Thompson, Hunter S (21 page)

“Balls,” he replied.

I shoved the car into gear. “Okay, Fritz, good luck.”

“Right,” he said as I pulled away. “Good luck yourself.”

I had to go down to the corner to turn around, and as I came back up the street I passed
him again, and waved. He was walking down toward the ferry and when I got to the corner I
stopped and watched to see what he would do. It was the last time I saw him and I remember
it very clearly. He walked out on the pier and stood near a wooden lamppost, looking out
at the sea. The only living thing in a dead Caribbean town -- a tall figure in a rumpled
Palm Beach suit, his only suit, now full of dirt and grass stains and bulgy pockets,
standing alone on a pier at the end of the world and thinking his own thoughts. I waved
again, although his back was to me, and gave two quick blasts on the horn as I sped out of
town.

On my way back to the apartment I stopped to get the early editions. I was stunned to see
Yeamon on the front page of
El Diario
under a big headline that said “Matanza en Rio Piedras.” It was from the shot of the three
of us in the jail, taken when we got arrested and beaten. Well, I thought, this is it. The
jig is up.

I drove home and called Pan Am to book a seat on the morning plane. Then I packed my
bags. I crammed everything -- clothes, books, a big scrapbook of my stuff from the
News --
into two duffel bags. I laid them side by side, then I put my typewriter and my shaving
kit on top of them. And that was it -- my worldly goods, the meager fruits of a ten-year
odyssey that was beginning to look like a lost cause. On my way out I remembered to take a
bottle of Rum Superior for Chenault.

I still had three hours to kill and I needed to cash a check. They would do it at Al's, I
knew, but maybe the cops would be waiting for me there. I decided to risk it and drive
very carefully through Condado, across the causeway and into the sleeping Old City.

Al's was empty, except for Sala sitting alone in the patio. When I walked to the table
Sala looked up. “Kemp,” he said, “I feel a hundred years old.”

“How old are you?” I said. “Thirty? Thirty-one?”

“Thirty,” he said quickly. “I was just thirty last month.”

“Hell,” I replied. “Imagine how old I feel -- I'm almost thirty-two.”

He shook his head. “I never thought I'd live to see thirty. I don't know why, but for
some reason I just didn't.”

I smiled. “I don't know if I did or not -- I never gave it much thought.”

“Well,” he said. “I hope to God I never make forty -- I wouldn't know what to do with
myself.”

“You might,” I said. “We're over the hump, Robert. The ride gets pretty ugly from here on
in.”

He leaned back and said nothing. It was almost dawn, but Nelson Otto was still lingering
at his piano. The song was “Laura,” and the sad notes floated out to the patio and hung in
the trees like birds too tired to fly. It was a hot night, with almost no breeze, but I
was feeling cold sweat in my hair. For lack of anything better to do, I studied a
cigarette burn in the sleeve of my blue oxford-cloth shirt.

Sala called for more drink and Sweep brought four rums, saying they were on the house. We
thanked him and sat for another half hour, saying nothing. Down on the waterfront I could
hear the slow clang of a ship's bell as it eased against the pier, and somewhere in the
city a motorcycle roared through the narrow streets, sending its echo up the hill to Calle
O'Leary. Voices rose and fell in the house next door and the raucous sound of a jukebox
came from a bar down the street Sounds of a San Juan night, drifting across the city
through layers of humid air; sounds of life and movement, people getting ready and people
giving up, the sound of hope and the sound of hanging on, and behind them all, the quiet,
deadly ticking of a thousand hungry clocks, the lonely sound of time passing in the long
Caribbean night.

Hunter
S.
Thompson
was born and raised in Louisville, Kentucky. His books include
Hell's Angels, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail
'72, The Curse of Lono, Songs of the Doomed, Better Than Sex,
and
The Proud Highway.
He is a regular contributor to various national and international publications. He now
lives in a fortified compound on an island near Puerto Rico.