Proud Highway:Saga of a Desperate Southern Gentleman (55 page)

1962

FUCK YOU, I QUIT … THE ARTIST FLEES TO THE ANDES … WHISKEY WITH INDIANS, CHAMPAGNE WITH BOBBY KENNEDY … IN ARUBA WITH $30 … DESPERATE DAYS WITH SMUGGLERS … EIGHT DAYS ON A BEER BARGE … DEMOCRACY DIES IN PERU, CHECKS BOUNCE IN LA PAZ … THE KING OF COPACABANA BEACH …

In Puerto Estrella, Colombia, there is little to do but talk. It is difficult to say just what the villagers are talking about, however, because they speak their own language—a tongue called Guajiro, a bit like Arabic, which doesn't ring well in a white man's ear.

Usually they are talking about smuggling, because this tiny village with thatched roof huts and a total population of about 100 South American Indians is a very important port of entry. Not for humans, but for items like whiskey and tobacco and jewelry. It is not possible for a man to get there by licensed carrier, because there are no immigration officials and no customs. There is no law at all, in fact, which is precisely why Puerto Estrella is such an important port.

 

 

TO PAUL SEMONIN
:

Thompson was staying with Sandy Conklin in New York for a few weeks before shoving off for South America; Semonin was about to move to Ghana
.

January 21, 1962
c/o Reynolds
531 E. 81 Street
New York City

Dear Bigwind—

Your last letter, as you must realize in retrospect, contained a lot more smoke than fire. Your last few letters, for that matter, have been extremely wordy without saying much of anything. Although I still have a great deal of confidence in you, I would feel less than honest if I failed to warn you against the danger of taking yourself too seriously. It can do a man in. Especially when it comes to dealing with a watchdog like me, who is armed with other, earlier, sharper, less inflated letters from a man who once saw the world through the quick mean eyes of a sketchmaster.

So much for that. Probably I am sounding here like McGarr, whose habit is to start every letter with a noisy smack at the last one he received.

Nonetheless, since you say in para #2, “I am leaning into this thing, but swinging wide,” I can only assume that you thought you knew what you were doing. And you did, in a roundabout way, since the tone of that letter by itself was enough to put me off of all things European. It was a relief, in a way, to get the thing—vague and full of Charles Goren images though it was. You must be playing a hell of a lot of bridge over there. No wonder you want to come home. Wherever in hell that is. But you'll have to pardon me for not having the faintest idea what the fuck a trump card is … except that it sounds big and bad … and since that “is about all (you) can say now,” you'll have to admit that it doesn't leave me with much to go on. Except that you play a lot of bridge over there, and I am not much on that, as you know.

I am not much on these aerograms either, since a man can see his limits before he starts, so I'll head out here with a big stack of paper behind me and enough stamps to cover just about any weight I care to write.

I, of course, am in New York, the homeland of the uprooted. America's marketplace. And no one with a grain of sense would go to a public market to seek a place to live. Except the sick, and the tortured, and those who think that everything you see in a market grew there. Nothing grows in a market except the wads of those who buy and sell. No greenery. For that, you move out, and on, find a bit of space.

For that, I propose to move on, to the biggest outest place I can find on the map—South America. Yeah. I sense a massive grapple there, a tree un-felled, a fucking giant as it were, and when if falls there will be enough noise to shake even Noël Coward out of his seat at the UN. (Think.) Lift him like an overripe toadstool with no weight at all and the consistency of silly putty. Ziff. No more.

I see the last frontier down there—the last decent frontier anyway. Granting that Africa may be another, I feel a real difference in the way a man could deal with it. Nothing less than a .44 Magnum in Africa and don't even worry about the language barrier. Who needs it? Let those crazy niggers cut up a few more people and toss the pieces to a few more crowds and I'll be ready to join just about any team that wants to go in after them. Somewhere along the line almost any human can go past the point where he can expect the right to anything except a big slug in the belly and a quick crowded grave.

Seems funny saying that and listening to Leadbelly at the same time. Another nigger singing about “Mean Ole Frisco.” Ah, we have branded ourselves with those singing niggers and their ghosts will outlive us all. Nonetheless, we are born in that shadow and not without a lot of good things too, so I'd like to think it balances out. And it will, but not if we stay in the market or anywhere near it.

Sweating like hell now, dizzy with a bad new cold, sitting here with coffee and scotch and Coricidin and pondering a world map all day. Like you, sort of. But you seem to have got on a rather dark experiment. Is Europe really that dull? Hard for me, with my myths and insulation, to believe. Although you have never really answered my question about balls, I take it that Europe is like an old man who refuses to admit that his have gone stale. Tough.

We shall see about South America. I think I will go to San Juan ($45), then to Aruba ($30), then over to Trinidad to establish an outpost with Jenny's parents.
¹
Then down whichever coast I can find a boat on. Maybe
for a long time, hopefully to seek a high spot in a new world, a vantage point with plenty of room to shoot and roam.

By the time I shove off my $900 will have shrunk to about $600, what with paying my debts (McGarr, Joel, etc.), and that will be my fortune. $600 and a huge goddamn continent to deal with. I will go alone, of course. We have already talked that out. This is not a tandem type move. I sort of hate to miss Europe, and I urge you to fill me with enough wisdom about it as you can pack in your rotten aerograms. I will do the same. Why don't you try Russia? That would be a real place to know. Who the shit cares whether England sinks or swims? Or France or Spain or Italy, for that matter. If they make it at all, it will be like a big housing project in the middle of a bigger and meaner city. Germany, of course, still retains the power and the ironical position to do us all in. How this came to be will remain one of the great curiosities of our history. If they get the bomb they could be at least as dangerous as the red chinks with the same weapon. May god forgive the man who signs it over to them. And somebody will.

