Proud Highway:Saga of a Desperate Southern Gentleman (76 page)

You hit a nerve when you said you may have more faith in the U.S. than I do. I think you might, and on top of that I'll give you another irony—I think I may be much closer to a “ ‘ding dong' revolutionary” than you are. I know you'll balk at that, but I reason it this way: No “revolutionary” has any hope as long as he's willing to deal with the Established Order on its own terms and in its own context. The only Revolution I would bet on would be one that set out to kill the roots and break all the dies of the System that came before. This is what I am pondering now, for at least I think I see the real choice, which I'm not sure you do. But then, as we've agreed, you really haven't put much of your plan on the line except to say that it's great.

Let me give you an example. As I see it, the best hope for South America is to export every gringo on the continent and sever all ties. But what then? Who would pay the bills? Surely not the Latins, because they don't have a dime that hasn't been salted away in Swiss banks. So they try to play it halfway, and they keep losing when the chips go down.

They threaten, they bluff, and they finally take the payoff, in cash or some other form. Maybe the Africans are different, I can't say. Castro has thrown off one bogeyman, only to be confronted with two more. I read Sartre's thing
³
and agree with it. But he has no answers. In spots, his rhetoric is worse than mine. There isn't space here on this rotten thing to go into that now. I'm not sure what I've said here; maybe it's just that I won't play the Big Game until it stops looking phony. The best I can do is keep my tools sharp and wait for the honest opening—and decide, in the meantime, if it makes sense to kill the only roots we have.

HST

Thompson was on assignment in Denver for
The Reporter;
Martin was his editor. This letter was written in the wake of violent clashes between U.S. troops and Panamanian mobs
.

January 12, 1964
Heart O'Denver Motor Hotel

Dear Mr. Martin:

By God, it's nice to have a letterhead for a change. The bill for it will be overwhelming; I will undoubtedly have to get more money from you before I can settle up and leave town.

I trust you accepted my call the other night in the same good spirit in which it was made. I was—needless to say—as drunk as a loon and without a whole hell of a lot to say. You fielded that wild bounce like a christian. I had emerged from a negro jazz club—Denver's only—and picked up an early edition of the
Rocky Mountain News
, a typical Scripps-Howard throw-away that circulates out here for the benefit of ex-cowboys on the dole. I read page one as I walked along East Colfax in the snow, and it suddenly dawned on me that our LatAm policy was at an end and that I should attend the funeral in Panama. Upon more sober consideration, however, I came to feel that the real story will be had at the U.N. and at various Latin embassies in Washington—and then only for those with good contacts. We are now at one of those climax points like in the old westerns, when the hero stands up and yells, “All right, this is it, by god—who's with me?” And then you get that long scriptwriter's pause that puts everybody in a tense forward lean like Lyndon Johnson must be in right now. Who, indeed, is with us? As far as sentiment is concerned, nobody. Not even Olde England. But there is always dollar diplomacy, and I think we will see some of it before this thing is done. I think also that you may come around in the near future to a point where you will be able to see the pertinence of LatAm stories—or at least pertinent LatAm stories, which are scarce these days, even in places where they use that term, “LatAm.” OK for that.

As for the rest of what we talked about, I am hard pressed to recollect it, except that you liked that one take on Glen Ellen, and that I should call you again before leaving Denver. If I said anything of a violent, abusive or presumptuous nature, I trust it blew away in the midnight winds. I am half mad from the silence I have imposed upon myself in Woody Creek, and when I find myself among human beings I tend to explode.

But I've been pretty calm here. Too calm, in fact; for a good story. I need arguments and the chance to carry inflammatory quotes from one side to the other.

The enclosed clip should give you an idea where the story stands right now. Nowhere. The Gov [John Love] is running a delayed buck. He's in trouble—with both parties—but so far we have no real idea what he's up to. I have talked to local pundits and drawn a blank. The consensus holds that no action will come until the Budget Message, the date of which has not been announced. Tomorrow I will try to talk to the governor, but I know damn well what I'll get from him. I still have a chance tonight to get hold of ex-Gov Steve McNichols, due back from Washington in a half-hour or so, and he may give me a peg.

