Proud Highway:Saga of a Desperate Southern Gentleman (113 page)

 … now, 24 hours later, hurting from all those unmade bets. Yeah, the Packers won (so I blew that), but not by enough to hurt any sound-minded investor. The Bears copped out on two huge occasions; the Packers keep winning on the same principle that Mailer keeps writing … but I guess I'll save that for some other time. Anyway, I hurt because I'm poorer than I should be right now … these swine won't even watch the games with me any more, much less bet in advance.… I think they fear the half-time wagers, which can be treacherous. And so much for all that. I'm about to
clump another article and devote the rest of this wrong year to straightening out my personal papers.

I wish to hell you were right about my being a “rich devil,” but the truth of the matter is that I'm down to $200 or so and
Ramparts
sent my last check to Austin, Texas. God only knows why. I'm now trying to pry it out of the postmaster down there, but I figure he has instructions to burn anything in a
Ramparts
envelope. I agreed to write a “column” for them, but I have no idea how to start.… I just hung an antelope's head over my fireplace. Things are happening. And I have credit, so I've given up worrying about cash except that I have to settle this contract thing somehow. If you see Lynn Nesbit … no, fuck her. I think she has the fear. But I'm really at my wit's end in these dealings. I've developed such a loathing for the typewriter that I rarely even enter this room. In all truth, this is the first half-human letter I've written in nearly two months. I've instructed Sandy to tell anyone who calls to say I'm not at home and probably won't be. The only people I'll talk to are those who want to place hard-rapping bets. Wagers on olympian spectacles. The Woody Creek line would appear to be very generous, but with massive discrepancies and lunatic deviations from the Reno judgments. And so much for that … again. You see why my mind is in trouble.

As for Kesey, I'm uncommonly curious about your book [
The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test
] and I'm not sure why. Kesey doesn't need any gratuitous canonization at this point. (Is canonization a word?) Did you see that
Chronicle
headline the day after he got out of jail? I thought of writing and offering anonymous limbo here, but our general relationship was always so goddamn drugged that I'm not even sure I know what he's like when he's straight. And I don't know how many people he'd want to bring in. A scene like he had at La Honda would have me on Death Row in two months.

 … but on that score, and on the subject of hospitality, etc., consider this as a standing invitation—room, board, etc.—if you feel like coming out for a shot at the mountains. One of my projects this winter is to master this ski business. I've done it a few times, but not enough to come to grips … but now I'm going to deal with it. So if you have any loose time, come on out. I have all the extras.

Yeah, and it's getting late again. Eight above zero & very crisp outside. If you know any good, human agents, send me a name or so. All I really need right now is somebody to keep my act in line … like I just alienated
Playboy
permanently, clue to my angst. What I really need is a personal manager. Send word if you know of any. Or send word anyway. I'm sending the tapes in a different package, with a different stamp and a different drummer. Beware.…

Hunter

December 7, 1967
Woody Creek, Colorado

Lee—

[…] Your goddamn cop's badge
²⁸
has caused me nothing but trouble. Everybody in Aspen thinks I'm a cop … so I bought a “police” badge for my hat and the other day on the radio I said I was the Woody Creek Narcotics Magistrate. A lot of the IQ-70 types tremble at the sight of me. You sound like you're stoned all the time; what's happening to those articles you wrote? Try the
National Observer
. […] You're right about free-lancing, but it's fun when you hit.

The hippie thing is over; now they're all desperate refugees and beggars. Or serious dope freaks. They're a drag to be around, but in fact they always were. People who were fucking the Sun and calling me uptight six months ago now show up at the house driving cars with New York and California plates, trying to borrow money or sell me everything they have—including the clap-ridden teeny-boppers who own the cars. Depressing. Grass is down to $50 a kilo in San Francisco; the market is glutted, the whole scene is glutted—bad news and losers. Hostility and paranoia. Fuck it.

