Proud Highway:Saga of a Desperate Southern Gentleman (58 page)

As for my shitty sarcasm, god knows my belly is full of it, but the fact that you're already braced for it, knowing full well that you deserve it, has caused me to lose interest in loading it on you. First Semonin, then you, eh? Artistes. Well, you will have enough trouble without my sarcasm. If I were you I would stick to art. At least you can do it standing up. You will learn the importance of this when you develop your first case of piles, as I have. Now I know why Thomas Wolfe wrote on top of his icebox, and why Ernest Hemingway devised a special chest-high stand for his typewriter. They had the piles, McGarr, and you will get them too if you do enough writing to find out what a shitty job it is. And if you give it up before then, well, there's always the drums or the jew's harp—or the art of taking yourself seriously, which Mr. Semonin can explain. And there's a certain art to pushing a hack, I suspect; or even in doing the Pirogue Stomp in Washington Square on a Sunday afternoon. Art is all around us, McGarr; it's wonderful to know.

Things here are as vicious and pressing as I've ever known them. Between Sandy, the piles, the novel and South America, I am nearing the
end of my rope. Any one of the last three would be enough to keep a man sweating 24 hours a day, and the reason for putting Sandy on the list is that she is in the hospital, recuperating from what I suspect was a serious operation. It was kept from me until the last moment, at which point she announced that daddy and the doctor had it all arranged. So my function now is to visit, bearing fruit, etc., and hope to god I don't run into daddy. Anyway, she's recovering, and will probably be out in a week or so.

In the meantime, I am pushing this stinking novel around the final turn. This is what I do at night, usually from nine to five, or so. During the days I wheel and deal with various punks and editors, rooting desperately for a subsidy for my South America tour, which could easily become a disaster without one. I am doing about as well as can be expected, which is depressing. But I am going anyway. Tomorrow I will find out if my piles require an operation. There is some talk of a fistula, but I try not to hear it. I hear voices now & then that tell me this novel will be my one and only work, but so far it is a bastard & I mean to finish it off in the same rabbit-punching style. Maybe 2 more weeks, maybe 3. Who knows? OK, that's it. Got to get working. Write when you get published.

HST

The arrival of a check from his mother inspired Thompson to buy whiskey and write letters to a dozen friends, including Murphy in Big Sur, who was considering becoming a high school teacher
.

March 13, 1962
531 E. 81st
New York City

Dear Daryl—

Had an $800 windfall today & am now quite drunk on Old Crow. Also quite sick from a rotten cold, cough & general failure of health. Waiting now for sleeping pills to take effect so I can get to bed. Big day tomorrow—got to see various agents, editors, etc.—also order $400 camera & lenses from Hong Kong, also pay other debts, also write 20 pages on novel, also pack books & send them to Louisville, also, also, also … this hurry is driving me nuts.

Your last letter had a bit of zip in it. Good. I hate to think of you moping around out there. If you want to teach, get the hell at it and don't pay
any attention to me or anyone else. Even Mr. [George Bernard] Shaw, who said, “Those who can, do; those who can't, teach.”

Since you asked.

OK. Had a big filet mignon dinner tonight and feel generally rich. Am beginning to think this is the only way I'll ever feel that way, i.e.—temporarily, false economy, ignoring debts, blinding myself to the morrow's expenditures, etc. But what the hell. It is a good & healthy thing to have a fine fat steak & a bottle of good Kentucky bourbon & order cameras from Hong Kong & generally feel rich. As I said. I am almost tempted to send Semonin some money, but I know it would spoil him. Guess I will anyway. Just a dollar or so for some absinthe.

Fine to hear you brimming & to hell with journalism if you say so. Personally, I have to live on it a while longer & a piss-poor living it is. I am looking forward to a none-too-distant day when I can QUIT. Yes. QUIT. I have rubbed all my guns with silicone waterproofing & put my dog in the care of decent people and I am now in the process of making one last rush at the world and its lunacy. Whatever comes of it won't matter, good or bad, because somewhere in the distance I have a vision of mountains & space & quiet & a place to make beer and mumble around naked and shoot out the front door & not give a damn for much of anything but the weather. The world is not mad, as I thought, but sane in the cheapest kind of way. So chalk me up as mad & to hell with it.