Now, back to your letter. Why on earth you think I'd come to Europe to see Cathedrals or Renaissance Masters is beyond my ken. Perhaps you were just practicing what you later meant to say to Bingham,
²
who has said the same thing in different ways.

I would advise you, if you mean to deal with the big picture, to learn as much about the big facts as possible. And that means digging in files and talking to factmongers and wasting a lot of time in search of pertinent details. For instance, Europe will indeed have something to say about what goes on in the rest of the world and if you come up with the flat statement that it won't, you might look a bit silly. One of the 3 big issues before this session of Congress is how to deal with the reality of an economic U.S. of Europe. Simple production figures and gross national products will tell you this. It may not last, of course, but then neither will a bomb. But it can cause a lot of humbug before it goes off, and even more when it does.

You won't pay any attention to this, of course, but I thought I'd toss it in—along with the added advice of beginning with subjects least likely to be contradicted or called into question by people who think they know a lot more about them than you do. You say, for instance, that Spain will undoubtedly go Communist and you will get a lot of noisy shit, perhaps even from the editor you send it to. If, on the other hand, you tell exactly how one frustrated Spaniard spends his waking hours, damn few people are going to be in a position to say you're wrong.

Take that for what it's worth. I have not sent the
Courier-Journal
anything since they refused to use my Big Sur piece, so you are welcome to all you can beat them for. I warn you, however, that they thought that piece I did on you was “a real honey,” and the only two things they bounced were 2 of the best I've done. Good Luck.

Which reminds me, I heard you denounced as “utterly worthless” in Louisville. Because you “weren't doing anything.” When I opined that I was just about as worthless, on the same scale, I was told that I was ok because I got “things published.” This implied, I then said, that I owed everything I was to the
Courier-Journal
, which published the only things this young lady had read. Until then, I was utterly worthless. Then
Rogue
vindicated me further. This seemed to stump her and I had a fine time from then on in, heaping one vicious logic upon the other, and finally driving her to the position of having to admit that you would be far more worthy than her own husband, the moment any publication accepted your work. At this, her husband got ugly and we changed the subject. I was not invited there again. […]

One more point I contest—I doubt that a man has to go to Europe, or anywhere, for that matter, to understand the important things about this country. Maybe he has to go to Europe to be prodded into articulating them, or before they seem worth talking about, but I think we have enough space and perspective over here so a man can step off into a corner and get a pretty good view. And if he has reason enough to think about what he sees, it might be that he can leave Europe alone. I say this because none of what you say about that place sounds new to me. I have a feeling that I've heard or read it all sometime before. As a matter of fact I read some of it very recently in a column by Mr. [Walter] Lippmann—in the
Courier-Journal
, of all places. If I'm right on this, I can get away with letting you do my learning for me, and then pumping you.

As for that, it might be a while before I get within range. You say you are going “home” in June. Where in the name of god is home? If you know that, you have found something important. Anyway, I hope to leave long before that, probably in a month or so, and I will try to tempt Hudson into sailing his 3-winged monster down that way to join me. If you like that sort of thing, you might tuck an idea away in your mind for further use just about the time you get back. He plans to shove off for somewhere “in the summer” and I am damn sure he'd welcome you aboard. But that is a long way off, eh? I will leave you with my tentative plans to head south in the near future, and await further word from you. For god's sake keep your next one unfogged by the lingo of the bridge table. Those images are foreign to me and when I read one that is underlined
I feel that I'm missing the very core of what you say. If you must speak in swirls, use the argot of the damned—I can understand that.

Buenos dinga, H

In preparation for his journey to Latin America—and a planned jaguar hunt in Colombia—Thompson joined the NRA in search of information about foreign gun laws
.

January 25, 1962
c/o Reynolds
531 E. 81 Street
New York City

Membership Director
National Rifle Assn.
1600 Rhode Island Ave. NW
Washington, DC

Dear Sir:

I have been on the move ever since I sent you a membership application form last fall when I was living in Big Sur, California, so I have no idea what my status is at the moment. As I recall, the membership fee is $5, which I enclose. If I'm wrong on this please let me know.

I have an interesting reason for sending the money at this time. Since leaving California I have been made aware of not a few stringent and oppressive laws and regulations concerning the bearing of firearms. They seemed to become more numerous and intense as I came east—and culminated here in New York where a man is almost afraid to mention the word “gun.” As I understand it, the NRA is the only organization that actively—or effectively—opposes this type of regulation, and if that's true, then $5 is precious little to pay in order to have a voice and a hand in trying to cope with them.

Then too, I am preparing for a long trip to South America, and the regulations down there seem nearly as bad as those in New York. I'm told, for instance, that under no circumstances will I be allowed to take a pistol into the country—any country. This applies even to a photographer whose primary assignment is to cover jaguar-hunting, where a camera, plus a big revolver, is not a bad combination.

If you have any information that would help me in South America—names & locations of gun or hunting clubs, special dispensations for hunters, etc.—I would certainly appreciate anything you can give me.