Proud Highway:Saga of a Desperate Southern Gentleman (18 page)

Suddenly, the cloud shot upward to avoid smashing into a coal hill rising out of nowhere into the black sky. I felt myself rolling over the side. Not having time to utter a polite farewell, I recalled their words and howled a loud and heartfelt “Amen.”

I trust you get the message. Let me know when “little Logan” is born and tell Nonie “hello” for me. Cheerio.

Hunter

TO MRS. SPENCER, AUTOMOBILE ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA
:

December 14, 1957
Jersey Shore, Pennsylvania

Dear Mrs. Spencer,

Just a word of thanks for your help in getting the AAA to route me to this place—even though I think it might have been better if they'd sent me 180 degrees off course. About the best I can say for this place is that it's totally inadequate for my every need.

But I don't want to bore you with geographical descriptions. It was nice of you to get me routed: but it would have been nicer if all the roads had been out.

Sincerely,
Hunter S. Thompson

TO JOE BELL
:

Again, Thompson uses a fictional story to illustrate his quite real despair.

December 15, 1957
Jersey Shore, Pennsylvania

Dear Joe,

In the midst of
The Power Elite
(C. Wright Mills, 1956),
¹⁷
after a pleasant dinner of meatballs and beans, and looking forward to an evening of welcome silence … I pause to tap out a letter of puzzlingly pleasant despair.

Now “pleasant despair” is none too subtle a paradox, and it fits my present situation to a “T.” I'm all of two weeks older than I was on December 1st … and about five years wiser. The thunderous wave of optimism on which I rode to my greatest triumph went crashing to an ignominious death on the rocks of reality at approximately 3:30 PM on December 9th. For at that time, I—fresh from an historic victory over the USAF's Strategic Complacency and Indifference Command—rode triumphantly over the hill into Jersey Shore, Pennsylvania. With a smile of grim but tolerant superiority plastered habitually on my once sun-tanned visage, I looked about me for the myriad thousands I had come to dazzle with my pregnant prose.

Suddenly I felt a terrible, blinding, choking sensation. Frantically, I scrambled to roll up my windows. I had driven into a cloud of coal dust.

Screeching to a stop, I seized my meat hatchet and leaped from my car: certain that the Syrians had touched off World War III with a gas attack. I tensed to meet the shock of the first wave of Mongolian paratroops.

“Come on, you bastards!” I screamed. “I knew you were coming! I told Bell last week! I didn't even order any Christmas cards—but I'll take a few of you with me before I go!”

Somewhere in the black cloud, I heard a hoarse scream. With a loud “you Mongolian bastard!” I rushed toward the sound, meat hatchet aloft … and crashed headlong into an old man in a Levi suit.

As we both went down, I heard him yell in a thick Old World accent: “Sheriff! Crugan's been serving on Sunday again: there's a foreigner crazed with drink in the middle of Main Street!”

Rising slowly to my feet, I heard what sounded like a troop of people running towards me. Echoing through the black cloud were loud cries of “drunk” … “foreigner” … “jail” … and “running amuck.”

And then I saw them. They seemed to be able to see right through the smog, because they were coming straight for me. Every man wore either a Levi suit or an old plaid jacket; and all the women wore wool slacks.

I was seized. They fought over me like a pack of animals and I thought the end had come. I knew then that I must have stumbled into one of those primitive, forgotten colonies which science fiction writers tell us about.

Well, I won't carry this ridiculous parody any further. If you don't get a pretty fair picture of this place from my story, then it must be that I'm still in a state of shock and unable as yet to write a coherent description of the almost indescribably repulsive town of Jersey Shore.

It upsets me to have to go into detail about this fiasco. It is enough to say that a place which combines all the climactical advantages of Iceland and all the entertainment and cultural advantages of Harlan, Kentucky, is certainly not a fit place to live. I very seriously doubt that I shall be able to stand it for more than a month—if that long.

