuuya with a grin.

“Fitzgerald can deal with a few callouts for his corruption.” Akira waved a hand. “Not my fault he takes bribes and half the city knows it.”

Chuuya rolled his eyes. “Can’t believe you went along with this.”

“What, and let you have all the fun? Never,” she said in a fake-scandalized voice. “Besides, I love a bit of trouble. And Fitzgerald hates anything other than order.”

“That why you had us sign off as ‘Arahabaki?’ That’s a spirit of chaos, right?” said Chuuya.

Akira winked playfully. “You know it. Thought it would work for a troublemaker like you.”

Chuuya huffed, but under the lamplight, the faint blush on his cheeks was visible. “Stop calling me that.”

“Troublemaker or Arahabaki, harbinger of chaos?” Akira wiggled her fingers in a “spooky” manner.

Chuuya rolled his eyes. “You make me sound like a weirdo who goes around causing trouble for no reason. Fitzgerald deserves some bad publicity.”

Akira shrugged. “He does indeed.” She smiled. “And life is better with a little chaos. That’s why I like you.”

Chuuya forced himself not to turn redder and crossed his arms defiantly. “Still doesn’t make me seem like a not-weirdo.”

“You are a weirdo,” she said. Chuuya glared at her. “Who else would ask a young lady to go out in the middle of the night for scandalous activities?”

“God, you make this way this sound way worse that it is,” he groaned.

Akira laughed, and his heart fluttered at the sound. He never wanted to lose that melody, that image of happiness.

“She’s going to be there.” Dazai interrupted Chuuya’s revery. He had easily deduced who Chuuya was reminiscing of.

“I know,” answered Chuuya.

“Look, whoever she used to be and is now…I’m sorry they’re so different,” said Dazai. “And I’m sorry I can’t figure out a way to help her.”

“I will,” said Chuuya resolutely. His steady gaze met Dazai’s. “I will save her.”

“Good,” said (Y/N), appearing next to them. “Because they’re going to send her after us.”

“It’s time?” asked Dazai.

(Y/N) nodded. “Let’s gear up.”

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onlovestreetwithjimmorrison · 7 years

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Mary and Jim to the end

Before Jim Morrison became famous with the Doors, he and Mary Werbelow were soul mates. In the never-ending procession of Morrison biographies, she is mentioned briefly but never quoted. Google her, and not a single photo appears. She has never spoken publicly about their three years together - until now.

By ROBERT FARLEY Published September 25, 2005

[Courtesy of Mike Sanders]

WHERE THEY MET:

Clearwater Beach, Pier 60. Mary was in high school, Jim just finished a year at St. Pete Junior College. His second cousin, Gail Swift, who lived in Clearwater, says their relationship was intense: “I think they answered a lonely call inside each other.”

Go to photo gallery

BEAUTY CONTESTANT:

Mary, at 18, competed for the title of Miss Clearwater 1963. The Clearwater Pass Bridge is behind her.

[Courtesy of Clearwater Public Library]

Mary Werbelow is polite but firm: She doesn't do interviews. Ever.

Jim Morrison was her first love, before he got famous with the Doors. Friends from Clearwater say that for three years in the early 1960s, Jim and Mary were inseparable. He mourns their breakup in the Doors' ballad The End.

For nearly 40 years, all manner of people have tracked Mary down and asked for her story, including Oliver Stone, when he was making his movie starring Val Kilmer as Jim. Others waved money. Always she said thank you, no.

"I have spoken to no one."

She can't see what good could come of it; some things are just meant to be kept private. Besides, journalists always get it wrong. They focus on Jim Morrison as drunk, drug abuser, wild man. They don't know his sensitivity and intellect, his charm and humor.

"They take a part of him and sensationalize that. People don't really know Jim. They don't really have a clue."

Mary is afraid to share. Because nobody could ever fully understand him, or her, or them. Not to mention how painful it is, even 40 years later, to relive something she would rather forget. She still aches for love lost; her regret never relents.

She lives in California, alone, in an aging mobile home park. By phone she is told that back in Clearwater, to make way for condos they're tearing down the house on N Osceola Avenue, the place Jim lived in when they met. His room was in back, books stacked everywhere save for the path to his bed.

"That was a lovely home," Mary says. "It's a shame to knock it down."

Across a dozen conversations, she amplifies on stories the old Clearwater crowd tells, and adds some of her own. She says she's not sure why she's talking now. Maybe it's just time.