Christ, it's five in the morning here. I just realized it. I'm sore as hell after tumbling down Ajax [Mountain] yesterday on a pair of borrowed White Stars. This time I'm going to make a real run at it—lessons, etc.—to get good so I'll know if I like it or not. But starting out at the top of Ajax is ugly. I gave up hunting for a while; I got tired of dragging the bodies. Now I shoot clay pigeons off the porch. And I do a lot of wood-work—shelves, walls, etc. Somehow, I forgot how to write. Blew $6,500 worth of assignments in two weeks, just threw up my hands and said to hell with it. Yeah, that goddamn agent is suing me. I have to get around him somehow. The paperback is selling better than I expected, but I can't get the money. Somewhere in New York I have a half-million nickels, but so far I haven't seen one. I don't know how it's going to turn out, but right now it looks bad. That's why I'm going to New York again.

Actually, I don't think it makes much difference. Johnson looks ready to take us all over the brink in a fit of stupid rage and frustration. He fucks up every time he turns around, but he still has the main clout. I wrote Eugene McCarthy and said I'd help if he thought he needed any, but that looks pretty bleak, too. Right now I should be writing my new “column” in
Ramparts
, but I can't get up the zap for it. We're into a very evil bag. I want to get my new passport arranged and get a fat advance for some non-existent
book, so I can leave the country on 24 hours' notice. The bastard is looking for a reason to declare war officially, and all hell will break loose when that happens. I see a Nixon-Johnson election coming up, and that's too much for my head. Maybe the dope freaks are right.

No word from Kennedy in months. I don't know what it means. McGarr has turned devious and fuck crazy, jumping from one bad scene to another, hanging me up with friends, etc. I don't even know what to make of it, but I guess he'll eventually calm down. […]

Off to bed now, almost dawn here. 4–5–6 inches of snow on the ground, cold as hell, probably as good a place as any to hide right now. The last address I had for Noonan was AmExpress, Paris. If you're heading south try that, but I think he's in Spain by now. I gave him your Amsterdam address. Sandy is pregnant again. Sow and ye shall reap.…

Hunter

Hunter and Juan Thompson
.
(P
HOTO BY
D
AVID
P
IERCE; COURTESY OF
HST C
OLLECTION
)

E
PILOGUE

 

 

“M
IDNIGHT ON THE
C
OAST
H
IGHWAY
”

San Francisco, 1960

All my life my heart has sought a thing I cannot name
.

–Remembered line from a long-forgotten poem

Months later, when I rarely saw the Angels, I still had the legacy of the big machine–four hundred pounds of chrome and deep red noise to take out on the Coast Highway and cut loose at three in the morning, when all the cops were lurking over on 101. My first crash had wrecked the bike completely and it took several months to have it rebuilt. After that I decided to ride it differently: I would stop pushing my luck on curves, always wear a helmet, and try to keep within range of the nearest speed limit … my insurance had already been canceled and my driver's license was hanging by a thread.

So it was always at night, like a werewolf, that I would take the thing out for an honest run down the coast. I would start in Golden Gate Park, thinking only to run a few long curves to clear my head, but in a matter of minutes I'd be out at the beach with the sound of the engine in my ears, the surf booming up on the sea wall and a fine empty road stretching all the way down to Santa Cruz … not even a gas station in the whole seventy miles; the only public light along the way is an all-night diner down around Rockaway Beach.

There was no helmet on those nights, no speed limit, and no cooling it down on the curves. The momentary freedom of the park was like the one unlucky drink that shoves a wavering alcoholic off the wagon. I would come out of the park near the soccer field and pause for a moment at the stop sign, wondering if I knew anyone parked out there on the midnight humping strip.

Then into first gear, forgetting the cars and letting the beast wind out … thirty-five, forty-five … then into second and wailing through the light at Lincoln Way, not worried about green or red signals but only some other werewolf loony who might be pulling out too slowly, to start his own run. Not many of these–and with three lanes on a wide curve, a bike coming hard has plenty of room to get around almost anything–then into third, the boomer gear, pushing seventy-five and the beginning of a windscream in the ears, a pressure on the eyeballs like diving into water off a high board.