“Well, I’m going to,” I said. “What happens then?”
He turned away. “I’ll call the cops,” he said. “I’ll get fired if I don’t. And I’m sure as hell not comin’ in after you.”
“You could shoot me,” I said, walking over to the edge of the pool. “Blow me out of the water; claim you thought I was a shark.”
He smiled and turned away as I dove into the pool . . . and 15 or 20 laps later I looked up to see two city cops with flashlights pointing down at me. “Okay fella,” said one, “come on outta there. You’re under arrest.”
“What for?”
“You know,” said the other. “Let’s go.”
They took me up to the lobby to see the night manager, who declined to press charges when he realized I was a paying hotel guest.
My bill was running around $85 a day at that point and, besides that, I was registered as “press.” So the matter was dismissed without rancor when I agreed to go back to my room.
We went through the same motions 24 hours later, and also on the third & fourth night . . . but on the fifth night, for some reason, the pool guard said nothing at all when I appeared. I said “hello” and started taking off my clothes, expecting him to head for the house phone on that pole out in the middle of the patio that he’d used on the other nights . . . but he just stood there and watched me dive in. Then he spent the next 45 minutes pointedly ignoring me . . . and at one point, just as dawn was coming up, he chased a videotape crew away from the pool when they tried to film me swimming. When they asked why I could swim and they couldn’t even walk around on the patio, he just shook his head and pointed his billy club toward the exit door.
I never asked him why. When I finally felt tired enough to sleep, I climbed out of the pool and yelled “thanks” as I waved to him and went back inside. He waved back, then resumed his bored pacing around the patio. Moments later, up in my oceanfront room on the sixth floor, I looked down and saw him leaning on the railing and staring out to sea at the sunrise, his billy club dangling idly from his right wrist and his cop’s hat pushed back on his head. I wondered what he was thinking about: A young black “private” cop, maybe 25 or 30 years old, spending every night of the week, all night—8:00 P.M. to 8:00 A.M.—enforcing a bogus law that probably didn’t even say, if you read it carefully, that nobody could swim in a big empty pool built illegally on public property (his beachfront) by the wealthy white owners of a Miami Beach hotel. During one of my conversations with the night manager at the Doral, he had hinted that the “no swimming” rule had its origins more in the hotel’s insurance policy than in any municipal law.
I watched the cop for a while, wondering if George McGovern upstairs in the penthouse might also be looking down at him . . . but probably not, I thought: McGovern might be up there, but if he was, I figured he was probably looking out to sea, squinting through the glass sight of that big .358 Weatherby Magnum he liked to use on sharks. It was a strange vision: the Democratic nominee, braced at sunrise on the ledge of his penthouse in Miami, scanning the dawn surf for the cruising, thin gray edge of a Hammerhead fin; his rifle cocked, with the strap curled around his left arm and a Bloody Mary on the table beside him, killing sharks to keep his mind loose on his morning of triumph.
Indeed. McGovern had become The Candidate, and as the senior correspondent in the McGovern press corps, I felt a certain obligation to know exactly what he was doing and thinking at that hour. What would he have said if I had called up there on the phone and said I was about to go on NBC-TV and say McGovern had spent his morning blasting sharks with a huge Weatherby Magnum from the patio of his penthouse on top of the Doral Beach Hotel?
I had been tempted to make the call, if only to jerk him around a bit and make him get Frank Mankiewicz out of bed to draft a denial for the press conference that would almost certainly have followed such an ugly revelation . . . but I decided against it; I needed some sleep, and if I had made a call like that, I knew sleep would be out of the question. It would have generated trouble, and I figured it would probably result in getting myself publicly denounced as a Dangerous Dope Addict, a man given over in extremes to multiple hallucinations and other forms of aggressive personal dementia. . . . Between Mankiewicz and South Dakota Lieutenant Governor and McGovern crony Bill Dougherty, they would have hashed up a story that would not only have caused me to be discredited, but probably would have gotten me locked up indefinitely at the expense of The State, forced to undergo the Hickory Cure and perhaps even Shock Treatments. . . .
WHAT? Don’t mention that word!