SUMMER 1962, CLEARWATER:

Nine years before Jim died

Mary and best friend Mary Wilkin spread their beach blanket near Pier 60. Our Mary was 17, wearing a black one-piece, cut all the way down the back, square in front - a little daring for the time, especially for a buttoned-down Catholic girl.

Amid the flattops on the pier, the guy with the mop of hair stood out.

Jim had been sent here by his father, then a Navy captain, after he blew off his high school graduation ceremony in Virginia. He had just finished the year at St. Petersburg Junior College and lived with his grandparents, who ran a coin laundry on Clearwater-Largo Road.

On her beach towel, Mary turned to her friend and uttered the first sexual comment of her life:

"Wow, look at those legs!"

Jim tagged along when his friend came over to flirt with Mary Wilkin. He told our Mary he was a regular pro at the game of matchsticks, a mental puzzle in which the matches are laid out in rows, like a pyramid. Loser picks up the last one.

Jim challenged Mary and suggested they spice things up with a wager. If she won?

"You'll have to be my slave for the day."

If he won? Mary had to watch beach basketball with him.

As Mary's first command, she marched Jim to the barber. She was just finishing her junior year at Clearwater High, where all the boys had flattops; she was not going to be seen with such a hairy mess.

"Shorter," she told the barber.

"Shorter.

"Shorter."

To a buzz cut.

He must really like me, Mary thought. I'll see if I still dig him by the time his hair grows out, and if I do, it won't matter.

Slave order No. 2: Iron and clean. And wash her black Plymouth, a.k.a. "The Bomb."

Jim had begun the wax job when Mary's father rescued him with a picnic basket and suggested the couple adjourn to the Clearwater Causeway.

To cap slave day, Mary had Jim chauffeur her to St. Pete, in the shiny Bomb, to see the movie West Side Story.

Mary was on the high school homecoming court. Her friends did cotillion dances at the Jack Tar Harrison Hotel, hit Brown Brothers dairy store for burgers and malts, and shopped Mertz's records for Ben E. King, Del Shannon and Elvis Presley.

Hair shorn, Jim still attracted attention, shy behind granny glasses, army jacket and a conductor's hat. The local law stopped him multiple times to check his ID.

He read his poetry at the avant-garde Beaux Arts coffeehouse in Pinellas Park and visited St. Pete's only live burlesque show, at the Sun Art Theater on Ninth Street.

Friends who thought they knew Mary couldn't fathom why she would want to hang out with the likes of Jim Morrison.

What they didn't know was how out of place Mary felt in her social circle. Jim talked like no one she had met.

"We're just going to talk in rhymes now," he would say.

He recited long poems from memory. "Listen to this, listen to this," he'd say, "Tiger, tiger, burning bright . . ." - excited, like it was breaking news, not William Blake.

This was not puppy love, Mary says, like the earlier boyfriend who played guitar, wrote songs and serenaded her by phone. This was different. This was intense.

"We connected on a level where speaking was almost unnecessary. We'd look at each other and know what we were thinking."

She liked her alone time, in her bedroom, dancing and drawing.

Jim liked his alone time, in his bedroom, reading.

They skipped dances and football games and hung out, at her house, his grandparents' house, wherever.

"I hated to let him go at night. I couldn't shut the door."

When it came to sex, Mary's answer was no.

"It was not happening. And it didn't for a long time. I'm surprised he held out that long."

Mary's grandparents were strict Catholics. She had visions of them at the last judgment, watching her. "It was too much for me to bear."

The poet

Everybody, everybody, remembers the notebooks. Any time, any place, Jim would fish one from his back pocket, scribble and chuckle.

Chris Kallivokas, Bryan Gates and Tom Duncan. And Phil Anderson, George Greer, Ruth Duncan, Gail Swift and Mary. They all remember.

Around Jim, you always felt watched. He'd bait and goad, get a rise, take notes. "There was no one who wasn't under observation," Gates says. "His only purpose in life was observation."

When Jim drove, Mary kept a notebook at the ready.

"Write this!" he'd say, dictating an observation. Or he'd pull over and scribble himself.

Everyone has a story about Jim's brainy side. Kallivokas remembers the night his Clearwater High buddies and a new kid came by Alexander's Sundries, his father's drugstore on Clearwater Beach. They wanted Kallivokas to come party, but he had a term paper due the next day, on Lord Essex. Naturally, he had written all of two sentences.

"I know all about him," the new kid volunteered. Jim wrote the paper off the top of his head, with footnotes and bibliography.

