The Kitchen Readings

by Michael Cleverly

  No one will tell the story of how Hunter found out the truth, but from that night on, Tex’s name at Owl Farm was the Princess of Darkness.

  Wayne Ewing Relates Tales That Make One Wonder

  Documentary filmmaker Wayne Ewing chronicled Hunter Thompson’s adventures for twenty years. His efforts produced a trilogy of films, Breakfast With Hunter, When I Die, and Free Lisl: Fear and Loathing in Denver. Hunter and Wayne’s relationship was much more than professional: they were close friends and, occasionally through the years, neighbors. Wayne was often described as possibly the most decent man to frequent the kitchen. It was Hunter’s kitchen; the bar wasn’t too high. Being Hunter’s friend was an ongoing learning experience; the early lessons were often the most exciting.

  Hunter had decided that he needed a new camera. Wayne, being a professional cameraman, got discounts and was glad to order whatever Hunter needed. The camera arrived, and Wayne called Doc to see if he wanted to take delivery. Hunter told Wayne to come right over. “Just walk in and make yourself at home. I might be in the shower.” Wayne was puzzled. Why not just wait until Hunter was out of the shower? Go over in a little while. Not wanting to argue unnecessarily, Wayne and his girlfriend headed out for Owl Farm. They arrived and knocked for a fair amount of time. After a while Wayne tried the door; it was unlocked.

  Well, okay. Hunter had said come on in; Wayne was uneasy. He told his girlfriend to wait as he gingerly pushed the door open and stepped inside. “Hunter! Hunter, it’s Wayne…I’ve come with the camera.” No response. Then, perhaps, a small sound from the next room. Wayne crept through the living room toward the kitchen. “Hunter, it’s Wayne. I’m here.”

  Standing in the kitchen doorway, he observed Hunter in the middle of the room—in his bathrobe and dripping wet. The only thing to suggest that he wasn’t just out of the shower was the sawed-off twelve-gauge in his hand hanging by his side and a maniacal grin on his face. “My god,” Wayne thought, “he can shoot me dead and claim he thought I was an intruder.” Hunter fired from the hip. The blast tore a four-inch hole in the doorframe, twelve inches from Wayne’s thigh. Wayne bolted for the porch, grabbed the girlfriend, and ran for the car. Hunter gave chase.

  When Doc caught up with the unnerved couple he was laughing. He persuaded them to come back. Wayne had just learned that this was just one of Hunter’s many unique ways of giving you a little hug. He also learned that you really could get hurt.

  When asked what he gleaned from all his years with Hunter, Wayne paused as if he’d never given it any thought before, after a moment he said, “Hunter taught me how to gamble, how to be a good gambler.” You bet. It was always a gamble.

  Wayne pointed out that on the rare occasion when Hunter would have to write a check to pay off his kitchen gambling debts, he would always write “bad gambling debt” in the memo portion of the check, in the hope that the check would end up framed on a wall rather than be cashed. It often worked.

  Over the course of the years of trailing after Hunter, documenting his antics, Wayne evolved into a de facto road manager. When Hunter was invited to Washington to participate in George McGovern’s eightieth birthday celebration, Wayne was the obvious choice to be Hunter’s advance man. He was from D.C. and knew his way around as a local.

  On the day of Hunter’s arrival, Wayne was supposed to rent a limousine, pick Hunter up at Dulles airport, and get him checked into his hotel suite. Hunter’s plane touched down, and Wayne waited at the gate. And waited, and waited. Wayne waited so long that he figured there couldn’t possibly be anyone left on the plane. He concluded that Hunter had missed the flight, and he was about to leave when Hunter appeared. He was like a rubber man. His legs weren’t supporting him and he was groping from handhold to handhold. “I need a wheelchair” was Hunter’s greeting to Wayne. No shit. Wayne looked around and, amazingly, there sat a wheelchair, as if they had ordered it. Wayne poured Hunter into it. As they wheeled their way toward the limo, Wayne was thinking that, yes, there was surely an interesting explanation but, no, he would probably never hear it. Hunter proceeded to explain.