I have found but one advantage to living here: I am completely alone. I work for three or four hours for five days a week, and then I return to my apartment—on top of Regan's Taproom—and either read or write. Loneliness is for people who can't see themselves except through the eyes of their compatriots, and all evidence points to the fact that I've passed that stage.

But the advantage of privacy is not a virtue offered by Jersey Shore alone. Anyone who doesn't need other people to feed his ego can find privacy anywhere. And, keeping that in mind, I intend to go elsewhere. The very nature of the town precludes the possibility of my finding any satisfaction in my job; and, by the same token, the nature of the town also precludes the possibility of any other kind of satisfaction—sexual or otherwise.

I would leave now, but for several reasons. One being the fact that I could hardly quit such a strategic job as the sports editorship without giving at least the usual two weeks notice … and two being the fact that I'm not sure where I intend to go.

Were I to return to Louisville—especially for the holiday revelry—it would amount to a regression of damaging proportions. Naturally, I shall miss being there for Christmas: even more so because I know I can leave this place at any time.

But Louisville to me is a merry-go-round … with all the ups and downs and the conversational carnival music of the Fountaine Ferry
¹⁸
original. Admittedly, the ride can be pleasant if you don't mind the rhythmic repetition of a never-ending Maypole dance.

If I came home now, I'd hit the merry-go-round at one of the annual, frenzied peaks. And, like so many others, I could forget the existence of anything but the ride: sleep-walking through the low spots, and always looking toward the next peak.

There's a capacity for enjoying that kind of existence in all of us. And only those who can see above and beyond the American goal of respectable mediocrity can enjoy a life that leads to anything but a struggle to attain that end. I lived with it for eighteen years and I haven't been out of the orbit long enough to find whatever it is I'm looking for. I've made progress, of course, but there's always the temptation—especially now at “peak” time—to go back and maneuver for a comfortable seat on the merry-go-round.

I suppose it's very much like the bird who's not sure his wings will hold him up. But in the bird's case, there's always somebody to kick him out of the nest again, until he learns to fly. Louisville, of course, is a big nest. Its birds don't have to fly if they'd rather walk … do they?

Unless I weaken—and I might—I think I'll be sure I can fly before I return to the nest. It should be interesting … if nothing else.

And now that I've loaded you with pointed analogies, I think I'll get back to my various plots. God only knows where they'll get me (witness the fact that one of them got me here) but at least I can be sure that, whatever they reap, the result will be both amusing and expensive. For some reason, they always turn out that way.

So until I weaken, or falter, or find the ever-challenging “it,” I remain your devoted, spasmodic, and sometimes psychopathic friend,

Hunter S. Thompson
1220 Allegheny Street
Jersey Shore, Pa.

TO KRAIG JUENGER
:

On Christmas Eve, a lonely, broke, and unemployed Thompson would flee Jersey Shore for New York City by “Huntermobile.”

December 23, 1957
Jersey Shore, Pennsylvania

Dear Kraig,

Well, this letter should be a little more informative than my last one, if nothing else. It won't be very long, because I know so little about what I'm going to do that I'm unable to go into any detail. Just as soon as I find out anything definite, I'll let you know.

In a nutshell, here's the way things stand as of now: tomorrow morning, I shall load all my earthly belongings into the Huntermobile and point its nose in the direction of New York City. If the car makes it without falling apart, I shall remain in New York until at least the eleventh of January. After that date, if I haven't located a means of gainful employment, I shall then embark for St. Louis—via Louisville.

So there you have it: one of the most hare-brained schemes of the generation … a typical “Thompson production,” and one of the most “all-or-nothing” propositions ever to be hatched in a human mind. I can think of nothing I'd rather avoid more conscientiously than being poverty-stricken in New York City … but that's precisely the situation I'll be in if I can't find a job by January 11th. I have $119, a box of food, a crippled car, and a temporary room in a fairly decent apartment. The reason I have to stay there until January 11th is that the College Board exams are being given at Columbia on that date, and I have to let the CB people know where I'll be by December 28th. So I'll have to stay in New York until the 11th. If I don't have a job by then—and the kind of job I want is scarce as hell—then I'll be off again. Where I'm going to get the money to go bouncing around the country like this is a real interesting problem: but I shall find it somewhere. I'll have to.