I have read the
National Observer
& know this to be true. Smyrna, Del. is the axis of the earth & all reason emanates from there. The Bomb is good & we are all reasonable people due to our training in Rotary Clubs over the course of many years. God is on our side because we invented him. And if he wavers we'll invent another one. If you can't buy them, squash them. That's the ticket.

OK. Mad & drunk I remain. Let me know your travel plans. I hesitate to suggest that you try South America instead of Europe, but what is hesitation anyway? If on the other hand you try Europe Semonin will be there until “summer,” and several other people are there also, for good or ill. Nonetheless, I'd enjoy bumping into you in Rio—again, for good or ill. In closing, I remain,

for good or ill,
HST

Thompson's first port of call was to be Puerto Rico, where he hoped to write another voodoo story
.

March 14, 1962
531 E. 81 Street
New York City

Bill—

OK. You go ahead & laugh about voodoo at Vacia Talega. I talked to Paul Harrison the other day (PRNS here) & he said when I stopped in San Juan I should definitely do a story on some festival they have out there—it must be voodoo. What else, out there in the wilds. So PRNS is coming around to voodoo & I think it's a good sign. They didn't come around quite far enough to buy an old photo I sent them out of desperation for even a single buck, but Harrison is a good guy & needless to say, knows I can handle voodoo like nobody's business. I just wonder if Sontheimer will sign the check.

I warned Hazlett that I was coming through & he wrote back that he was going to Switzerland. I guess I will write Dorvillier now, & ask him for a job. That will complete the cycle.

Anyway, I still plan to leave here around April 1. Not with Sandy. Would very much appreciate a couch at your place for maybe two days or three, depending on what I can scrape up in the way of articles. If nobody wants anything on PR, I would stay 48 hours at most, then go to Aruba and the great jumpoff.

As for my rotten goddam books, you may as well admit they were too much for you to handle & I will deal with them when I get there. I just hope to god they're in boxes like you say. As I recall, I left them all very neatly packed. You have probably been renting them out to meet the rum payments.

I will warn you again, at least 20 minutes before I arrive pale & half-naked and crazed with thirst. This time I'll come in with a .44 Magnum in a shoulder holster and a 33 photo-lab strapped on my back. I take the damnedest pictures you've ever seen & even sell a few. None of the good ones, of course—just like the fiction.

As you predicted, Volkening did not take me on. He sounded fairly agreeable & said he was fleeing the country & wanted no part of me or my ilk, no matter what I had written. A young woman who works for him read ½ the book & said it was “hard & bitter” but she had some hope for it & would like to see it again on completion.

So would I. The thing is weighing heavily on me now. It is all that stands between me and Peru. My money is running out & I have to flee this town soon or perish. I've been sick most of the time I've been here & it is only a matter of time before it becomes permanent. I have given up all hope of the book actually getting published and now only think in terms of getting it finished.

Sandy is going to work for a travel agency & will handle my affairs here until I get settled in South America, then use the agency discount to fly down. That's how it looks right now. If I go broke, of course, things will be different.

Semonin is in Madrid, holed up to work on
his
book. We have all gone mad, I think. He expects to be there a few months & would feel mightily cheered if you dropped him a line c/o Am. Exp., Madrid. Europe has not been real good to him—the icons are all smashed.

Said hello to Bone for you. He is restless. My plans are to see you soon. For god's sake don't rat on me.

HST

With “The Rum Diary” finished and Latin America looming, Thompson caught up with his brother
.

