Proud Highway:Saga of a Desperate Southern Gentleman (25 page)

So I evaded his first charge and tried to cool him off. I yelled, “Wait, man! Don't flog the pusher! If the people want pod, where is the justice in floggin' the pusher?” (I thought I could talk to him reasonable like, you know?)

But man, that was the stupidest bull I ever saw in my life! He couldn't even see that I had him dead to rights. All he did was scream and come at me again.

Well, right then I saw the futility of tryin' to explain these things to the illiterate bourgeois—so I took off at a dead run. But even then I barely escaped with my life: why, that fool brought that club down on my back and almost snapped my spine. If I'd been a little slower, I'd have been a sure goner!

Well, I got away, but I haven't been able to straighten up for four days because of this damn knot on my back. This pain is hell, of course, but it wouldn't bug me so much if I thought I deserved it. Now I don't blame that [Jack] Schliefer
¹³
guy for my trouble, you know, because he was only tryin' to spread the word. Like I said, his article made fine sense.

The whole trouble is that you people don't see to it that the cops read your paper. If that stupid bull had read Schliefer's article, you see, I wouldn't be bugged by this damn knot in my back. You dig? So let's get your circulation boy on the ball and get your paper into the police stations. It's goin' to be hell on the poor pusher until you do. And man, if you can't make the streets safe for an honest salesman, I might have to sell out and go into the advertising game. I might find it a little dull over on Madison Avenue, but at least I'd be among friends. Why don't you ask this Schliefer guy if he'll get me a job until this thing blows over?

Hopefully,
HUNTER S. THOMPSON

TO ANN FRICK
:

Though there were a number of women Thompson was partially in love with—Sally Williams, Susan Haselden, Carol Overdorf, Kay Menyers, and Kraig Juenger—it was Ann Frick of Tallahassee whom he hoped one day to marry.

June 4, 1958
57 Perry Street
New York City

Dear Ann,

I've read your letter about fifteen times now, and it would take at least fifteen pages to explain exactly why I appreciate it as much as I do. It certainly wasn't because of anything in the letter itself (I'm sure you'll agree that it was a pretty limpid effort) but probably because you took the trouble to write and remind me that you're still alive and kicking, still as warm and genuine as ever, and still the same Ann Frick I remember from what now seems like a million hazy dreams ago.

God, it seems incredible that it's been almost two years since I first saw you: but, strangely enough, I think I remember almost every minute of that day—from the time I first saw you at your house, to the spider crabs and the black bathing suit and the murky water at Alligator Point, and all the way through the last minute of the night at Lake Hall.

But the memory doesn't stop there: I remember the day I first heard
My Fair Lady
at your house, the astonished embarrassment of being refused a drink at George's, sitting on a bench in front of the City Cafe in Chattahoochee with an exploded car parked many miles down the road, and the final fantasy of standing on the balcony of that unfinished building later that night and drifting off into a short-lived dream world. Ah, life is short and yesterday and tomorrow are always dreams, but I think I prefer those moments which make up the “Tallahassee dream” to most of my others. They were so lazy and warm, and yet so full of the rare tension of being almost in love. I was never quite sure what I was thinking then, but now that I look back, I think that's what it was: being “almost in love” and not understanding any of it, least of all what it meant to be in love. And I'm not even sure that I do now, especially after realizing that sex without love is as hollow and ridiculous as love without sex.

But that is neither here nor there: I'm sure this isn't the kind of response you expected when you wrote your letter, so let us steer once again into the realm of the reasonable, leaving questions of sex, love, and recurring dreams to a later date.

