Proud Highway:Saga of a Desperate Southern Gentleman (101 page)

Sincerely,
Hunter S. Thompson

P.S. I am writing a piece now for
The Nation
, tentatively titled “California, The Progressive Penal Colony,” and I'm looking around for examples and/or indications of creeping police-statism. If you have one or two you'd like to recount, maybe we can get together for a beer some afternoon and exchange atrocity stories. Give a ring if you ever get over this way. I'll do the same.

August 16, 1966
318 Parnassus
San Francisco

Gentlemen:

I cannot tolerate the horrifying color combination of the checks and check-holder you sent me. Nor can I countenance the flagrant disregard of my proper address, which is simply “Owl House.” No more, no less. Those people in Kansas City had the gall to add “San Francisco, California,” as you can see.

As for colors, these (this sick red and yellow) would only be displayed by a fag with mononucleosis. I think I'll have to have a black check-holder, since there aren't many shades of that, and I can't easily go wrong in ordering it. As for the checks, these people obviously have decent colors: witness the bright red on the box that contains the checks, or both the red and the blue on the mailing labels. Hell, if worst comes to worst, I'd prefer those weird-looking blue checks that you give away. As a matter of fact that's what I'll be using until these Kansas City pastel-people send me something decent. Nor will I have any zip codes on my checks. What kind of swinish outfit are you dealing with? If all they have is this sick, pastel, zip-code garbage, to hell with them, and send me some of those regular Bank of Aspen checks.

Thanks,
Hunter S. Thompson

Thompsons landlord, Moon Fay Ng, had finally forced him to vacate 318 Parnassus after a series of damaging Hell's Angels parties. He then prepared to move back to Aspen, Colorado, despite a wave of articles characterizing the resort town as a playground for the rich
.

August 20, 1966
230 Grattan
San Francisco

Dear Carey—

I am finally working on that article about California: The Progressive Penal Colony that I mentioned weeks and/or months ago. “Minor revisions” on the Hell's Angels book turned into a nightmare of long haggling and desperate work, which kept me from working on anything else and dropped me so far into the financial pits that I was evicted from my other apartment. I have not yet begun to recover and plan to flee the state on September 15, but before I go I want to do this article.

If you no longer want it or if you have something similar on order, let me know so I can aim it elsewhere. My subscription to
The Nation
was canceled a few weeks ago, along with all my other subscriptions and all my local credit, so for all I know you've already published something similar.

From here I am going to Aspen, and then—if the book comes out on time—to New York. I took considerable issue, by the way, with your recent piece on Aspen.
The New Republic
ran a similar attack about two years ago and I disagreed with that, too. When I lived in Woody Creek my neighbors were too goddamn poor to build gingerbread gables on their houses or brass handles on their doors. They were worried about the collapsing beef-cattle market and the fact that speculators from “the east” (and Los Angeles) were buying up all the grazing land. They were not real concerned about dressing up their homes to suit the notions of city planners working for foundations and architecture critics traveling on expense accounts. The rotten tavern that your man mentioned is the only place in Aspen where the second-generation locals can afford to eat … and when I lived there it was one of the two places where I could afford to drink. (The other is now gone, converted to an expensive steak house where no writer's foot will ever tread unless he has come to town by invitation of the incredibly (almost viciously) pompous Aspen Institute or the Writer's Workshop.) If all the houses in Aspen were “refinished” to suit the taste of visiting New Yorkers I couldn't possibly live there. I couldn't even afford the weekly painting, much less the rent. Hopefully
you haven't been in New York so long that you think of the rest of the country as a potential resort (well worth the expense) for people who spend most of their lives in concrete cubicles. Well, this is a rambling letter and not entirely coherent, but at least it raises a point. I'll try to expand on it later. Sincerely—

Hunter S. Thompson

Going through some old papers, Thompson came across what he had written November 22, 1963, upon hearing the news of JFK's assassination. As the
National Observer
had not published any of it, he sent it now for McWilliams's consideration
.

August 21, 1966
230 Grattan
San Francisco

Dear Carey:

In re: Aspen, here's a thing I filed for the
Observer
(
National
) on the evening of Kennedy's death. They didn't use it, so if you can make any use of it there will be no problem about “rights,” etc.

I was just going through my old articles and I find, to my general despair, that most of the best things I wrote were never published. This is one of them … although I'm not sure the writing is so good that it's held up over the years, like Wendell Berry's stuff.
¹⁵
But in coming on it by accident in my heap of old articles I felt a new and more painful sense of perspective than I did on the day it happened. Then, it was only speculation … but now, after three years of Johnson, I have a better, deeper idea of that “sense of loss” that Berry mentioned in his poem. The thing that interests me about this little piece, though, is that it was written within hours after Kennedy's death … but the few quoted comments contain the seeds of that doomed and busted sensation that has only become coherent in the wake of Johnson's evil, truthless croaking above the rubble of our dead possibilities.

There was not a lot of truth in Kennedy, but it was hard to doubt—after listening to him talk—that he at least knew what the word meant. He had a capacity for backing off and watching himself perform, and later commenting on what he'd seen and heard with a quick, half-sublimated sense of humor that often made him seem like a pillar of sanity in the thieving,
swinish chaos of American politics. He seemed like the only man who knew what was happening, and although there was rarely any way to guess what he might decide to do about it, there was always the chance that he might find an opening to do something right.

Johnson conveys only the impression of a man whose sole interest is in closing every door, crack and window that might let in fresh air. And the thing that interests me about this Aspen piece is that even people in the drugstores and beerhalls of a Rocky Mountain town seemed to know, within hours of Kennedy's death, that it was the end of an era. The sense of loss was almost as clear then as it is now … the only difference is that now it's been documented.

