Proud Highway:Saga of a Desperate Southern Gentleman (94 page)

In all, my life has gone into a very strange groove. The other night I was arrested with Allen Ginsberg, as we left Ken Kesey's party for the Hell's Angels. My rent is paid two months in advance, which is perhaps the most unusual thing I can say at this time. And my home is full, night and day, of heinous thugs. On Friday one of them is bringing over some cubes of LSD and we are going to lock ourselves in. Sandy is terrified of it all, and Juan cries at the sight of these monsters, but the phone keeps ringing and people keep talking about money. I hope to be finished for good with this thing by Christmas, then go to either Brazil, Mexico or Chile. By then I should be able to get an advance on either The Rum Diary or some other novel, so I'm feeling pretty tough on that score.

Otherwise, life here continues along the same lines. What about yours? What general plans? I would again suspect a try at
Cavalier
; they apparently start at $750, at least that's what they offered me, which is half the
Playboy
figure, but a much easier and more human bunch to deal with. I plan to pursue that one later. Hell, I plan to pursue a lot of things later, but it's still raining here and I'm a long way from whatever I wanted to say when I began. You'll have to pardon the manic tone of this letter; this recent action has jangled my concepts. All this money-talk, plus living with the Hell's Angels, is changing my brain. Send a word to clear the air, and say what's happening there. I think there's a good chance we'll see you around Christmas, en route to somewhere. Hello to Dana; Sandy and Juan are both asleep, but I'm sure they'd say something decent if they knew I was writing you right now. Juan has become a dangerous bomb. Shit, I'm tired. It's 4:17. For christ's sake, write.

Precipitously,
HST

Thompson, not wanting his friends at the newspaper to know he was the letter writer, used the pseudonym Dawn Thompson
. (
Dawn was Sandy's middle name
.)

September 17, 1965
318 Parnassus
San Francisco

Sir:

From the wilds of Colorado I followed your campaign against the dehumanization of phone numbers. Some of San Francisco's “best minds” were in the vanguard, I'm told, yet it all came to naught. Out there in the frozen Rockies I toasted the lost cause, and sympathized. There go the foundations, I said to myself; from now on it's just a matter of time.

Now, many months later, I find myself living in San Francisco. Today the phone company sent a man to hook up my phone—and, sure as hell, I had a seven-number digit that neither man nor beast could ever get straight in his head. The prefix was 891, followed by four others. A monster, and a senseless one, for sure, when you consider that New York City, with some 10 million residents, still manages to find word prefixes for all the phone exchanges.

I stared at my number, 891. Six letters to play with, and quite a few possible words. In the end I created my own exchange, “Otter 1.” Why not? There's no forgetting it, and the system allows for a much higher degree of personalization than the old standards. Consider the possibilities—a virtual riot of individuality.

The only sad thing about it is that nobody thought—while the phone company was being so ugly and arbitrary—of beating them at their own game. The inevitable defeat of the anti-digit-dialing boys was just another example of the San Francisco syndrome at work—digging in the heels, looking desperately backward, and finally being whipped into line by corporate entities with neither the wit nor the will to understand what the diehards were talking about in the first place.

Why not try the “Otter 1” approach for a change? Try a little offense, instead of defensive heel-dragging all the time. The Opposition ain't that tough. Sincerely,

Dawn Thompson

September 18, 1965
San Francisco

Dear Willie—

I was just about to ship off another postcard, but I figured it would piss you off, so I'll try a short letter.

I've just sent a postcard to Cooke, trying to straighten him out on what I at least meant to say—and think I said, for that matter—when I called him on whatever night it was. The idea that “nobody cares” has never occurred to me, especially since I feel a long way from “making it.” What I tried to do was convey to Cooke the wisdom that “nobody knows.” In other words, I had just realized the hopelessness of seeking or even tolerating advice on what or how to write, and since Cooke was at the time trying to put things on paper, I thought he might benefit from my wisdom.

Behind that feeling was the realization, which came in a rush, that if I hadn't got fucked up with the
Observer
I might still be turning out one or two pieces a month for them, and fighting to scrape up enough here and there for a bottle of booze. The seemingly incredible reaction to that
Nation
piece made me realize how sadly I've been wasting my time for two years. I've written better pieces for the
Observer
, but nobody read them. For that matter, I've even clipped them and sent samples around, but clue to the ingrown timidity and insecurity of the Establishment, it seems you need certain stamps and endorsements before you can be real. And
The Nation
is apparently one of those stamps. Anyway, it pissed me off to think we are dealing with a gang of punks who don't have the vaguest idea what's good or bad until somebody puts the stamp on it. Like the novel. I think it's awful, you think it's awful, and Random House just bought hardcover rights on the unwritten cycle book in order to get an option on the novel.
²³
The woman at Pantheon loves it; she's afraid my rewrite will fuck it up. Christ, what am I to think? I don't have the crazy balls to say, “No, I'll refuse to let you publish it.” And besides, I'm broke.

Anyway, I don't give a flying fuck who cares or doesn't care about my status situation, and primarily because it ain't even real enough to make me halfway comfortable. The whole thing is based on a book I haven't even started; two publishers have bought it without seeing more than the
Nation
piece and an outline I did wild drunk in less than an hour. At the moment I'm taking time out from a long-overdue
Playboy
piece, which is giving me rottenass trouble, and which could make the difference between solvency and sadness for the next two months, while I wrestle with the cycle book. A bounce will put me in a terrible hole. The trouble is I know so much I can't begin to fit the whole thing into 5000 words—which was easy for
The Nation
, because I didn't know anything at all. My research on that was one afternoon at the
Chronicle
, going through clips, and one night at the apartment with five drunken Angels. But now I have six months of massive research to distill, and it's going to be a hell of a lot easier for the book than it is for an article. In a nut, this whole thing gives me the fear. If all I had to do was work a few months on the novel, with guaranteed publication, I'd be a happy man, but the way it stands now is a fucking nightmare. Besides that I've already been nailed to the floor on the contract and the money for it all is shamefully small. That sluggish motherfucking Raines
²⁴
really set me up for a raping. I am now trying to get rid of him, but it's not easy.

