The Kitchen Readings

by Michael Cleverly

  Loren Jenkins and Missie Thorne’s wedding. The beautiful Barbara Groh with Benton, Cleverly, and Braudis, who come in assorted sizes.

  Loren’s patience stretched and then snapped. He launched into a tirade. “What the hell are you people doing here, anyway?” He went on to suggest that our government would be better off minding its own business, and from there he went on to vent his spleen at large, expressing political leanings somewhat to the left of Fidel and Mao. The young soldiers felt pretty sure that people without guns probably should be civil to people with guns. They put Loren facedown on the ground and cuffed his hands behind his back. This was too much. Missie was the next to snap. She yanked off her sandal and proceeded to use it to beat one of the soldiers on the helmet, all the while Loren keeping up his rant from the dirt.

  Hunter’s pain over the loss of the hand was instantly replaced with the bliss of chaos. This is what he lived for. The scene continued for some minutes, with Hunter cheering everyone on just to keep the action going. An officer finally showed up and witnessed, with mouth agape, his boys bullying the very press corps that they had spent so much time sucking up to. The officer had Loren released immediately, and no one was sorry to see the group head up the road toward the restaurant. The conch soup was just as good as they had been told.

  Grenada was our first war with Cuba, and our first military victory since long before Vietnam. It was also the first time since before World War II that a communist government had been replaced with a pro-Western one. Being the fierce patriot, Hunter must have been very proud.

  Hunter’s Friend Dabbles in the Business and Pays the Price

  Ed Hoban—University of Notre Dame, class of 1972, Lompoc Federal Prison, class of 1984—was a close friend of Hunter’s for years, and they shared many adventures…only some of which can be recounted here.

  Ed was a large figure in the Aspen scene in the seventies and eighties. He knew the right people and traveled in the best circles. By “the best,” I mean the most fun. Celebrities would come to town to visit him.

  The legend began while Ed was an undergraduate at Notre Dame. Dick Kienast, who would later become sheriff of Pitkin County, was also a student there at the time. Both attended lectures by the philosopher Mortimer Adler. When they ended up in Aspen they had a lot in common. Ed was introduced to many people through his classmate, and it snowballed from there. Kienast became sheriff, but he wasn’t a regular cop. He was in the vanguard of progressive law enforcement in the Roaring Fork Valley, with his policies earning him the nickname “Dick Dove” and garnering him the attention of the national media. Tim Charles, a mutual friend, introduced Ed to Dr. Hunter S. Thompson. Ed and Hunter became close friends and remained so until Hunter’s death. They shared many of the same hobbies, some of which Ed turned into a profession. Hence, the tour in Lompoc.

  Ed became a solid citizen upon graduation from the federal penal system. He left the valley to pursue an honest living and he would occasionally use his famous friends as references.

  Hunter was a fiercely loyal friend. Was he a good job reference? That remains an open question.

  Here…you decide:

  Doc and Ed having prettied themselves up with lipstick. Ed with Deborah and Cleverly, who are pretty enough without lipstick.

  Be careful when you ask Hunter for a favor.

  In the late seventies and early eighties there were entrepreneurial types in the Roaring Fork Valley, people who had a little land and a little privacy and took up subsistence farming. Ed was one of them. He owned an old farmhouse in Emma, a half-hour drive from Woody Creek. At some point there actually had been a town of Emma, but that was long ago. By the time Ed purchased his house there, Emma was pretty close to the middle of nowhere. So he became involved with agribusiness, though what he was growing couldn’t be purchased at the local farmers’ market. Ed had inside plants flourishing in a greenhouse next to the garage and outside plants in a patch behind the barn. He was a good entrepreneur. A good farmer.

  Late one summer, as harvest time was growing near, Ed’s girlfriend decided that he wasn’t providing her with enough walking-around money. She thought a garage sale was the answer. This was fine with Ed. Everyone has too much crap. The two went through eons of forgotten and unwanted junk, earmarking this and that for the sale. The Saturday morning of the event, Ed responsibly covered the greenhouse with a huge blue tarp. Not wanting to witness the detritus of his life being hawked in a driveway, he left to spend the day in Aspen.

  Even before the first early-bird yard-sale aficionados arrived, the tarp had blown off the greenhouse. His girlfriend, focusing on sales, was oblivious, leaving the beautiful bushy plants exposed for one and all to see.