Anyway, I thought I'd send this along, with the vague idea that you might want to use it. If not, please send it back (to this address) as soon as possible. It's my only copy and I want to keep it.

Thanks—
Hunter

August 26, 1966
230 Grattan
San Francisco

Dear Mom:

Right now I am in the middle of one of the biggest writing jags of my life. On the basis of a ten-page outline I submitted, Ballantine is now trying to sell hardcover rights to Random House, which could mean quite a bit if it goes. I also have a
Playboy
assignment on the same subject, which is sort of chancy right now, but a good possibility. I also have the novel [The Rum Diary] at Pantheon; an editor from there was here last week, and insisted on reading it. It's awful, but under these new circumstances I'm pretty sure I can make somebody take an option, which would give me time and perhaps money to rewrite it. The whole situation here is chaotic and under terrible pressure. I am up until dawn every night, beating these rotten keys. And no rest in sight until at least the first of the year, if then. This is a nerve-wracking period. There is real money just around the corner, but turning that corner is going to be hard as hell. It is going to take an incredible amount of good pages in an incredibly short space of time. Sandy is getting depressed with the constant urgency of things. There is not a moment to relax, I couldn't handle this pace if I thought it was anything but a temporary thing. But if the book goes big, in hardback as well as paper, I'll be able to relax for a while.

How about there? What's happening? What is Jim up to? Send a line, a newsy sort of letter. I haven't heard anything in a long time.

Love—
Hunter

On Labor Day weekend a group of Hell's Angels had “stomped” Thompson near Cloverdale, California, smashing his face and nearly killing him. Thompson was bleeding profusely when he arrived at the hospital in Santa Rosa. The brutal act ended his involvement with the motorcycle gang—and afforded his hook the perfect postscript. Barger was not around when the beating occurred
.

September 25, 1966
230 Grattan
San Francisco

Dear Sonny—

Thought I'd send you a note on the way east. I'd hoped we could have a beer and get straight after that bad show at Cloverdale, but Terry didn't come by like he said he would and I didn't figure it was my action to be making any diplomatic phone calls.

Anyway, I assume you heard about the stomping up there and I'm sorry you weren't around to cut it off any quicker. As it was, I figure Tiny did me a hell of a favor by getting me on my feet before I got kicked to death—so when you see him tell him I said “thanks” and if he needs a good favor some day, tell him to get hold of me.

There's not much sense in talking about it except to say it was a completely “no class” piece of action and I'm glad none of the guys I liked and trusted were part of it.

I'm not sure how or why the thing started and I never even saw the first thump that got me, but I assume it was a sort of drunken spontaneous outburst that I had the bad luck to get in the middle of. Earlier that day I'd noticed some resentment about my taking pictures, but I didn't worry about it because I figured you were straight enough to tell me to my face if we had any problems. We've never bullshitted each other and I'd grown sort of accustomed to taking you at face value.

In all, I had no reason to expect that sort of action—as I'm sure you realize—and in general it disappointed me about the Angels. Not everybody, but at least a few. Obviously, I wouldn't be writing this letter if I was down on the whole club. Like I said, if Tiny hadn't been there to help me I'd probably be in a graveyard right now.

Anyway, I'm off on another book now, and if you people want to sue me for any money regarding the Hell's Angels book I think you should get as much as you can. I can't go into detail—especially in a letter—but if we had sat down and talked I think we could have worked something out. I'm still willing to talk, but it will have to be on my turf next time. I don't ever intend to be that much outnumbered again.

Before you do anything, though, I think you should read the book, which is now scheduled for January. I think you'll like it, but maybe not. If nothing else it should be interesting.

Hunter

Thompson was hack in Colorado with the hook's finished first draft and his face recovering from the Hell's Angels stomping
.

October 4, 1966
Box 783
Aspen, Colorado

Dear Bobo—

Trust you got Sandy's phone message that we got here alright. No break-down until Aspen, and that was your man's left front wheel brake, which I think is more the province of your friend at the crossroads, rather than the downtown alignment man. It now grabs so violently that it will throw the car into a circular spin if we drive it in snow—which fell to the tune of seven inches yesterday. What it is, I'm sure, is the left front brake cylinder leaking fluid on the brake linings, but of course that's what you pay people to tell you—rather than figuring it out yourself while adding up a bunch of canceled checks from various garages.

So much for all that. Noonan “forgot” to tell me that he was finally getting married last week and that I was to be the best man. It was a frightening experience, with a priest and all the Catholic action, and needless to say it brought on a wave of drink that has yet to subside. The priest learned to hate me, and I was naturally terrified of him. It was a gruesome show, with the bride's parents hurling condemnation on me throughout. All Catholics should be garroted. At the Rustic Inn, on a slow Thursday night.

In all, this looks like a good scene for a month or so. Sandy is working behind my back to dig up a house for the winter, but my own plans still focus on a drift to New York around Christmas, then back to California to do another nonfiction book. Objectively. I think we'll light on your doorstep sometime in January.

In the meantime, could you send another Rx for 100 Dexedrines, 5 mg, and, if possible, another Rx for the nose-spray, the name of which I can't recall.
¹⁶
Unfortunately, I can't seem to breathe without the spray, and in this altitude breathing is important. I'm afraid I'll have to use my Blue Cross hospitalization to cut a channel through my nasal passage. Is that your province? Let me know what you think.

The scene here is good—a big house with a one-room cottage for writing … in the best of neighborhoods. A far cry from any action with the Angels. Juan has turned into a whining monster and I try to stay away from him. Sandy is not much better. Noonan says hello and we both think you should run out here in the truck for a day of shooting. It's about thirty hours on the road, which is only half your weekend. And besides that, Aspen is a goldmine for orthopods, and you should by all means check it out. Let me know on this too.