April 17, 1962
GPO Box 1049
New York, New York

Dear Jim:

Sorry not to have written in so long, but the past two weeks have been an awful strain. I finished the book and gave it to an agent—should hear something soon. Whatever I hear, I plan to leave New York either Sunday or Monday. I'll stay a few days then go on to Aruba, a small island off the coast of Venezuela. From there I'll get a boat to Caracas, and after that I can't say, except that I'll head down the west side of the continent, via Colombia, Peru, Bolivia, etc. My plan at the moment is to wind up in Rio de Janeiro, where I have made contact with the editor of the paper there, who seems like a fine fellow.
¹⁰
This is all pretty vague, but so am I right now and it's the best I can do. My money is very low and there may even come a time when I have to write home for a grant-in-aid to pull me through a bad spot. I hope not, but I'll have to see how it turns out. I'll probably send some articles to the
Courier-Journal
(Sunday), so you'll be able to keep up with me that way. Naturally, I'll write, too.

Your trip in New Orleans sounds fine. I know almost all the places you mentioned—Biloxi, Roosevelt, Pat O'Brians, Court of Two Sisters—and have been to them all except Ship Island. I knew you would have a good time once you got going. Things usually turn out that way. It is also very
good to hear things are going well at home. I'll feel a lot better taking off for South America without having to worry about that.

Aunt Lee sent a letter the other day, but I couldn't read much of it. I think she said Cousin Margurite had a wreck in a car. I hope it wasn't a bad one, but then it didn't sound that way, from what I could make out in the letter.

The man downstairs is beating on the floor and yelling about calling the police. It is four in the morning and I guess the typewriter jars his nerves. They have hauled all the furniture out of this apartment except for one bed, and I am sitting on the floor with the t-writer on an old trunk and all my papers & junk spread out around me. The stray cats are screaming outside, I am drinking the home beer, Sandy is asleep, and tomorrow I have to get up at nine to get a smallpox vaccination. Yesterday I had my yellow fever shot. When I pack all this stuff I'll send a lot of it home, so be prepared. Also, if I get any mail at that address, hold onto it until I send a forwarding address, then send it as quickly as possible.

OK, the man is pounding again. Thanks for your good letter and be sure to write me in South America. Take care of things at home and keep me posted. See you when I get back.

Love,
H

While Thompson was traveling throughout Latin America, Olay became one of his most frequent correspondents
.

April 17, 1962
GPO Box 1049
NY 1, New York

Lionel—

Damn good letter from you, my man. I was beginning to think you didn't write anymore except for Big Money. And Mr. Thompson, he don't pay much.

But he kept on working, like you said, and last Friday the 13th he handed over a “finished” novel to an agent—the same one rumored to be dealing with an unpublished novel by Willie Kennedy of San Juan. Whom Mr. Thompson will see next week and get drunk as hell with and shout all night on the aims of art and the general rottenness of those In Trade. And then, after spiritually disemboweling all the world's merchants, Mr. Thompson will shove off for South America and begin the long hot agony of trying to keep alive on free-lance journalism.

That's my plan in a nutshell. I've been long delayed here, fighting with that stinking book, and now when I sit down to read these 366 pages that it took me 18 months to create, it simply seems like a waste of time. Right as I was finishing mine, I read a book called
Out of Africa
by Isak Dinesen, and it almost broke me down. I am going to do a lot of thinking before I start another book, which maddeningly enough, is already creeping into outline form. This writing is like cocaine and I'm damned if I can figure out why people keep at it. Aside from everything else, sitting on my ass all that time gave me a whopping case of piles. Where is the percentage?

As you observed, it is very easy to give advice. Usually the spirit in which the advice is given is more important than the advice itself. For me anyway. Which is why I appreciated your letter. Most of what you say is true, I think, but like most young writers I am a natural ingrate and will always think that my work and my views are above and beyond advice—at least until I finish one thing and can get far enough away from it to see it clear and mean like a girl who drives you mad when you're drunk and then looks like hell in the morning. I hope I won't see this novel like that, but I expect I will. Probably in six short months. Anyway, I have been drunk alone since I turned it in, ripping and roaring around New York, getting thrown out of bars, getting in fights, one auto wreck, abusing friendships and generally going to pieces after all those months of a discipline I never believed I could maintain. It is a great feeling to finish a book, even if it is worthless.