Proud Highway:Saga of a Desperate Southern Gentleman (56 page)

I had never realized, by the way, that in many countries a man needs permission from the Army in order to carry his own pistol. So I send this membership fee with a fervent hope that we in this country can protect what small freedom we still retain, with regard to firearms.

Sincerely,
Hunter S. Thompson

Eager to flee New York, Thompson wrote McGarr in Spain about his upcoming South American adventure
.

February 2, 1962
531 E. 81 Street
New York City

E.W.—

No word from you in quite a while, McGarr. It must mean you are finally doing something. It's been my experience that I only write letters when I'm overwhelmed by other obligations—or the lack of them—and feel the need to get my mind to some other place. But perhaps this is not the case with you. We are all different, eh?

Not much happening here except that I am currently dealing for an extended journey to South America. Also still working on The Rum Diary, determined to finish it before taking off. This a shitty town, McGarr, and there is something wrong with anyone who can live here. It is full of vultures and lice and turds and darkness, and every human contact is more depressing than the last. You can see it in their eyes, dull stares and pasty flesh; walking these streets is like roaming in a graveyard and I take a fiendish delight in my daily midtown forays—bounding along the streets, trailing all sorts of leather impediments, spitting and hawking and blowing my nose in the air like a consumptive Chinaman. My appearance on Madison Avenue is much like the Loch Ness monster, and I get a kick out of returning the stares as I burst out of a subway and hawk on some well-polished pointed shoes. Fuck them all; I carry a short truncheon and am eager to put it to use. At times I am even tempted to challenge gangs of thugs in front of these rotten candy stores—although I would much rather face a wild boar than 30 underfed punks.

Well, enough of that breast-beating. The truth of course is that I want to get even with this town for not recognizing my genius and paying me accordingly. But after talking to numerous editors and agents I am about ready to believe that we talk a different language and that no real meaning
will ever pass between us. Only the amenities, the stock phrases, and a certain number of rejection slips. This is the primary reason for my shot to SA. I understand that land is selling down there for $4 an acre in the Mato Grosso and I intend to have some of it. After that I will do whatever I have to do to hold onto it. Naturally, I will take my weapons.

This, of course, raises some questions as to that $90 that I owe you. Well, I think I can get it paid before I go. This is no idle talk, for I certainly wouldn't bring up such an ugly subject unless I thought there was hope of killing it off. My fortune at the moment consists of whatever amount of my grandmother's money I can coax out of my mother. She is naturally reluctant to invest in my hare-brained schemes and I am at the critical juncture now of telling her about the Mato Grosso. She thought Europe was a good idea and agreed tentatively to part with 8 or 9 hundred—2 of which I owe her—but I don't know how she will react to this South America business. At any rate, I will let you know. In the meantime, send word on your doings. Your last letter was decent and nearly informative. Things are looking up for you, McGarr. Perhaps you can get a job here as a spellbinder. I sense openings in that line, but I am not up to it myself. Oh yes—enjoyed Eleanor's letter to Sandy. I read all mail here and distribute it accordingly.

H

Excited by his imminent departure for South America, Thompson wrote Semonin of his plans. Photographs, along with guns, had become Thompson's newest obsession
.

February 7, 1962
531 E. 81 Street
New York City

Paul—

“In Brazil a gun or a knife is considered a fair weapon, and there is no dishonor in being wounded or even killed. But to hit a man with your fists is to insult him beyond remedy. He can only avenge the humiliation by killing you.”

This comes from a reliable book called
Tigrero
, and upon reading it I immediately wrote Cooke
³
to bring my big pistol when he comes to New York. Upon contacting the man who wrote the book—a tiger hunter in the
Mato Grosso—I was advised to bring the gun into the country in a shoulder-holster because Brazil customs men do not search bodies, only luggage. And if they find a gun in your bag you are clamped. This man seemed to think it was very important that I get my gun in with me and I tend to agree.

The above should give you an idea of my plans and their meaning. Push-off date is still about a month, but uncertain due to the fate of the novel, which will see another agent on Monday—the first half again, 60 percent rewritten.

