“Julian Cope and I were at his
Holiday Camp, a resort on a 5 acre plot, with several long two story motel-style
buildings, some apartments and condos, a 4 star restaurant, swimming pools,
weight rooms, a spa, and plenty of parking. These kinds of places were very
popular in 1983, although it was certainly interesting that Copey would have
bought in to one. It was just the kind of financial portfolio diversity that
one might expect from Zoo records management, but not from Julian. This would
seem to me to have been the kind of thing he would have despised.”
“We were just having a
conversation about future renovation plans when he received a call from a young
woman, which he took at the front desk. His desk manager gave him the message
as we sat in the lobby, a spacious one with earth-tones and blocky, rather
unattractive furnishings. He talked to the woman excitedly, and at times even
furtively, flirting giddily while I sat waiting, his eyes glancing up to meet
mine, and then his head whipping around, barely preceding the rest of his body.
He looked a bit like a teenage girl on the phone rather than a young man in his
mid-twenties. After their conversation, I found out that it was his
ex-girlfriend on the phone. She was coming to visit, and was bringing an ‘attractive
friend.’ That is how he described her to me, apparently reporting verbatim what
she had told him, complete with eyebrows raising, a tantalizing voice
inflection, and what I instantly perceived as scare quotes, although I believe
he probably meant them sincerely. I began to wonder if I had a very interesting
evening ahead of me, or merely a tedious one.”
“Julian continued to talk to me
about his ex for the next hour or so, interspersed with plans for the additions
and updates to this newly acquired property and reminiscences of other events
that had brought him to this moment in his life. The Teardrop Explodes had only recently broken
up, and he should have been starting his solo music career, but to the surprise
of many, he decided against it. I began to feel
fidgety about meeting this friend of his ex. He still hadn't told me either
girl's name, just useless background information that my brain processed as
mere filler, and thus filtered out. I know he talked about her a lot in that
hour or so before their arrival, but I just don't remember what it is he told
me.”
“We were still in the lobby when
the car drove up, and Julian suddenly became very animated, a huge smile on his
face, and his arms and legs flailing about excitedly. He clutched the arms of
the armchair in which he sat and sprang up, lifting his feet up and onto the
cushioned seat. Then he jumped up and ran around toward the door. I hadn't even
had a chance to look at the arriving ex until we both came out of the double
glass doors, Julian running out and me following. It was a convertible of some
dull color, perhaps dark red or brown, and it was parked on an incline near the
Holiday Camp sign, almost facing down, as in to a ditch, from our vantage
point. There were 3 people in the car. A woman driver, a woman in the backseat
on the passenger side, and a figure all in black in the front passenger seat,
wearing a wide and flat-brimmed hat with a small bowl.”
“I was still behind Julian when
he clutched at his head with both hands, and almost sank to his knees,
screaming, ‘Nooooo! Noooooo! Not The Spanish!’ He then began running, still
screaming, out to the left of where the car was parked, out toward the parking
lots in the motel section of the resort. I immediately followed, wondering what
on earth ‘The Spanish’ meant, and why he was so horrifyingly upset by seeing
his ex and her friends parking their car, and not even bothering to go out and
greet them. As I ran to try to catch up with Julian, he was flailing his arms
wildly, still shrieking, ‘Noooooo!’ I tried to yell ahead to him to stop, but
he presumably couldn't hear a thing I said.”
“Once we had run well past the
ex's car, out into the mostly empty lot beyond, Julian banked to the right in
an arc that put him on a direct course with a large, old 4-door luxury car,
like an Oldsmobile or something. He opened the passenger side back door very
swiftly and jumped in. He closed the door just as I approached, and he was
still quite hysterical, flapping around front to back and side to side in the
comfortable, roomy luxury car backseat. I opened the door and poured
quickly in, shutting the door behind me, feeling the intense silence of the
interior in contrast with the sobs and grunts of this poor, sad rock star. I
grabbed him by both arms as he continued his incessant low wailing. ‘Julian,’ I
yelled over and over, shaking him slightly, but he wouldn't meet my eyes. He
was looking out the front window of the car, vaguely in the direction of his
ex. ‘Julian,’ I continued, ‘it's going to be alright! It's going to be alright!’
I repeated this like a mantra and gazed into his eyes, waiting for him to
acknowledge mine. He began to settle down, and I kept repeating, ‘it's going to
be alright,’ despite the sinking feeling that I had no idea if it was. Finally
he stopped his ranting, which had decreased to a mere mutter before ending, and
without shifting his head at all, his eyes moved to meet mine. We stared at
each other for a long time, but I have no memory of coming out of that car.”
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