As for your questions as to what I'm doing, I can only say that I'm not quite sure myself. Living in New York is like discovering life all over again. In all seriousness, living here has been like waking up in an endlessly fascinating and completely different world from everything I've ever known. Having my own apartment in Greenwich Village, working in Rockefeller Plaza, riding up and down Fifth Avenue every day, standing on an East River dock at dawn and seeing the Empire State Building towering above this incredible skyline, meeting the thousands of people from every corner of America: the whole thing still seems a little unreal. And, brash as it may seem, I know I'm not going to be able to end this letter without giving you a standing invitation to come up and see me. If there's anything that could make living here any better, I think it would be having you here with me—if only to show you that the dreams you dream on boring nights in Tallahassee can be a reality if you only look hard enough. And I shouldn't have said “boring,” because that's the last term I'd apply to Tallahassee. I might possibly have been restless there, but never bored. And I think I'd be restless anywhere, at least until my blood cools down a bit. But I'm not even looking forward to that for a while. Life just seems too huge and too fascinating for me to begin thinking about curing my restlessness at this stage of the game. Maybe later.

I was absolutely serious, though, when I issued my invitation. I can't think of anything I'd enjoy more right now than introducing New York to Ann Frick. (And I suppose it would be a little sneaky of me to neglect to say that there are few things I'd enjoy more than seeing Ann Frick again—but I promised not to say things like that, so we'll just leave it unsaid, but understood.) I am capable of maintaining a platonic relationship—I suppose.

But since you said that you
hoped
to find work after you finish with your fellowship tours, I thought it would be hardly decent of me to allow you to pass up the idea of looking around New York. Note the ad I clipped out of
The Village Voice.
What could be easier—for you, anyway?

And, incidentally, I shouldn't have waited this long to congratulate you on winning this fellowship. I hope you have a great time in St. Louis and in Michigan, and I wish you all the luck in the world in your teaching. I'd tell you a few people to get in touch with in St. Louis, but they're all degenerates, so I'm afraid I'll have to let you go it alone. Rest assured that it's the best way.

I'm expecting a friend of mine from Yale to arrive sometime early tomorrow, so I think I'd best get a little sleep. I'll close this with something very close to a demand that you write immediately and let me know if you'll be able to ride the Staten Island Ferry with me sometime before the summer ends. I refuse to even consider any alternatives or excuses, and I
trust you realize that I'm absolutely serious. You know how I am about polite banalities.

So until then, I remain, incorrigibly and affectionately (and still remembering exactly what it was like to be “almost in love”)……

Hunto

TO LARRY CALLEN
:

Callen was still stationed in Iceland, also hoping to be a writer someday.

June 6, 1958
57 Perry Street
New York City

Dear Larry,

You have been singled out to bear the brunt of a nightmare, something very close to the alcoholic demise of a man who never quite seems to have a grip on things. Bear with me.

My apartment, once the scene of lazy sex and quiet privacy, has erupted during the past two weeks into a virtual cave of howling drunken insanity. There are people sleeping everywhere—on my bed, on the couch, on the cot, and even on sleeping bags on the floor. Everything in the place is covered with stale beer, most of my records are ruined, every piece of linen, towel, or clothing in the place is filthy, the dishes haven't been washed in weeks, the neighbors have petitioned the landlord to have me evicted, my sex life has been absolutely smashed, I have no money, no food, no privacy, and certainly no peace of mind. And on top of all this, I get on the average of one letter a day informing me that someone else is on his way to New York to “see me.”

The place looks like a goddamn interracial hotel. I have with me now one law student, one rum-soaked philosopher, and one negro painter. Due within two weeks are a zoologist and a professional lease-breaker from New Orleans, a girl from Boston, and a fanatical nihilist from Louisville. And in the next few months I expect not only my brother, but Pete Goodman from Eglin, girls from Baltimore, St. Louis, and Tallahassee, and a tyro dramatist from New Mexico. And god only knows who else. These are only the ones I've heard from.

Last Monday and Tuesday, the law student and I consumed twenty-one quarts of beer. In the three days since then, we've more than tripled that. The record player goes at top volume both day and night—no one works—and the police have been called on me three times within the past week. There is baggage everywhere, huge paintings are piled in every corner,
the floor is an inch deep in scum, there is not a goddamn scrap of food anywhere, no one has any money, and wild jungle music drowns out all thought. I am hounded by creditors, bugged by the police, threatened with eviction, seriously considering murder, and stone broke. Fortunately—and somehow—I've managed to hold onto my job at
Time.
Which goes to show that perfection is still impossible.