The pace here is accelerated almost beyond my ken. Hundreds of projects and possibilities, all needing talk and investigation. Sandy informs me that yesterday morning I rolled over in bed and shouted: “All this jabber-wocky and shameless talk—I just don't know if I can get up.” This last refers to my growing inability to get out of bed before noon and often later. Something huge is pressing on my soul. One morning last week I shouted: “Get these dogs off me! These fucking ugly dogs!” I keep having these dreams, not unlike the DTs in their substance and urgency. Even now, sitting here at the typewriter, I have a feeling that my gut is a great engine racing at top rpm, unable to shift out of neutral. Constant nerves and dealing, calling, shouting, clawing at the mailbox, forever writing letters to unknown people, tense moments during every phone call as we come on the big money yes or no, the crucial hesitation, and more often than not the ugly let-down when the phone is back on its crotch.

But I am making headway and am now teetering on the brink of closing a deal with one of the airlines—a series of 13 articles, one from each capital in South America, in exchange for transportation to 13 capitals. The only catch is that I have to sign a contract and somehow guarantee publication of said articles. There is hope for this in the form of Laschever,
⁴
running interference for me with the airline publicity hounds. But even he won't guarantee publication. Nonetheless, I sense a 50–50 chance in the deal and will press savagely for a win.

Still no money in my pockets, of course, and the pressure and humiliation of that is reaching the intolerable level. I am feeling like a gigolo and a hired stud. A bad feeling when it lasts. No sales in 3 months. Nothing. No work on much of anything but the novel. If I can't get it off my head it will bury me and itself at the same time. Am also wound up viciously with photography, dealing each day in camera stores, cramming facts and numbers into my head, leading decent salesmen down penniless alleys, coaxing information out of them. In the course of it all I have been convinced
that I am going to buy a $200 camera, plus several extra lenses, when my money comes, if it ever comes. Yesterday's figures on necessary camera expenditures was $351. A man with $800 on his hands, plus $600 in debts, is worse off than a penniless wretch with the same debts. I feel they sense my money and are closing in on me, hell bent on keeping me off the South America thing by gobbling my funds before I can flee. At last count I figured to arrive in Rio with $120, not knowing a soul and not speaking the language—with god knows how many miles and desperate dollars between me and a berth. Peggy Clifford wrote last week saying your house was available, offering it to me, and the pressure here was so bad that I floundered horribly at the sight of the letter. The temptation to retreat was huge and fat like a devil, making an offer for my soul. I wrote, saying I couldn't trust myself to say yes or no at the moment and to contact me again in 2 weeks. She wrote yesterday that a stringbean had replaced the fink and your income was safe again. It is good to have an agent like that—your base is in capable hands.

I am becoming more and more certain that this South America venture is my last chance to do something big and bad, come to grips with the basic wildness. Everything here is larded over with lunacy; I can no longer even read the
Times
without trembling. Gov. Rocky
⁵
says someone is putting vinegar in New York milk and there is no mention of why. WHY? Why in the fuck? What motive? No explanation. The speaker of the New York assembly pushed a home-shelter bill through the house while he was a director of a firm building home-shelters. Now they are crucifying the man who broke the story, saying he is a dupe of the Communists. The papers go right along, dutifully recording the madness. The speaker raves and pounds the desk and winks at photographers. All this is recorded and sold on the streets. The new director of the CIA goes on record as an advocate of more and better nuclear testing. For the past 3 years this same man has been one of our chief negotiators at international disarmament conferences. No wonder we have made no progress. I tell you it is pressing me down and keeping me off balance 24 hours a day—a friend of Sandy's is living with two men and they are constantly calling and showing up here, looking for the mail.… What mail? Whose mail? I dare not say anything for fear of bursting the bag. They ask questions and I feel my gears slipping. Out! You bastards! Take all the mail except mine! Whorehoppers! I can no longer see through the fog! My name is on the mailbox, yet letters to me are “returned to sender.” I have lost faith in the system. People say they have written me and they haven't. What can I say? How can I
answer? Is the mailman a Communist? How can I pin him down? Should I kill him when I get a grip or let him go free to plague others with his tricks?