I don't mean to make it sound worse than it is. At worst, I can do enough research to get a first draft done, then update it when the Gov makes his move(s). My contacts so far seem decent in a vague sort of way, and spread from Right to Left on the big spectrum. Out here, however, the spectrum doesn't even take in what you call the Left in the East. Those people are “Reds.” An official of the Democratic party was just ousted (tentatively) because of a prior association with the Fair Play for Cuba Committee. I am, of course, keeping my opinions on Señor Nixon close under my bonnet. We are, as you said, an “objective” publication—and it is only after midnight that I let my fangs slip out, and only then in good company. Which is rare out here.

Right after talking to you the other night I thought, “Well, that Martin sounds like a good fellow—I'll go see him.” So I called United Airlines and arranged for a flight out on Wed. night at $200 round trip. The next morning I cancelled it, citing “business reasons.” But I'll get there as soon as I can find a good excuse. I have a chance to do some inflammatory copy for the
Saturday Evening Post
and may use that for an excuse. Or pursuit of that thing that is always just around the corner—that is why I go most places, so it should serve for New York. At least it has in the past. A fellow I know who wrote a book called it “The bright and shining thing, that sense of morning, in a cool sun, before the hot afternoon.” At least that's more or less what he said.

Which hardly matters, really. The fact is that I will get to New York as soon as I find myself—probably at some unlikely or inconvenient time—with access to the fare. If Wednesday is a warm night, with a touch of the Tulamore Dew [Irish whiskey], I may do it then. At any rate it will have to be soon; I have a sunbeam to catch, and a marriage to prevent. With apologies to your secretary.

More of our talk is filtering back, now. I recall a mention of
The Fun House
.
⁴

I think you wanted a review. Excellent. We will give him a fang job, so as to keep sharp for Señor Nixon. They are not as different as they seem at a glance.

That gives me three things to work on for you, plus a handful of others for the
Observer
. With luck, I will get half of them done. I am doing for the
Observer
here, by the way, a newsy piece on hearings concerning a Wilderness Bill, so I'll bill them for the two days or so of my expenses. Maybe I told you that. If not, it's true & I want it made part of the record. Even so, I will need more money before I leave here.

You can count on “a story” out of Denver, but I can't say when until I know more of what the Gov means to do with his crisis. Maybe I'll know more by the time I call—probably Tuesday afternoon. At any rate, I'll get enough while I'm here so I can round up the rest by phone.

That about wraps it up for now. See you in the nearest reasonable future.

Hunter S. Thompson

January 28, 1964
Woody Creek

Dwight—

I think it is outrageous that a cheap thing like a publication date could influence your decision to review a book.
The Fun House
is a timeless social document, pertinent to all ages. I urge you to Think Big and reconsider this small-minded error. A book shot through with such galloping insight is in fact a beacon for young and old alike, and should be dealt with as such.

As for my Denver piece I would like to seize this opportunity to say I have never read a more brilliant prospectus. If this hair-brained Thompson fellow could actually write the three articles he flirts with in those 17 pages he would be a goddamn champion. As it is, I believe the article gives you a fine opportunity to find out how many of your readers are on their toes. Also keep in mind that we live in the age of the Package Deal.

I am working at this time on a short piece called “Aspen, or Deviations on a Theme.” It will not be a blockbuster, but it might be coherent. I am trying to scale down my themes. Your publication schedule is too brutal. It is bad enough to have to deal with the Myth of the West at any time, but to have to do it with one eye on two days' notice is more than a white man should have to bear. I was all set with a nice little bear-trap for the Governor, a week of private eye work amid the vagaries of the Colorado budget—but maybe it's just as well this way, because in a pure money-politics piece I would never have been able to use those two lead paragraphs, which, if published, will surely become immortal.