  Boarding the plane in Denver, Hunter almost immediately got into an argument with the stewardess. Clearly the woman had no idea that she was talking to someone to whom the usual rules did not apply. Hunter found this offensive. Apparently there was a thing or two about his behavior that the stewardess found offensive. One rule that she must have been unaware of, in regard to Hunter, was that you don’t fight back. Things got ugly. Hunter, in a breathtaking moment of insight, decided that things could get worse. He went to his seat and took a halcyon, or two, or…His reasoning was that if he were unconscious, the problems would diminish. Unfortunately, the sleeping pills lasted longer than the flight.

  The limousine wove through D.C. traffic and reached the hotel forty-five minutes later. Sans wheelchair, Wayne escorted Hunter to the hotel bar and left him. At the front desk, Wayne checked “Ben Franklin” into a suite. Then he returned to the lounge to fetch Hunter. The whole process had taken about five minutes, and in that time Hunter had not only regained his composure but was in the process of successfully picking up a woman. An exceptionally attractive, straight-laced lady lawyer from Memphis was saying, “Aren’t you that…uh…writer?”

  Back in Colorado, back in the kitchen, Wayne and some of the boys were waiting for the game to start. We were also waiting for Hunter to come out of the bedroom. We were always excited about the beginning of a new football season, but it was hell on Hunter’s schedule. The early game would start at eleven o’clock Mountain Time, sleepy time for Doc. It was, in fact, hours and hours earlier than his usual wake-up call. So the first few games of football season involved a fair amount of waiting. We’d set ourselves up in the kitchen, and Deborah or Anita would begin the process of getting him up and running.

  On this particular occasion, we were passing the time talking about the kind of expectations people have of Hunter. We’d all seen it: an outsider would come into the kitchen hoping to find some kind of crazed caricature, only to encounter a sedate middle-aged man in thoughtful conversation. A student attending a lecture by the world-famous author would end up watching people getting blasted with a fire extinguisher. Wayne told us about an incident in a very fancy London restaurant.

  Hunter was in England on business, having meetings with his overseas publisher. The publisher was wining and dining him at all the best places. This particular evening they were at a posh joint with the oak paneling and the very proper East Indian staff. The publisher was obviously well known there, and it was clear that they were expecting the great writer from the States. While they were enjoying their meal, an American couple seated on the other side of the room spotted Hunter and the publisher. The couple recognized Hunter and were big fans. They sent a note over by way of the Indian maître d’, whose exotic accent and perfect diction probably intimidated everyone but the queen. The note was lovely and gracious, indicating that they didn’t wish to interrupt his meal but wanted Hunter to know that they were fellow Americans, and what high regard they held him in. What might these folks’ expectations have been?

  Hunter read the note, paused for a bit, then affected a look of utter horror and outrage. He beckoned wildly for the maître d’ to come to the table. The Indian arrived, all formality and propriety. Hunter had him lean low over the table so he could whisper in his ear. Hunter whispered, and the maître d’ straightened instantly. He glared at the American couple across the room. The Indian motioned at minions as he strode briskly toward the American couple. When he arrived at their table, his body language and gestures were intimidating even from ten yards away. He put his hand on the man’s shoulder as if to physically pick him up out of his chair. The woman rose as waiters rushed toward them with their coats. The maître d’ ushered them to the front of the restaurant with a hand on each of their elbows. When they arrived at the door, he finally raised his voice. “And never return to this establishment,” he declared in his perfect diction and accent.


  Hunter had told the Indian that the couple had been trying to sell him drugs.

  On football game days the boys waited in the kitchen. There was no rule about not going into Hunter’s bedroom, but there was no reason to; Deborah was already in there. Sometimes Doc would just disappear, and after a while you’d have to go check to see if he was ever coming out. You might find him fast asleep or just needing some quiet time. There were some rules, however. Most of them weren’t written down, but some were. NEVER DIAL 911, handwritten and taped to the refrigerator. FRIENDS OF FRIENDS CAN’T BRING FRIENDS, printed on a little sign. Hunter was very serious about the former, not as worried about the latter. There was also a sign in the bathroom, on the toilet, indicating the sorts of things that weren’t supposed to be thrown in there. It was a sensitive, high-tech toilet. Then there were the rules that weren’t written down anywhere but that you might be informed of. There were also unspoken rules.