Shock treatments? Shark-shooting? Well. . . . I get a sudden sense that we’re pushing it a bit here, so why not change the subject?
July 1972
HST addressing a voter registration ralley in Aspen with Sheriff Bob Braudis (center) and Mayor John Bennett (Steve Skinner)
Memo from the Sheriff
Hunter asks a lot of his friends, but he gives so much.
—Anonymous
One early winter morning, I looked out the window to see Hunter walking to my door. I’ve never seen Hunter before 10:00 A.M., except, maybe, in court. He had come to ask me if I’d accompany him to Louisville, where he’d be honored with a key to the city the following day. I immediately agreed.
At 7:30 the next morning, Hunter was getting ready. We had an 8:30 flight. At eight he asked me what time I had. I said, “Eight.” He said, “Christ, I’ve got 7:30! That’s anti-airport time.” I knew what he meant.
We passed twenty cars in a row on a snow-packed mountain two-lane to make the plane. Hunter complimented my driving. I had a premonition that this road trip might involve some work.
It took all day to get to Louisville. Wayne Ewing had been on the ground, and the event seemed well organized. We checked into the hotel with pseudonyms: A. Lincoln. D. Boone. Hunter’s suite had a dining room and forty or fifty shrimp cocktails.
The next day the only obligation before the evening event was a “sound check” at the auditorium. Warren Zevon, Johnny Depp, Hunter’s son, Juan, many more of Hunter’s friends, and I were parts of the “show.”
Hunter was happy. He shot Zevon in the back with a huge fire extinguisher while Warren rehearsed at the piano. Scared the shit out of him.
We had a Sedan de Ville delivered to the auditorium so Hunter could “get away” at will. He wanted to buy a bullwhip to snap during the show. Two coeds from the university who had been assigned to assist guided us to a huge leather store.
Hunter didn’t like the action of any of the whips but bought the coeds shoes and jackets. We spent the afternoon cruising Basketball Alley, Cherokee Park, and memories from Hunter’s youth. No trouble, yet.
Shotgun art with Warren Zevon, Owl Farm, 1994 (Daniel E. Dibble)
Just before the big show, Hunter asked me to tell the organizer that he wouldn’t appear onstage until a brown paper bag, stuffed with cash, was delivered. Jesus. I started my request by saying: “I’m not used to this, but. . .” Two minutes before kickoff, I gave Hunter the bag. He asks a lot of his friends.
The ceremony was a high-quality love fest. A poetess read her ode to Hunter, and he became entranced. At 4:00 A.M., Hunter was behind the wheel, on the way to drop the woman off at her door.
Hunter threaded the pride of Detroit between granite retaining walls and huge elms with 1/32 of an inch to spare, driving on the goddamn sidewalk. I saw trouble everywhere.
“Hunter, get back on the street! Every yuppie in these antebellum mansions is dialing 911. What will you say to the cops?”
Hunter told me that I worry too much. We dropped the poetess off and went to the hotel. No trouble. No arrests.
On our last day in Louisville, Hunter visited Virginia, his mother, at her nursing home outside of the city. Juan and I and Bambi, a stripper, drove out with him. Bambi wanted Hunter to sign her ass so she could replicate it with a tattoo.
I dropped Juan and Hunter at the Episcopal Care Center and said I’d kill an hour in a bar
with Bambi. I spent the hour looking for a bar in a dry county. Life is a gradual release from ignorance.
When we got back to the assisted living center, I escorted Bambi to the bathroom through the large day room. Her micro-skirt, high boots, and makeup caused a lot of old dudes to skid-stop their walkers.
Virginia had invited most of her relatives to visit with her and Hunter. He was ready to bolt from this “quality time” with Mom. We went back to the hotel, Bambi disappeared sans autograph, and Zevon and I had dinner. No trouble. No arrests.
The journey home started to get strange when, during climb-out, with the plane aimed at the sun at a forty-five-degree angle, Hunter clawed his way to the forward first-class head. Even though the cabin was full of United personnel, nobody said anything. Maybe it was because, just prior to this walk, Hunter let out a thirty-second, two-octave, head-splitting rebel yell. “Just what people like to hear during takeoff,” he said. After we got to flight level and the seat belt sign went off, a line formed at the door to the restroom. The flight attendant came to me and asked, “Just what is your friend doing in there?”