Your comments on the
Pageant
thing were apt, but what the hell? I bought only one copy of the magazine and couldn't care less. There's another one coming out in December; don't bother to comment. I should also have one in the September 27 issue of
The Nation
, which might be decent. It was written last spring, though, and I've forgotten what I said.

As for LSD, I highly recommend it. We had a fine, wild weekend and no trouble at all. The feeling it produces is hard to describe. “Intensity” is a fair word for it. Try half a cube at first, just sit in the living room and turn on the music—after the kids have gone to bed. But never take it in uncomfortable or socially tense situations. And don't have anybody around whom you don't like. […]

You sound happier with your “insolvency” that I am in my panic. I feel like I've been hoisted toward the sun on the end of a very sharp sword, and the first wrong move will do me in for real. In the meantime, don't rejoice at my “success.” I'm a long way from home, and I'm scared. Why don't you just write me a long happy letter about how great I am. As it is, my status in the neighborhood derives entirely from the basketball court, and that's not much help on these long nights.

At the moment, Sandy and Juan are down in Monterey for the Jazz Festival, and I'm supposed to be here whipping the Playboy thing. Yeah.

HST

After hearing the Jefferson Airplane play, Thompson was so impressed that he telephoned Ralph Gleason, cultural critic for the
San Francisco Chronicle,
and brought him down to the club. Thompson also hurried to tell his brother Jim, then fifteen, about his discovery
.

September 25, 1965
318 Parnassus
San Francisco

Dear Jim—

As it happens, your letter came the morning after I saw Lightnin' Hopkins at a club here called The Matrix.
²⁵
I know one of the owners and go there pretty often. If you're looking around for some action on the folk-rock scene, get set for a group called the Jefferson Airplane, which also works out of The Matrix. They will lift the top of your head right off. A really wild sound. It won't be out for a while; they just went to L.A. to record last week, but when it comes out it's going to go like Zaannnggg!!! They make those silly goddamn Beatles sound like choirboys.

In the meantime, be careful what you tell your friends about my fame and fortune. We could both end up looking pretty silly. At the moment I've sold two books—one of which is lousy, and the other isn't even written. So take it easy. It looks like things are happening, but these things happen real slow as far as fame and fortune are concerned. And a lot of damn good people aren't making a dime.

Speaking of that, I have another article in this week's
Nation
(September 27), and I guess the December
Pageant
will have another one. They're both old things and I barely remember what I wrote, but if you see them send a line and say what you think. I'd really like to know how my style strikes you on various pieces. Also tell Mom that Dow-Jones is putting out something called
The Observer's World
in November, and they tell me I have a few pieces in it. I think it's a good book. Anyway, look for it.

As far as whatever stage you're in, and whatever you think about your destiny, I sure as hell wouldn't worry about it. When I was your age my future was nothing less then grim—and I suppose it still is, to some god-fearing people—but since then I've managed to get around a bit and do just about what I intended to do in the first place. All you need to do is figure out what your action is and hang on, no matter what they tell you. And even if you never make it, you'll feel better trying instead of giving up and going along with the noise crowd. But right now you don't have to worry
about what you're going to
do
. The important tiling is to follow your instincts about what you
aren't
going to do. Most people wind up going against their instincts, and it makes them miserable for the rest of their lives. It'll be five more years before you really begin to get the drift of what you should be doing. So, in the meantime, keep loose and listen to Dylan. And write me again. You write damn good letters. I was 20 before I could write a decent postcard.

Love, Hunter

Thompson thought the following sidebar should accompany his article on the nonstudent left in
The Nation.

September 30, 1965
San Francisco

Dear Carey:

You may or may not want to run this as a box. I think it's the nut of the issue, perhaps even deserving of another article, which I can't possibly do right now. Anyway, here is a short commentary.

HST

This article was written last spring, but it missed a June deadline and consequently had to be updated. Since then, more than time has passed. The political climate has changed. In June it appeared from the student (and non-student) viewpoint, that the University administration—and hence, the “Establishment”—was actively seeking a new view, a meeting of the minds, a thaw in the guerrilla warfare between two massively disparate generations.

But the long lull of summer gave the Governor, the Regents, the University administration and other hired technicians a chance to re-group, and now they are no longer on the defensive. In June, for instance, the new and legal definition of a “student” was liberal enough to include such recent drop-outs—and prospective re-entries—as Mario Savio and the bulk of the FSM leadership. But the new directives, issued by Pres. Clark Kerr on July 1, drew a very heavy line between the official definitions of a “student” and a “non-student.” Previously, it had been realistically vague. The reason for the re-definition is the new law on “outsiders,” which makes it a misdemeanor for any non-student to enter the campus for the purpose of disturbing whatever peace may or may not exist, according to the University authorities. As the law stands now, Mario Savio could be arrested on sight, anywhere on the campus, on the assumption that he was there to stir up trouble.

Such was not the case at the end of last semester, when there was much ado in the press about the “new look” at Berkeley. The impression given then was that a new clique of “progressive” Regents had seized control from the “Old Guard.” The facts of the matter were so finely suppressed that I—living in San Francisco and daily clipping all three papers for my files—had no idea of the change in this critical weight distribution until I made a routine phone check with the University's General Counsel in the course of updating this article.