  One spoken, and generally accepted as good sense, rule was that if you brought someone into the kitchen, you were responsible for that person. The consequences for not tending to a guest who might have gotten caught up in the moment, or possibly ingested something that didn’t agree with him, could be unpleasant indeed. An example of the very worst kind of guest one might bring by the kitchen would be litigious women. Hunter really hated it when someone invaded his space and then sued him. Unbelievably, this sort of thing happened. It led to the “Never encroach on Hunter’s physical space” rule. He actually had next to his chair one of those red velvet ropes that keep people like Cleverly out of trendy nightclubs. And there were occasions when he had to use it. The thing about getting into Hunter’s space behind the counter was that he had countless weapons within arm’s reach. Getting too close could be dangerous.

  On one occasion I brought my landlady to a crowded playoff game. Hunter was glad to have her; she was a neighbor, a major landowner, and something of a legend in the community. We said hello to Hunter, and she immediately took up position directly behind him. I couldn’t stand it. I kept waiting for him to lash out with a cattle prod or a dagger. She stayed there for the whole first quarter. When she finally moved off to the buffet in the living room, I thanked Hunter for not doing her in. She was the best landlady I ever had, and I didn’t want to lose her.

  Another practical rule was to never make reference to an HST quote in front of Hunter if you couldn’t instantly put your hands on it. Most of Doc’s books were right there, and you had better at least know which book to look in. Chapter and page was the only way to be totally safe. Hunter needed to be quoted accurately and would almost certainly want the whole shooting match read aloud. Being less than completely informed could be dangerous.

  If watching a game, which the boys were about to do, it was a good idea to not discuss anything but the game during the game. You could find yourself sitting next to the most interesting person in the world, but what started out as a whispered aside could evolve into an engrossing conversation and could eventually catch the attention of Hunter, and unpleasantness could ensue.

  It was an extremely good idea not to interject when Hunter was talking to an attractive woman. It was a good idea not to get between Hunter and an attractive woman. It was a good idea not to get anywhere near the view plane that existed between Hunter and an attractive woman. Should any of this occur, it was a good idea to remember the rule about not fighting back.

  Braudis Explains the Birth of Shotgun Golf

  If Thomas Edison had not invented the lightbulb, someone else would have gotten around to it eventually. The same goes for many of our finest inventions. But only Hunter could have invented shotgun golf. Only Hunter, with the physique and hand-eye coordination of a natural athlete, would have found the similarities between golf and skeet shooting so obvious. There were many things about Hunter that the country club golfing crowd didn’t approve of, but the sight of the butt of a twelve-gauge sticking out of his golf bag filled them with a kind of unease they could scarcely comprehend.

  It was midsummer in the late eighties. Hunter had received a set of Ping beryllium golf clubs, hand-me-downs from his brother. A few years earlier these clubs had been considered a breakthrough in sports technology. Made from a hard metallic element commonly used in atomic reactors, the irons were widely believed to enhance the scores of the weekend golfer. Hunter had never swung them.

  Hunter had created a one-hole golf course in the meadow at Owl Farm that doubled as a firearms range. The “green” was a twelve-by-twelve square of linoleum salvaged from one of his domestic remodels and placed on the grass about a hundred yards from the house. The pin was a unfurled beach umbrella stabbed through the center of the linoleum and into the soft earth. The “pin” provided a target and a crude range finder. The golf clubs were still in their bag and secured by a blanket that had been duct-taped over the club heads, forming an improvised traveling bag for the clubs. This same bag had flown from Aspen to Phoenix the winter before for the previously mentioned and aborted golf vacation, when Hunter was officially on assignment for the San Francisco Examiner to cover the impeachment hearings for Evan Mecham.

  Back in Woody Creek, I stripped the duct tape and blanket from the golf bag and pulled out the nine iron and pitching wedge. At Hunter’s request, I had brought a couple hundred used golf balls. Hunter started swinging at balls in order the hit the “green.” None of his shots came close. Frustrated, he asked me to try. After flying balls over the linoleum with the nine iron, I picked up the wedge and “Plop,” my first shot landed audibly on the square. I repeated the lofting shots a few times with persistent accuracy.