Without hesitation, I lied. “He’s had bad diarrhea all day.”
“Oh, no problem,” she said, and herded the line, with whispers, aft.
A half hour later the door opened and Hunter sat down to my left. Just what were you doing in there?” I asked. “Oh, I took a little bath, shaved, changed clothes. Any problem?” No. No trouble, no arrest.
Hunter said that traveling with me was like traveling with Superman. Oliver always said that if Hunter got crazy at his own home, we could just leave. I couldn’t leave him in Louisville, I never would. It didn’t get that crazy.
Bob Braudis, Pitkin County Sheriff
Dealing with the D.A.—Before and After
(EDITOR’S NOTE)
Dr. Thompson was again arrested for political reasons in 1995 for leading a finely organized Voters Rebellion against the long-dominant Aspen Skiing Company, which was planning to enlarge and expand the local airport to accommodate huge new jetliners designed for “industrial tourism.” The SkiCo was allied with United Airlines and the local real-estate bund and corporate interests ranging from General Dynamics to Enron.
With these Goliaths of global industry behind them, the SkiCo anticipated no opposition at all to its November ballot initiative that would make the glorious new airport a legal, taxpayer-funded reality before the year 2000. . . . And there was no opposition, in fact, until the ever-contentious Woody Creek Caucus suddenly reversed itself and declared war on the new airport and everything it stood for—which included, by presumably universal agreement, giving the SkiCo and its corporate money changers the right to exploit the valley on a scale previously undreamed of in the ever-shrinking ski-resort business. Aspen is doomed, they warned, without drastic expansion, modernization, and a total commitment to a “new age commercialization.” It was a matter of life or death, economically.
Thompson’s epic eleventh-hour crusade against the airport expansion is a classic of Twentieth Century political organizing and catapulted the “No” vote from zero on October 1, to 50 percent on the night before the November 7 election—when the Doctor was arrested and jailed after addressing a rip-roaring Get Out the Vote rally in downtown Aspen that also featured the mayor, the sheriff, and a naked woman from Malibu who sold kisses.
News of Thompson’s arrest spread rapidly and generated a huge voter turnout that swamped the new airport proposal by a 2-1 margin. The SkiCo was humiliated and never entirely recovered from the defeat. The Aspen ski business remained stagnant.
The following three (3) documents tell the story of that merciless 2-year legal struggle that eventually resulted in an unprecedented solution called the Sharp Necklace Agreement that broke the power of the local police forever—or at least until the Attorney General overrules it for antiterrorism reasons.
As always, Dr. Thompson’s legally aggressive courtroom behavior is cited as a matter of record & not necessarily as recommended behavior for others. There are always risks in challenging excessive police power—but the risks of not challenging it are more dangerous, even fatal. Never do it impulsively. The Law can be cruel and unforgiving, especially of careless stupidity. The rule of thumb is BEWARE, and be quiet. You are Innocent until proven guilty, so act that way. And remember the Felony Murder Law. You may have been in Chicago when that poor woman got butchered by some runaway slave on speed; it won’t matter. Get ready for prison. Abandon all hope, even if you are innocent. . . . It is a weird and brutal law, created by prosecutors for prosecutors, because it eliminates the need for Proof or even Evidence.
THOMPSON, COPS COME TO
SHARP NECKLACE AGREEMENT
I did not ask for this fight. It came to me on a lonely road at the end of a wild night of politics, and it’s been a shame and a travesty ever since. From its horrible beginnings, this case has been less about one person charged with a misdemeanor and more about the soul of the Aspen Police Department.
I despise drunk drivers just as much as I hate crooked cops. I fear anybody on the road who is out of control for any reason—and that would have to include, by universal agreement, public servants who use their badge and authority to settle personal grudges or enforce their political beliefs.
This agreement we’re executing today will serve as a Sharp Necklace to crooked cops as well as dangerous drunkards and brings an end to the cheap, low-rent, back-alley pile of scum that this case has been.