I got back from New York about 4:00 this afternoon and found your cards waiting for me in the mailbox. Needless to say, I appreciated them—as I do everything else with a St. Louis postmark on it. I neglected to get any Christmas cards this year, so allow me to wish you a very merry yule and all the erotic pleasures of a happy new year. My holiday season, incidentally, will be much better than I originally thought. Jerry Hawke, an ex-Lt. from Eglin who now goes to the Columbia law school, fixed me up with temporary lodging and invited me to join in the holiday festivities with him and some of his friends. So the terrifying prospect of spending the holidays in Jersey Shore fortunately failed to materialize. Needless to
say, I feel better—and much more cheerful than I did when I was working. And, incidentally, I think I forgot to tell you why I'm no longer working
¹⁹
 … but now that I think for a minute, I think I told you in previous letters: so I'll close before the paper ends. CHEERIO.…

Hunter

TO SUSAN HASELDEN
:

Although anxious about getting a job, Thompson was thrilled just to be in New York City, sharing a flat near Columbia University with Jerry Hawke.

December 27, 1957
110 Morningside Drive
New York, New York

Dear Susan,

Cheers … from the uptown west side of the melting pot. It is raining: raining like hell … and the wind carries the raindrops down Morningside Drive like a supersonic hailstorm, desolating the streets and giving all job-seekers an excuse to stay inside and drink. I am not drinking, however. I cannot afford to. My time is consumed in plotting a frontal assault on the beachhead of gainful employment.

I can hear the questions already; the rumbling mass of curiosity tumbling out of your head and lying in unanswered heaps behind your ruby lips. And I suppose I should try to explain just how I came to this pass, living temporarily in a 6 × 8 room in New York City, and scanning the help-wanted ads with that frenzied eagerness that only the threat of impending poverty can inject into a man.

Nay, I shall not explain, I can only suppose that I came to grips with the inevitable and all-too-happily “took a dive.” Not that there aren't logical explanations, of course: but they're all very complex and somewhat depressing. I shall make an attempt to explain … when I get a job. Until then, I can ill afford to fritter away my time on self-analysis. So you'll merely have to bear with me, sharing my spasmodic interludes of optimism and sending condolences—and possibly a weekly check—during my periods of depression. So be it.

There remains, of course, the possibility that I may be unable to find a job. If there is a Jesus, he will then have one of his finest chances to gain a convert. I now have the sum total of $110. When that runs out, there will have to be a Jesus—or a job.

Unfortunately, I can't seem to grasp the urgency of the situation. There are moments when I seem to have things well in hand … and then suddenly a bar or bookstore or a basketball game appears out of nowhere to trip me up. I just can't seem to hang onto money. Today I bought two books and a ticket to the Temple-Pitt game at the Garden. God only knows what it'll be tomorrow.

Next week will be zero week. If I don't have a job by Saturday, I may call for divine help—or charity. I shall start with the
Times
and the
Tribune,
of course, and then run the gamut of the
Telegram,
the
Journal,
the
Daily News,
and the
Mirror,
in that order. If that turns out to be a dry run, I shall then hurtle blindly into the open job market, tossing preferences and experiences to the winds and depending on pure, unadulterated bluff to carry me through.

Even though I think in terms of alternatives—the
Courier-Journal
and the
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
in particular—my old and faithful car seems to realize that we've come to the point of no return. He seems unwilling to do anything but sit peacefully on the street, a perfect target for parking tickets. Naturally, it will be impossible for me to go anywhere without him. I simply have too much baggage. So I think I'm here for the time being, anyway. As I said, I suppose it was inevitable.

On the lighter side—supposing that I do get a job—I intend to move out of my temporary quarters and into a grotto of my own. Then, of course, I will need a mistress. And even in your virginal state, I suppose you could qualify—providing that you promise to bring a record player and several clean sheets. At any rate, that is all in the future—and a very vague future it is.