It's this money hanging over me that does it. That and the novel. I must get rid of this novel and I must get that money. Then I can flee to the warm water, the relative peace of Caracas and the unplumbed jungle of the Mato Grosso. Two cameras and a pistol and a great thirst—and this goddam typewriter. I want to walk on a morning road in Brazil and stop at a good place for a cold beer. I don't even want to understand what they say. Just grin at them and drink, then walk on.

As you see, I am finally on the hump and all Craziness is spread out before me. Way in the distance I see a clear spot, a splash of sunlit green and a sign saying “cerveza.” No hope but to get there and rest. Put the madness behind me. Ah, jesus, the pressure of this place, the screams of the drowners and the jackal laughter of those in the rafts.

Now, maybe I have got that screaming out of my system. Anyway, I feel better. Still, I cannot face your letter without writing 40 pages of answer. I feel that I should tell you at least that much about something, but I dare not start. Each time I start thinking of one thing, two more loom up to destroy my focus. God knows what you are doing over there but it sounds bad. I will put you in touch with Hudson. Write him. He looks at June 1 as the deadline, but still doesn't know what they will do with the boat once it gets in the water.

You will always get a lot of shit from me, no matter what you say, until you become so right that I feel intimidated or so wrong that I feel repelled.

I am going to write massive tomes from South America. I can hardly wait to get my teeth in it. And thousands of pictures. It is almost too big to deal with. Speaking of pictures, I may try to sell that one of the nigger child on the beach that you claim to have taken. I don't believe you, but you sounded so righteous when I mentioned it before that I know you would never admit it was not yours. Anyway, it dawned on me the other day that PRNS [Puerto Rican News Service] might buy it. Probably not, but god knows it is worth a try. I must have a check from somebody. With luck it will bring $15, more likely $10. If I sell it and if you sound righteous and convinced enough in your reply to this, I will send you half. I have asked Sandy about it, but she is blank. I have so many shots that I don't remember taking that I tend to feel that anything I have is bound to be “mine.”

Maybe I will deduct the price of developing and printing all those shots I took of you—and then deduct for the skill and wisdom involved—and send you the rest.

This will give you the gist of my recent thought patterns. I am turning into a jew. And all the time I've been writing this fucking letter, the rotten
novel has been sitting here accusing me of sloth. I will get to it now, leaving you to stew. Send word on something. Pierce the fog. Seize the high ground and keep a tight trigger. The beast is loose and prowling everywhere.

Bloodhungrily,
Hunter

Still in pursuit of the right agent, Thompson now retained Donadio in hopes of finding a publisher for “The Rum Diary.” Donadio worked for the Russell & Volkening literary agency. She wrote Thompson saying his characters in “The Rum Diary” were “hard and bitter”; the agency didn't take Thompson on as a client
.

February 15, 1962
531 E. 81 Street
New York City

Dear Miss Donadio:

Thanks for your letter. Now I can finish The Rum Diary with a bit of a grin—a mean one, of course—and send it snapping and snarling toward the cubicles. It will not be a “hard and bitter” book in the end, except to those who expect other people to build their houses for them. It has taken me 24 years to lay even the beginnings of a foundation for myself, and when I finish I will not have much time to do anything but run off a few copies of the blueprint for other builders to use as they see fit.

One of your comments puzzles me, however, and since it seems to be your main point I would like to see it more clearly. You say, “The novel is made of hard and bitter characters, and that's all right and workable, providing there is enough distinction in the means of telling the bitter and hard story.” Now “distinction” is the word I can't deal with. I hope you don't mean “discretion.” That would sadden me, because I appreciated what I thought was the spirit of your letter. Also I hope you don't mean I should fish for some future comment like, “Mr. Thompson has written a distinguished book.” I sent a story to an agent once and she wrote back that she had sent it on to
The New Yorker
because she thought it was “absolutely charming.” They bounced it, of course, for it was no less mean and bitter than The Rum Diary. It just goes to … ah … yeah.