H.S. Thompson, April 1997
December 12, 1995
LAWSON WILLS
Dep. District Atty.
Pitkin Cty. Courthouse
Dear Mr. Wills,
I am given to understand that you want me to come into the courthouse and officially surrender to you, in front of witnesses, so that you can formally re-arrest me on some kind of vague, chickenshit charge cooked up by Officer Short on the night of Nov. 7-8, ’95, in the course of our bizarre encounter on Cemetery Lane as I was very skillfully driving home (on an utterly deserted road) after delivering the keynote address at a major political rally full of people who planned to wake up the next morning (Election Day) and kick the shit out of the Aspen Ski Co.
Is my information correct? Did that vengeful dingbat actually fail to serve me with a valid, legal summons? Did he botch everything that night? Was he so crazy that he couldn’t even arrest me properly? And is that why you want me to drive at top speed into town so you can get yr. picture in the papers while you slap handcuffs on me and swell up like a toad for the cameras?
Ah, Lawson, have you no shame? Are you a Nazi? Are you nuts with lust for yr. upcoming 15 minutes of fame? Has it come to this—that you have to beg, bitch & cajole yr. victims to turn themselves in & abandon all hope for anything except humiliation and jail?
How long, O Lord, how long? You should be deeply ashamed of yourself. I talked with a journalist who said you reminded him of William Jennings Bryan at the Scopes “Monkey Trial” in 1925. It was a horrible thing to hear. (Bryan, as you recall, was whipsawed by Darrow & wound up testifying, under oath, that a whale is not a mammal & therefore, neither was he.)
Ah, but don’t get me wrong, Lawson: I’m on Your side—or at least I was until that bungling dunce harassed me for 3 ½ hours on Election Day and made an ass of himself in the Jail. It was ugly. He went haywire when he finally understood that I was not Drunk and none of his high-tech Drunk-Buster machines were going to give him the numbers he wanted. He was like an ape trapped in chains. His fellow Officers were mortified, and so was I. It is shocking to see Aspen’s long and honorable tradition of quality law enforcement being sullied by these charges about “rogue cops” and “stalkers” and “dumb Watersuckers with six-guns” who strut like John Wayne and think like Mark Fuhrman. There ain’t many, as we know, but we also know in our bones that one rotten apple ruins the whole bushel, and that is why I feel real sympathy for you, because I know the people you work for, and I know how sick they are.
Whoops. Sorry. But rest easy. I will come in (probably today) and surrender again—and a whole legion of falsely accused drunkards will come with me. And they all hate Mark Fuhrman. But not me, Lawson. I don’t hate anybody. I am a child of god of the new-age Buddhist persuasion, and I love to go to court. Because that is where Justice lives, and you know how I feel about Justice.
Indeed. Yr. time is coming, Whore-face. When I get yr. lame ass in court, you’ll wish you’d been run over and killed by a Buick when you were six years old. We will skewer those swine on worldwide TV and put them in prison for Perjury. Nobody in this valley will ever see them again.
You filthy stinking animal. Do you know what Misprison of a Felony means? Or Aggravated Conspiracy to Obstruct Justice? Are you aware of the terrible punishment that awaits a Main Pig like you?
Okay. That’s it. I’ll surrender at noon on Wednesday.
THE SHARP NECKLACE AGREEMENT
The parties to this case agree to the following:
1. That driving while one’s ability is impaired by alcohol is dangerous to the health and safety of the public and must be avoided at all costs.
2. That statements by police officers which are inaccurate or untruthful are dangerous to the administration of justice and must be avoided at all costs.
3. That it is an important function of police officers to enforce Colorado law prohibiting alcohol-impaired driving and that failure to enforce those laws vigorously would comprise a serious breach of duty and violation of public trust on the part of police.
4. That it is an essential quality of police officers to be free of enmity or bias against any individual or group of individuals in the community they serve and that for any officer to act or even appear to act out of any such enmity or bias would constitute an abuse of power and a violation of public trust.
Kingdom of Fear Page 11