"To this day, I don't know if it was right," says Kallivokas, who says he got an A+

They would rag Jim that the books crowding his living space were for show. He'd look away and challenge nonbelievers to pick any book and read the beginning of any chapter. He'd name the book, the author and more context than they cared to hear.

"He was a genius," Mary says. "He was incredible."

She says his heroes were William Burroughs, William Blake, Hieronymus Bosch, Norman Mailer, Friedrich Nietzsche, Karl Marx, Arthur Rimbaud, Aldous Huxley, Jack Kerouac.

Mary didn't have heroes like that. "Jim was my hero."

The provocateur

Pre-Mary, Jim's buddy Phil Anderson brought him to a house party on Clearwater Beach.

Jim was dazzling with the dictionary game. People would pick obscure words, and Jim would tell the definitions.

Phil turned, and his pal was standing on the couch, peeing on the floor. "Needless to say, we were asked to leave."

That was Jim. He'd charm, then provoke. It was worse when he drank.

He got epically drunk on Chianti at the all-day car races in Sebring, crawled around in a white fake fur coat like a polar bear covered in dirt and tried to launch himself onto the track. Friends grabbed his ankles.

"He'd get a real pleasure out of shocking people and being a little eccentric and peculiar," Kallivokas says. "And that came to the forefront when he had a couple drinks."

Mary says he rarely drank in her presence.

"It was out of respect for me. We were in love, and he didn't want to do things that I didn't like."

"That's a real key to understanding Jim," Gates says. "She was the love of his life in those days. They were virtually soul mates for three or four years."

In the fall, Jim transferred to Florida State. Most weekends, rain or shine, he hitchhiked back to Clearwater, 230 miles down U.S. 19. Most days in between, letters postmarked Tallahassee arrived at the Werbelow mailbox on Nursery Road.

Mary's father intercepted one, read the page about sex and never got to the part that made clear Jim was writing about a class. Furious at her father's snooping, she burned all Jim's letters, a move she came to regret, deeply.

She wasn't much of a letter writer herself. At Jim's direction, she wrote once a week and included the number of a public telephone in Clearwater and a time he should call.

On his end, Jim would put in a dime for the first two minutes. They would talk for hours. When the operator asked him to settle up, he'd take off. Free phone service.

On her end, Mary would loiter by the phone at the appointed hour, glancing about, certain it was the week the cavalry was coming to arrest her.

"I was so scared," she says, laughing. "I just thought it was normal. I see now it wasn't."

She always assumed he had her wait at different phones for her protection; now she's thinking it was his way of making sure she wrote him at least once a week.

March 30, 1963:

Eight years before Jim died

It's hardly something Mary brags about; she says she would have declined. But when the Jaycees called to recruit her for the Miss Clearwater competition, Mary's mother answered the phone.

"Oh, yeah," mom said, "she'll be happy to do it."

The third and final night of competition, more than 1,000 people packed Clearwater Municipal Auditorium. Five finalists matched "beauty, personality and poise."

Mary was looking good, not that Jim was thrilled. If she won, it was on to Miss Florida. Less time for him.

In her toreador outfit - tight-fitting green pants with red sequins down the sides from hip to ankle - Mary did the bossa nova, swirling a red and yellow satin cape. The Clearwater Sun called her performance a "house-stopper." Time for her big question: "If your husband grew a beard, what would you do?"

What a stupid question, she thought, and answered: "I'd let him grow it. Whether he would kiss me or not would be another matter."

She told the judges she was headed for college, torpedoing her chances because it meant she would not be available to fulfill all obligations of Miss Clearwater.

Sitting through other contestants' routines, Mary scanned the darkened hall until she spotted Jim, bored senseless. But there.

She got first runner-up.

1964-65, Los Angeles:

The breakup

Mary's father banned Jim from the Werbelow house. Mary won't say why; she doesn't want to add to the Morrison myth.

When she followed Jim to Tallahassee for a semester, her parents objected. When he started film school at UCLA and Mary announced she was following him to Los Angeles, they were devastated.

To bribe Mary to stay, her mother bought her an antique bedroom set, no competition for a 19-year-old following her heart.

Mary says Jim asked her to wear "something floaty" when she arrived in Los Angeles. "He wanted me to look like an angel coming off the plane."

Instead, she drove out a week early and surprised him.

Together again, in an exciting, intimidating city, they kept separate apartments. Mary got her first real job, in the office of a hospital X-ray department. Later, she donned a fringe skirt and boots as a go-go dancer at Gazzari's on the Sunset Strip.