My eye is coming around, which is a good thing because it is crucial that I recognize the game warden's jeep at a great distance.
⁵
You know, of course, that the biggest single question of our time concerns the validity of “The Profit Motive.” I am not, however, prepared to do that one at this time. Put your Africa man on it, because it is over there where the European expatriates (Frantz Fanon and Co.) are gathering for the Great Wake. Maybe a good lead would be this: The theories behind the new governments in Africa today are not African at all, but European. Maybe that will make the white people feel better. A focus on the Institute for African Studies in Legon (Accra), Ghana. That is the theoretical headwaters for everything that is going on in Africa. I believe there is a lot to be had over there, although—and I repeat—I am not up to it at this time with my wife about to drop a child in my lap at any moment.

Ate logo
—HST

Thompson critiqued Lionel Olay's most recent contribution to
Cavalier—
an article about the influence of Asian culture on the U.S. West—and shared shoptalk with a fellow free-lancer
.

January 29, 1964
Woody Creek, Colorado

Dear Lionel:

You are enough of a pro so I shouldn't have to say that your most recent piece was well done; that should be taken for granted. But what was it? I submit this: A Zen, Hip, Loverly, Maileresque Cop-Out. Pretty shitty and mean, eh? Especially since you said nice things about my Louisville piece. But they were far from the same. Mine was good journalism, nothing more. Yours is a significant contribution to the literature of phony revelation. Mailer, having failed to write what he always wanted to, has become the undisputed champ in that field. It is like a frustrated animal, biting on his tail. I had a coati in Brazil that drew blood on himself whenever he couldn't deal with reality.
⁶
But shit, Scott Fitzgerald came a lot closer to putting his soul on paper than either you or Mailer have ever dreamed of doing, mescaline or no. But Scott was embarrassed about it, and other people had to find him out, while the Mailer ethic is to make it very plain beforehand that he is “about to spill his guts”—which might be interesting if
he ever really did it, but he always holds back. Now it has become his technique; it is sort of like bargaining with a Mexican street-merchant—you pull out all the money you have, except for the book of traveler's checks, and make a Final Offer for whatever it is you want. Hell, show it to him—coins, bills, the whole wad, and let him know he's pushed you as far as you can go—except for the traveler's checks.

At one point—“in the full flush of the experience”—you say you “feel holy.… What I mean is I feel as if I'm radiating glowing, and that it is in my power to bless things, which I have an urge to do. It's late at night, and what I'd like to do is stop for a while and search out some human companionship.…”

Hell, I feel that way every time I get drunk. Last week in Denver with
The Reporter
paying my expenses I spent all night on the long-distance telephone, blessing people and stabbing at human contact. Mostly women, so don't feel offended that you were left out; if I'd called you I probably would have wanted to talk to Beverly. The point is not that I'm exceptional for doing a thing like that, but that it's a damn common feeling and if that's all mescaline can do for me, I'll stick with Old Crow.

I won't begrudge you your feelings, and I can't really argue with them, for that matter, but let's call a spade a spade. It was really an apologia, and the real tip-off came when you said, “All we have to worry about is the nervous ones who have to prove something that can never be proved and are prepared to goof the whole shot just to make their noise.” Well I hope I still have enough balls to qualify under that definition, and, given reasonable odds I'd bet you feel the same way. Granted, I don't know you real well, but I'm pretty good at catching true scents and I honestly don't think you believe what you wrote. Why don't you take whatever pill it is that really opens a man up? Given a real truth serum, I think you could probably stand people's hair on end. In the meantime—or until you can swallow the real dingdong—my best advice would be to forgo Mailer's technique. He is now so bad I can't even read him, and I used to think he was the secret weapon. I knocked him, but only because I hoped it would prod him to focus down on the real business—but now he's just dull and fat, and for my money that
Esquire
novel is his swan-song.
⁷
I read a few paragraphs, then turned to Dwight McDonald, who is at least entertaining. Your
Cavalier
piece, for that matter, was better than any of Mailer's current stuff, but you seem to be gripped with the idea of competing with the fat bastard, and it just ain't worth it. Let him go; he's getting upwards of $25,000 a year to work out his death-dance, although I think if I had a talent like he had (had) I would ask twice as much when I decided to put it on the block.