  Hunter tried a few shots with the wedge and got more frustrated. He was stiff and rusty. Modern golf technology couldn’t help his swing. Unwilling to waste a beautiful summer afternoon, Hunter suggested that I hit the high wedges while he tried to shoot them in mid-flight with a double-barreled side-by-side twelve-gauge shotgun.

  We arranged his firing position to pose no danger to the golfer or the yuppie mountain bikers from Arkansas, as he referred to them, pedaling along the road past Owl Farm.

  I would pop a high arching ball toward the pin, and Hunter would shoot. After six or seven attempts to hit the ball, and with no obvious deviation in its flight, Hunter replaced the light 7 1/2 shot with a heavier and larger number-four shot. The results didn’t change.

  Hunter was nearing that level of disappointment that I recognized as the onset of a temper tantrum, which would lead me to go home while his temper continued into his future activities that evening, so I suggested that the mass of the ball, its surface, speed, size, and trajectory, might have something to do with the appearance that Hunter’s aim could be in the same category as his golf swing. My proposed experiment involved somehow suspending a golf ball in the air and having Hunter shoot at it from a distance similar to the range between him and the earlier balls while they were in flight.

  Hunter with his favorite club in the bag…twelve-gauge.

  Hunter went into the house and came out with a roll of cellophane tape and a peacock plume. He taped a golf ball to one end of the plume and taped the other end of the plume to a willow bush. Standing about twenty yards from the target, he loaded the shotgun, aimed, and fired. No movement of the golf ball. He raised the weapon, took aim, fired, and got the same results. We approached the ball and found evidence of lead transfer on the white jacket of the Titlist.

  Our conclusion was that the triggerman may have been hitting the moving targets but did not have any effect on the balls’ flight path. “Hot damn!” shouted HST.

  Shotgun golf died a natural death. It was reincarnated about twenty-five years later in Hunter’s column at ESPN.com. His new version was replete with rules, and of course the match could be wagered on. It was reprinted in Hunter’s book Hey, Rube. I doubt anyone else will attempt a match outside their imaginations.

  A potential caddy at the Hey, Rube book signing that Walter Issacson threw at the Aspen Institute.


  Hunter Goes to War, and Doesn’t Much Care for It

  Loren Jenkins was one of Hunter’s friends from his earliest days in Aspen. Jenkins was Saigon bureau chief for Newsweek magazine during the Vietnam War, and later was Rome bureau chief for the Washington Post. He won a Pulitzer Prize for his work in Lebanon and is now senior foreign editor for National Public Radio. He and his wife, Missie Thorne, now live in D.C. but maintain a home in Old Snowmass, just down the road from Aspen. When in town, Loren was a fixture in the kitchen, being good friends with all the regulars, including Ed Bradley, whom he was close to in Vietnam. Loren was the first person Hunter called when Rolling Stone sent him to ’Nam, and the two hooked up again when they covered the U.S. invasion of Grenada.

  Prior to their move to Old Snowmass, Loren and Missie lived on McLain Flats Road. McLain Flats is the back way to Woody Creek from Aspen. Sometimes, returning from town late at night, it was a good idea to take the back way. If one suspected the headlights in the rearview mirror of belonging to a peace officer, one could pop in and pay Loren and Missie a visit. Hunter was an occasional visitor.

  Hunter’s drop-ins would usually be the product of paranoia, and would always be very late, after the bars closed. Loren and Missie found this more amusing than annoying. Hunter would barge in whether they were in bed or awake, and the three of them would sit around and shoot the shit until Hunter thought the “danger” had passed. Occasionally Hunter’s hosts would be out for the evening. This wouldn’t deter him; he’d still have to hide out till the “heat was off,” so he’d let himself in and occupy himself by relocating small household objects. When Loren and Missie returned home, they’d be vaguely disorientated: things wouldn’t be quite the same, and eventually they’d decide that Hunter had been there. When Loren and Missie moved to Old Snowmass, a few miles down valley, they sold the McLain Flats house to a young professional couple. The couple was just starting a family; both were attorneys. But the fact that Hunter’s friends no longer lived there, that the house had changed hands, didn’t deter him at all. The new owners would find him hanging out in their living room, lying low, at all hours. Jenkins explained that Doc went with the house.