Jim studied film. At the end of the year, a handful from among hundreds of student films were selected for public showing. Jim's was not among them.

Shortly after, Mary says, he told her he was humiliated, considered his formal education over and needed to forget everything. He built a fire in his back yard and incinerated many of his precious Florida notebooks.

Mary says he started doubting her commitment. "You're going to leave me," he would tell her.

"No, I'm not. How can you say that? I'm in love with you."

After one fight, Jim went out with another woman. He wasn't home the next morning. Mary went to the woman's house, but she said Jim wasn't there.

Mary called: "Come out wherever you are!"

Jim slinked forward, a hand towel around him. Mary bolted and, in a blur, hit the woman's fence as she sped off.

"That was the beginning of the end."

He was drinking hard and taking psychedelic drugs. The darkness she says she had seen from the start was overtaking him, and she didn't want to watch him explore his self-destructive bent. She felt he had swallowed her identity. Whatever he liked, she liked.

"I had to go out and see what parts of that were me. I just knew I had to be away from him. I needed to be by myself, to find my own identity."

She enrolled in art school. The day Jim helped her move to a new apartment, she told him she needed a break.

"He clammed up after that. I really hurt him. It hurts me to say that. I really hurt him."

They split up in the summer of 1965.

A few months later, Jim got together with a film school buddy, Ray Manzarek, who says he wanted to combine his keyboards with Jim's poetry. They started the band that became the Doors.

Friends from Clearwater never saw it coming. Back then, Jim didn't have much interest in music. He didn't even appear to have rhythm.

"He didn't sit around and sing," Mary says, laughing. "Jim, no, he was a poet. He wrote poetry."

By phone from his home in Northern California, Manzarek says all the guys in film school were in love with Mary. She was gorgeous, and sweet on top of that. "She was Jim's first love. She held a deep place in his soul."

The Doors' 11-minute ballad The End, Manzarek says, originally was "a short goodbye love song to Mary." (The famous oedipal parts were added later.)

This is the end, Beautiful friend

This is the end, My only friend, the end

Of our elaborate plans, the end

Of everything that stands, the end

No safety or surprise, the end

I'll never look into your eyes . . . again

. . .

This is the end, Beautiful friend

This is the end, My only friend, the end

It hurts to set you free

But you'll never follow me

The end of laughter and soft lies

The end of nights we tried to die

This is the end

* * *

Within two years of their breakup, Light My Fire was No. 1 on the charts and Jim was the "King of Orgasmic Rock," the brooding heartthrob staring from the covers of Rolling Stone and Life.

He took up with other women, notably with longtime companion Pamela Courson, but Mary says she and Jim kept up with each other. She says she was his anchor to the times before things got crazy.

"I'd see him when he really needed to talk to someone."

Before a photo shoot for the Doors' fourth album, she says Jim told her: "The first three albums are about you. Didn't you know that?"

She says she didn't have the heart to tell him she had never really listened to them. She had heard Doors songs on the radio, but she didn't go to his concerts, she didn't keep up with his career.

Mary vehemently denies it, but Manzarek says she told Jim, "The band is no good and you'll never make it." He says Mary wanted Jim to go back to school, get a master's degree and make something of himself.

When Mary moved, she says, Jim had a knack for finding her. He would eventually ask if she had changed her mind. "Why can't we be together now?"

Not yet, she would answer, someday.

More than once, she says, he asked her to marry.

"It was heartbreaking. I knew I wanted to be with him, but I couldn't."

She thought they were too young. She worried they might grow apart. She needed more time to explore her own identity.

In late 1968, Mary moved to India to study meditation. She never saw Jim again.

March 1, 1969, Miami:

Two years before Jim died

With the Doors coming for their first Florida concert, Chris Kallivokas left a message with his old friend's record company. He says Jim called him back, loving life.

"The chicks we get, the money. . . . It's great."

"So that crowd control works," Kallivokas teased, talking about theories that intrigued Jim in Collective Behavior class at FSU. He said Jim answered:

"You've got to make them believe you're doing them a favor by being onstage. The more abusive you are, the more they love it."

They planned a reunion in Clearwater.

* * *

Some 15,000 fans cram into the 10,000-capacity Dinner Key Auditorium, a sweaty, converted seaplane hangar in Miami. Jim Morrison announces his drunken presence with dissonant blasts from a harmonica.

The cover boy, 26 now, has a paunch and beard, a cowboy hat with a skull and crossbones and noticeably slurred speech.

One stanza into the second song, Five to One, he berates the crowd.