A typical day, just for the record. I woke up at six this morning, met a girl from Louisville at the Port Authority Terminal at seven, came back to the apartment for breakfast and a bout with the drunken law student, nearly became involved in a sex orgy, and finally got to work about eleven. After a hectic and confusing day at work, I arrived back here at seven-thirty to find the philosopher and the painter spewing blood all over the apartment and trading sarcasms with the law student. I had a date at ten, ran into another girl on the way to my dates apartment, and tarried long enough to miss my date. Bought several quarts of beer and broke in on a girl who already had a date. Left feeling like an ass. Arrived back here and spent an abortive hour trying to get hold of my original date. Failed. Am waiting now for the horde to return for another night-long drinking bout. The girl from Louisville left for a weekend in Boston at eleven this morning. She will return Monday. What then?

Frankly, there is nothing to do but drink. There are more quarts of beer in here than there are dead roaches. We don't kill them anymore—just wound them and let them writhe and die wherever they please. Broken glass is everywhere.

And this used to be MY apartment! It was where I wrote and brought dates when I had no money, where I sat and listened to music and read and ate. It was MINE, my own—and now it's a sinkhole of noise and drink, a sort of human cesspool with ever-changing ingredients. And god only knows what will happen tomorrow.

And that's about it. I feel better now that I've put it in order and gotten it down on paper. It has changed from nightmare to nightmarish reality.

Write—and give me a ring when you get back in New York. Maybe I'll be alive.

Cheerio …
HST

TO LARRY CALLEN
:

With the literary world abuzz about the so-called Beat Generation and the Angry Young Men, Thompson ponders whether he is a writer of “action” (Hemingway, Kerouac) or of “thought” (Joyce, Faulkner).

July 4, 1958
Time & Life Building
Rockefeller Center
New York

Dear Larry,

Well, I've finally managed to sit down at a typewriter: it's been a long, hard month. It's one that I'm going to have to write off as a total loss, work-wise, and a hellish experience, living-wise. I've consumed an ungodly amount of liquid spirits, given in completely to the sexual spirit, and thrown all the other spirits to hell. There are sweet little southern girls here too, but they seem to be a little different here than they are in their natural setting. I thought I was a pretty hardened lecher, but even I have paled more than once at the sight of the “sweet little ole southern (or midwestern) mask” slipping off to reveal a gin-inflamed bitch in heat. Carry me back to the womb, Daddy, just like you done with so many others!

But as Scott Fitzgerald must have said to himself more than once: “now is the time to get a grip.” I have to pay the rent with this paycheck, so my task will be that much easier. No more buying a fifth of McCarthy Square gin each night, no more damn cab races to the Plaza fountain or the East River for a morning “dip,” no more five-course dinners on the balcony, or cocktails on the roof, or all-night orgies, or theatres: in short, the squeeze is on us; the party is over—at least for two weeks. Then I'll have money again. (Overindulgence, thy name is Hunter!)

But even though all these are pretty overt signs of galloping dissipation, they really aren't my main source of concern. The real difference between this latest binge and all the others of the past two years is that I seem to have lost what I think is the most important thing a writer can have: the ability to live with constant loneliness and a strong sense of revulsion for the banalities of everyday socializing. It just doesn't seem very important anymore that I write. I can understand this, I think, in light of what I call “the psychology of imposition.” This theory holds that the most overriding of all human desires is the need to amount to something. I'm not talking about the old Horatio Alger gimmick, but the more basic desire to know that your life means something. As Faulkner says, writing is his way of saying “Kilroy was here,” of imposing himself, however briefly, on reality. If only for an instant, the image of the man is imposed on the chaotic mainstream of life and it remains there forever: order out of chaos, meaning out of meaninglessness. Just as some people turn to religion to find meaning, the writer turns to his craft and tries to impose meaning, or to sift the meaning out of chaos and put it in order.