Proud Highway:Saga of a Desperate Southern Gentleman (45 page)

Now I am getting tired—and hungry—and I would give a nut to be able to step over to the icebox and find a bowl of tuna fish, a jar of hot peppers and a bottle of Ballantine ale. But no more. No, all I have now are the dregs of a bottle of wine ($1.14 a gallon), a wad of salami, and a shaky credit with the mailman—who also brings groceries. Somehow, we are having a 20 lb. turkey for Christmas. A crazed Tzarist writer, 60 years old and lecherous as a young bull, has come up with a monster turkey—and every winehead in Big Sur will be here to pick it clean. All week long we had the terrible public gluts, with bearded thieves hustling out of barns and shacks to share in the abundance brought in by the Big Momma from Sandusky. Every day I drove up to the mailbox in a sleek white convertible—top down and bare-chested, of course—and greeted the postman with a wide, opulent smile. Now, my credit is like Fort Knox—although he keeps asking why I don't drive my car anymore. I tell him I need the exercise.

I presume, of course, that you're picking up on my stuff in the
Trib
. Another one came out recently, and now they want something on Big Sur. If they paid anything, I might hustle for them. But they don't. Also selling an occasional story to the
Courier-Journal
, but the combined total is not even enough to keep me in wine. The Big Money is just around the corner, of course, and it won't be long before I get my hands on it. And then, by jesus, a Crotchdance of such heinous proportions as to whiten the hair of every Rotarian from Newark to Muscle Beach. […]

Unless the Big Money comes in by January 1, we'll head back to San Francisco & probably put Sandy to work. Suppose we'll get an apt., so come on out for a visit if you think you can stand the gaff. I keep applying for jobs and people keep running me out of offices because of my hair and my pipe-thing. Clancy is out here, doing six months in the Army just up the coast in Monterey, and once in a while he comes down for a bit of wine and a Sheep's Head [ale].

That's just about the score on this end. What the hell are you doing? Maxine didn't seem to know & I can only guess. I predict firestorms before summer, followed by a massive shitrain to finish us off. Until then, I shall prevail.

Pompously,
Hunter

 

Hunter and Sandy at their Big Sur home
. (P
HOTO BY
H
UNTER
S. T
HOMPSON
;
COURTESY OF
HST C
OLLECTION
)

Thompson at Big Sur
. (P
HOTO BY
J
O
H
UDSON; COURTESY OF
HST C
OLLECTION
)

Thompson's favorite portrait of his friend Paul Semonin
. (P
HOTO BY
H
UNTER
S. T
HOMPSON; COURTESY OF
HST C
OLLECTION
)

Thompson became known as “The Outlaw of Big Sur.”
(C
OURTESY OF
HST C
OLLECTION
)

Joan Baez was Thompson's Big Sur neighbor
. (P
HOTO BY
H
UNTER
S. T
HOMPSON; COURTESY OF
HST C
OLLECTION
)

1961

HARD TRAVELER COMES TO BIG SUR … GREAT LEAPS OF A FREE–LANCE WRITER … $780 A YEAR … THE SOUTH COAST IS A WILD COAST AND LONELY … THE SECRET PASSIONS OF JOAN BAEZ KILLING PIGS AND SELLING DOGS …

Now, thirty-three years old and looking fifty, his spirit broken and his body swollen with drink, he bounced from one country to another, hiring himself out as a reporter and hanging on until he was fired. Disgusting as he usually was, on rare occasions he showed flashes of a stagnant intelligence. But his brain was so rotted with drink and dissolute living that whenever he put it to work it behaved like an old engine that had gone haywire from being dipped in lard.

–Hunter S. Thompson,

“The Rum Diary” (unpublished novel)

 

 

TO PAUL SEMONIN
:

Upon returning to the United States from Bermuda, Semonin spent a few months in both New York and San Francisco. Unable to find meaningful employment in either city, he moved to Aspen, Colorado, in December 1960, urging his best buddy, Thompson, to join him in the Rockies, where “the living is easy.”

January 6, 1961
Big Sur, California

Dear Mr. Semonin:

Your query concerning “pleasure spots” was referred to me by Mr. Thompson, who was kidnapped by queers on New Year's Eve and borne off to the south country. His widow has made an unnatural connection with the Slime God, and cannot at the moment deal with your correspondence. For that reason, I, the county Boarmaster, was called in to sock the deal home. My findings are listed below.

After driving some 21 miles today, the last three of them up a steep canyon full of redwoods, I came on a place called Upper Greenwood Shack. I drove these miles in an off-shift Willys Jeep with a deaf woman, and could not therefore express my dismay that we had come to a place called Moe Canyon—and at the end of this canyon rested a black shack which I (we) entered for the purpose of assay. The innards were bare and cold, but I was instantly struck with the resemblance of this abode to a dark hole once inhabited by an artist friend of mine who has since retired into the hash business. My first thought, upon seeing the skylight in the ceiling, was, “By George, how that fellow could deal with this place.” This suspicion was further strengthened when I made a full tour of the place for the purpose of loot. It was full of books and sweaters, a good many of which the deaf woman and I carried off for the purpose of enrichment. Now I want you to understand that a bearded artist has been trying to zip this place off on Mr. Thompson for the sum of $40 per month—but Mr. Thompson does not see it so much as a “pleasure spot” as a place where he will freeze
his strained and itching balls. Mr. Thompson is (was) a lover of the sea, you know, and he feels (felt) that a place on the shore would be more to his taste. And also better for his strained and itching balls. Warmth, you know. Mr. Thompson likes (liked) warmth.