"You're all a bunch of f - - - - - - idiots!"

Confused silence. Uncomfortable laughter.

"Letting people tell you what you're gonna do, letting people push you around. How long you do think it's gonna last? . . .

"Maybe you like it. Maybe you like being pushed around. Maybe you love it. Maybe you love getting your face stuck in the s - - -."

Screams from the audience.

"You're all a bunch of slaves. . . .

"Letting everybody push you around. What are you gonna do about it? What are you gonna do about it? What are you gonna do about it? What are you gonna do about it? What are you gonna do about it? What are you gonna do! What are you gonna do! What are you gonna do!"

He talks as much as he sings. He wails about loneliness and rants about love. Three songs after berating the crowd, the music softens and he lets loose a plaintive:

"Away, away, away, away, in India

"Away, away, away, away in In-di-a

"Away, away, away, away in In-di-a."

* * *

Morrison invited the crowd onstage, and the concert disintegrated. Amid the chaos, he supposedly unzipped his pants, exposed himself and simulated sex with guitarist Robby Krieger.

With the country debating indecency run amok, Jim Morrison was Exhibit A. He was charged with lewd and lascivious behavior, a felony, plus indecent exposure and two other misdemeanors.

The courtroom in Miami was packed. State witnesses saw what they saw. Others said it was hype, Morrison only simulated what he was accused of. There wasn't a single damning photo.

Bryan Gates hadn't seen Jim in ages. They caught up during a break, and talk inevitably turned to Mary. What ever happened to her? Gates asked. Jim said he had lost touch, California seemed to have swallowed her up psychically.

He was acquitted of the felony but convicted of indecent exposure. On Oct. 30, 1970, he was sentenced to six months of "confinement at hard labor" in the Dade County Jail.

Out on appeal, he moved to Paris, where he shared an apartment with Courson.

The Doors released L.A. Woman in April 1971, with hit songs Love Her Madly and Riders on the Storm. Months later, Jim Morrison was dead.

On July 3, 1971, Courson found him in the bathtub. The listed cause of death was heart attack; drugs were suspected. He was 27.

September 2005

34 years after Jim died

Mary is 61, unemployed and rarely leaves her mobile home. She says she married and divorced twice, and she has no children.

"I can't find anybody to replace Jim. We definitely have a soul connection so deep. I've never had anything like that again, and I don't expect I ever will."

She painted, mostly realistic oil portraits. She won a small legal settlement after she said she developed multiple chemical sensitivities from rat poison that seeped through the vents of her art studio over the years. It makes it difficult to be around scented products, and she gave up her art.

Mary would not meet with a reporter for this story or allow her photo to be taken. She says she weighs exactly what she did in high school - 107 pounds - but now her hair is long and gray. "People sometimes tell me I look like an artist."

She doesn't think the early Doors albums are all about her but says the lyrics include references to her and Jim's shared experiences, including the "blue bus" in The End. She considered writing about the references but decided against it. An artist herself, she didn't want to spoil people's various interpretations.

For decades, she says, she brooded over how things might have turned out had they stayed together but finally concluded it was destiny. "He was supposed to go into that deep, dark place."

His grave in Paris draws pilgrims from around the world, but not Mary. Quite the opposite, she says. She wants to forget, and still she feels his ghost checking on her.

Lines in Break on Through especially pain her, lines she interprets as Jim saying she betrayed him by not getting back together:

Arms that chain us

Eyes that lie

"I promised it wouldn't be forever, that I'd get back together with him sometime. I never did. It's very painful to think of that. For a long time, any time I would think about him, or anyone would talk about him, I'd cry.

"It used to make me so sad. I never gave him that second chance. That destroyed me for so long. I let him go and never gave him that second chance. I felt so guilty about that."

Mary says she is tired. She has trouble sleeping. She says she's not sure if she has done right by talking so much. She's worried that others will seek interviews that she does not want to give. She wants that made clear: She does not want to talk about Jim anymore.

- St. Petersburg Times researcher Caryn Baird contributed to this report.http://www.sptimes.com/2005/09/25/Doors/Mary_and_Jim_to_the_e.shtml

#Jim Morrison #Mary Werbelow

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anonymousewrites · 2 years

Text

There's a Soldier; There's a Savior Chapter Six

Chapter Six: Allyships, Investigations, and Encounters

Chuuya and (Y/N), having wiped the dust and soot from their faces, stood uncomfortably under the morning sun in front of Dazai’s apartment. (Y/N) had come to a few minutes after Chuuya dragged them into the brush beside the old base, and they had immediately set off for Dazai’s.

The brunette blinked at them as he opened the door. Chuuya expected a quip about their sorry states, but instead, Dazai said, “(Y/N)…Are you alright?”

She nodded. “We need a place to lie low…We’re in a complicated situation.”

“Of course, come in,” said Dazai, reaching out and helping (Y/N) in. She was fine except for some bruises and cuts, but he was still there nonetheless. Dazai glanced at Chuuya. “Not getting out of the game, though, are you?”

“It seems I’m still needed,” said Chuuya. “We’ll explain inside. Just give us a moment to clean up.”

Dazai nodded. “I’ll grab some bandages.”

“I’m sure you have plenty,” said Chuuya.

“Watch it, Shorty, I’m saving your ass.”

“Could you hold the bickering until I’ve had an aspirin?” groaned (Y/N).

Once they had washed, bandaged, eaten, and explain the situation to Dazai, who they couldn’t avoid telling at this point, the group sat back to think. They did not have time to wait; they needed to act.

“The question is, who at the ADA could launch a domestic missile strike? Even if the DoA has power within the ADA, they’d need someone who has clearance to act under the guise of doing what’s right,” said (Y/N).

“Fukuchi,” spat Chuuya.

(Y/N) sighed. “Unfortunately, he’s sitting at the top of the most secure building in the world. And not working alone.”

Chuuya nodded. “Rimbaud’s program was on the Lemurian Star.”

“So, Gogol,” concluded (Y/N).

“Alright, then the real question is how the two most wanted people in Yokohama kidnap an ADA officer in broad daylight,” said Chuuya.

“You don’t,” said Dazai, grinning with his eyes sparking with strategic brilliance. “I can. I can fly down and grab him before he knows what…grabbed him!”

“Fly?” Chuuya and (Y/N) exchanged looks.

Dazai pulled a file out of his coat and handed it to them. The specs of a suit with mechanical wings were shown inside, likely developed off of Ranpo’s inventions. “Shorty, you might be superhuman, but I have the brain and the equipment to help.”

(Y/N) smiled and shook her head. “To think you had something like this up your sleeve.”

“I was going to save it for a special occasion, but alas,” sighed Dazai dramatically.

Chuuya rolled his eyes. “What, to show off for (Y/N)? You’re doing that now.”

“You’re right! Even more of a reason for me to go,” said Dazai.

(Y/N) shrugged, keeping her countenance beautifully calm. “Well, I know it’s impossible to stop you now.”

“The people I’m willing to put up with to save the world,” muttered Chuuya.

Watching one of the many officials he had to meet with leave, Gogol felt his phone buzz in his pocket, and a little circus theme played from it. He answered, “Hello?”

“Hey, clown, how was lunch?” chirped Dazai. “I hear the tea on rice is delicious.”

“Who is this?” asked Gogol.

“Good-looking brunette in the glasses. Ten o’clock,” said Dazai. He gave a little wave when Gogol spied him.

“What do you want?” Gogol tilted his head questioningly.

“You’re gonna want to go around the corner to your right,” advised Dazai in a tone that meant “do it or something bad is gonna happen.” “There’s a black car. We’re going to go for a ride together.”

“So far, I don’t see a threat. Why should I?” challenged Gogol, grinning widely like he’d won some sort of game.

“That tie looks expensive,” remarked Dazai “innocently.”

Gogol glanced down and frowned when he saw a red sniper dot dancing on his chest. “It is.”

“So then let’s not mess it up,” said Dazai, a wicked grin on his face.

A few minutes later, Gogol found his outfit getting dirtied anyways as Chuuya tossed him out onto a roof (Dazai had driven him to it; Chuuya and (Y/N) “escorted” him up).

“Tell us about Rimbaud’s algorithm,” demanded (Y/N), straight to the point.

“Never heard of it,” chirped Gogol, still with that crazy smile plastered on his face. It was so fake (Y/N) wanted to throw up.

“What were you doing on the Lemurian Star?” (Y/N) walked forward, backing Gogol up to the edge of the building.

“I get seasick. You should have seen me, sick as a dog,” chirped Gogol. He tripped backwards and gasped as he nearly fell to his death.

(Y/N) easily caught him by his jacket lapels and hauled him up. “I think you should reconsider your position on lying.”

Gogol grinned and laughed. “Are you trying to intimidate me by acting like you’re going to throw me off a roof? You’re (Y/N) (L/N). You’re a world-class intelligence agent that’s never killed a soul. I don’t think you’re going to start now.”

“No.” (Y/N) let go and stepped to the side so Chuuya’s death-glare could land on Gogol. “But he has killed people. And he’s in a bad mood.” Chuuya kicked Gogol off the roof. He and (Y/N) turned away, not even bothering to watch him fall. “You know, there’s Yosano from the science division. She’s pretty, and she’s got spunk. I think you’d go for that.”

“I like spunk, but I’ve heard she’s a bit…” Chuuya looked for the right word. “Well, I’d prefer not to worry for my health on a date.”

(Y/N) nodded and shrugged. “She’s crazy, but you wouldn’t be the first person to be into that.”

“It seems like you’re into that,” commented Chuuya, thinking of Dazai.

(Y/N) shrugged. “Would be lying if I haven’t thought about her and a knife.” Chuuya looked at her in concerned curiosity, and she shrugged innocently.

Chuuya rolled his eyes as Dazai, wearing his wings, flew up and tossed a screaming Gogol to the floor again. He scrambled away as they walked towards him and put up a hand.

“Rimbaud’s algorithm is a program for choosing Insight’s targets,” he admitted.

“What targets?” demanded Chuuya.

“You, a reporter with a racoon, the Under Secretary of Defense, a farm boy in the mountains, Ranpo Edogawa, anyone who’s a threat to the Decay of the Angel!” explained Gogol. “Now, or in the future.”

“In the future?” (Y/N) narrowed her eyes. “How could it know?”

Gogol began laughing. “How couldn’t it? The twenty-first century is a digital book. Rimbaud talk the Decay of the Angel how to read it. Your bank records, medical histories, voting patterns, emails, phone calls, even test scores! The algorithm evaluates people’s past to predict their future. Crazy, right?!”

“What then?” questioned Dazai, his eyes narrowed, challenging Gogol to lie.

He didn’t. But he also didn’t answer. Gogol’s smile fell as he realized what he had revealed. “Fukuchi is gonna kill me…”

“What then?” repeated Dazai dangerously.

Gogol’s manic eyes met Dazai’s level gaze, unnaturally serious for the brunette’s nature. “Then the Insight helicarriers scratch people off the list. A few million at a time.”

”Hell,” cursed (Y/N).

Dazai drove like a maniac down the highway as Gogol babbled on and on about the danger he was now in, how the DoA hated leaks, and other nonsense that (Y/N), Chuuya, and Dazai really didn’t care about. They were focused on how to save the millions of lives that would be lost should Fukuchi succeed in launching Project Insight.

“Stick a cork in it,” said Chuuya in irritation.

“We’ve got sixteen hours,” said (Y/N), ignoring the DoA member. “We’re cutting it a bit close. Dazai, dear, step on it!”

“Aww, you’re so sweet,” gushed Dazai as she called him “dear.”

Chuuya gagged. “You guys are disgusting. And we’re fine. We’ll use Gogol to bypass the DNA scans and access the helicarriers directly.”

“What? Are you guys crazier than me?!” cried Gogol. “This is a terrible, terrible idea.”

As if punctuating the thought, a thud landed on the roof of the car. A metal hand crashed through Gogol’s window and dragged him from the vehicle, even as (Y/N) grabbed for him. Gogol, however, was tossed over the side of the freeway to (likely) his death. The assassin remained on the roof and began stabbing down. (Y/N) slipped to the front seat like a snake, ending up in Dazai’s lap. He slammed on the brakes and launched the killer off the roof.

She twisted in the air and landed catlike on the ground. Using her metal arm, she slowed to a stop and stood carefully. Chuuya pulled out a gun to shoot, but a military vehicle rammed into their rear. It pushed them forward into the Reaper, who flipped over them onto the roof again. She reached through the roof and pulled the steering wheel from Dazai’s hands.

“Oh, no!” exclaimed Dazai as Chuuya cursed and shot up the roof.

The Reaper jumped onto the military vehicle’s hood as it rammed the heroes’ car once again. They hit the sides of the highway, out of control.

Chuuya tucked his shield under his arm. “Hang on!” He dragged Dazai and (Y/N) to his side, and, as the car flipped, he broke his door off so they slid away like a sled on it. They each fell off and rolled to a stop on the road, groaning and bruised.

The military truck smoothly stopped, and the Reaper jumped down. She was handed a grenade-launcher and fired. Chuuya blocked with his shield but was thrown over the highway edge into a bus down below, causing another crash.

Dazai and (Y/N) took cover behind two cars. The Reaper and a team of men began approaching with rapid fire bullets. (Y/N) and Dazai jumped to the opposite highway as a grenade was launched towards their car, rolling over the moving cars and sheltering behind one shot to a stop. When the Reaper shot a grenade into it, they pretended to fall from the freeway and instead dove off. (Y/N) fired a grappling hook into its bottom and swung to the ground safely, holding onto Dazai as she did. They stopped before the edge of the highway’s shadow as they spied the Reaper’s own shadow showing she was waiting for them to emerge.

Dazai took out his gun and fired up, shattering the Reaper’s goggles and knocking her back. They ran out to the bus’s side, and Dazai began shooting once again as they ran between cars.

“I have her. Find him,” ordered the Reaper to her associates. She vaulted over the freeway’s side. The other men began rappelling down, but she walked it off like it was nothing.

She’s definitely superhuman like Chuuya. Not good, thought (Y/N) as she and Dazai ran.

As one of the men began firing at the bus, Chuuya held us his shield and charged him. He knocked the gunman out and ran after where the Reaper was tracking Dazai and (Y/N). People screamed and ran as the assassin approached the burning cars calmly. The Reaper stopped as she heard the faint sound of (Y/N)’s voice reporting the incident from behind the van to her right. She crouched and rolled an explosive underneath.

As it exploded, (Y/N) jumped over the car to her left and attacked the Reaper. She slammed (Y/N) back against a car as she pulled a wire taught against the assassin’s neck, but (Y/N) held on tight before being thrown forward with super strength. The Reaper grabbed for her gun, but Dazai threw an electrical disk (Y/N) had given in into the Reaper’s arm, causing it to fall limp. As the pair ran off, the Reaper ripped it away, but it had bought them time. They ran as fast as they could, but the super soldier was faster, and a gunshot hit (Y/N)’s shoulder. She cursed and fell behind a car, Dazai covering her. They tried to spy the assassin, but there was no sign of her.

Just as the Reaper jumped onto a car behind them, Chuuya charged into her. The Reaper punched him with her scarlet arm, and Chuuya blocked with his shield. The assassin pushed it to the side and kicked him back. He held up his shield before the Reaper could land any shots, and he ran up and vaulted over the car, kicking the gun out of the assassin’s hands. She pulled out a hand gun and shot, but Chuuya still had his shield.

He tried to hit her, but she grabbed the shield, punched him, and twisted the shield around. Chuuya flipped over, and the shield slid from his arm. Now the Reaper held it and slammed it onto his head. He rolled backwards to his feet. Blue eyes met scarlet for a singular moment before Chuuya charged again. He narrowly dodged the shield flying through the air and embedding into a nearby car.

The Reaper flipped a knife out and attacked. Chuuya blocked and kicked, but she parried his attack. Every move one made, the other blocked and returned. It was a rapid fight, but neither gave an inch. Finally, Chuuya landed a punch, but the Reaper was back in a moment, just as super as him. Chuuya kicked her into a car, ran up as she fumbled to stand, and slammed his knees into her chest. She returned his move by pushing back to her feet and punching him. She grabbed his waist to knock him down, but Chuuya grabbed the Reaper and flipped her over instead.

The Reaper landed catlike instead and swept his feet out. She then grabbed him and tossed him into a car with her metal hand. He jumped to his feet and grabbed her as she charged him. Chuuya slammed her to the ground and ran to his shield. He blocked her next attacked before punching her face and tossing her over his shoulder. As the Reaper rolled to her feet, her mask to the ground.

Chuuya’s eyes widened. A thousand memories of growing up, going to war, fighting side by side, forever pining, and forever mourning poured through his mind.

“Akira…?” he breathed.

“Who the hell is Akira?” replied the Reaper.

It was her voice. The voice of the woman Chuuya had fallen in love with decades ago. The voice of the woman Chuuya had seen die decades ago.

He was unable to move, even as Akira, for it was her, it could be no one else, raised a gun. From behind him, Dazai appeared holding the grenade launcher and fired. The car next to Akira blew up and sent her flying. As the smoke cleared, she was gone.

Chuuya felt like his heart had just been ripped out once more. As he stood there in shock, Dazai groaned as the many explosions and hits caught up to him, and (Y/N) gripped her bleeding shoulder, ADA vehicles skidded to a halt around them. They were surrounded by enemies. This time, they were caught.

But that wasn’t what hurt Chuuya. It was the blank look in Akira’s eyes that did.

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