  Ed’s crops were low-maintenance, requiring little effort once they took hold; in fact, they grew like weeds. Babysitting was the problem. Farmer Ed liked to step out more than your average man of the soil does. He’d go up to Aspen, and some nights wouldn’t come home at all. Sometimes he’d forget to make it home for days at a time. This would leave his crop home alone. To some, this might seem like careless parenting—giving your nymphomaniac teenage daughter her own van and a Gold Card. But to Ed it was a simple matter of trusting his fellow man. Those with a high opinion of human nature are often disappointed. And so it was that when Ed returned home one morning and went out to the greenhouse to tell the kids he was back, he found his babies gone. It was a crushing economic blow. Which is the same as a crushing emotional blow.

  Ed, the gentleman farmer.

  Photographs by Nancy Cook Kelly, courtesy of Ed Hoban

  Farmer Hoban enjoying the fruits of his labor.

  The outside patch behind the barn had been left unmolested for whatever reason. Probably a dead-of-night operation. The criminals had taken only what they had observed from the driveway at the yard sale. There’s not much one can do in these situations. But then, over the next couple of weeks, Ed noticed that the outside patch seemed to be shrinking, too. He actually counted the plants and, after a while, determined that the criminals were sneaking back and taking a couple of plants at a time. Ed and a friend erected a small tent in the middle of the patch. The pot was much taller than the tent, so it was invisible till you were right on top of it. Ed began sleeping in the patch. A friend would bring him young women for amusement. Sadly, a man like Ed can spend only so many nights in a tent, even with pleasant diversions to keep him company. One morning he returned from town to find half the crop gone.

  Hunter was one of the first people whom Ed called. He needed some sympathy. Hunter was furious. What the fuck kind of world were we living in? Doc immediately declared war. There were two important issues at hand: To protect the remaining crop. First things first. And, beyond that, the ever-popular revenge. Retribution, reprisal, vengeance, comeuppance and getting even. Serious business.

  One evening a few days later there was gunfire in Emma. Hunter was speeding up the road in the Shark, radio blaring, firing a pistol in the air. He pulled into Ed’s driveway with presents for him: a .410 single shotgun, a two-thousand-candlepower boat/car light, two TV cameras, and a closed-circuit monitor. Everyone involved was confident that this equipment was sufficient to “do the trick.” Optimism was running high.

  Hunter heard nothing from Ed for a couple of weeks. It was harvest time, and Ed was pretty busy. There had been no more raids on the field, so Ed was just tending to his agribusiness. Hunter felt that he had a vested interest in the crop now and he was getting a little edgy about the lack of communication. Night after night he decided to give Ed a call and ended up putting it off each time. Finally he couldn’t stand it anymore and drove out to Emma in the wee hours. He left this note stuck to Ed’s front door with a dagger through it:

  Ed 10/29/81

  I can’t believe that you lost those things that I left here…but in fact you owe

  HST—one .410 single shotgun

  HST—one 2k candlepower light—boat/car/etc.

  John Kent—one closed-circuit TV
set (2 cameras, one monitor)

  HST—one blue chip elbow

  An elbow is code for “lb.” A pound of first-class pot.

  Ed hadn’t lost anything; it was just Hunter’s way of conveying his sense of urgency. He must have been running out of dope. Actually a friend had borrowed the shotgun, for purposes neither Ed nor anyone else wanted to know. Ed could get it back anytime, if he didn’t mind being in possession of evidence.

  Ed was part of Hunter’s posse. Back then Hunter traveled with a sort of entourage. They were all buddies, and Hunter treated them like equals, not minions.

  During this time there was a rich Arab who lived up in the Starwood subdivision. The guy, in his mid-forties, liked to entertain, and he entertained people he considered to be important. Hunter fit the bill, so he would get invited to the guy’s mini-castle for Monday Night Football. Along with Hunter would come Ed and the other members of Hunter’s posse; also along with Hunter would come Hunter’s gun. Hunter was going through a phase where he would always be “packing” when he went out. No one else in the posse felt the need to carry a gun, and no one could put a finger on exactly why Hunter thought that he had to carry a gun. It was just a phase; it was Hunter. The gun could lead to the occasional awkward situation, as occurred with the Arab.

  Cleverly kept trying to remind Hunter that “one man’s souvenir is another man’s evidence.”

  At the mini-castle, as a rule, bodyguards carried guns; the guests did not. The bodyguards felt they could function most effectively when they were the only ones armed. Sounds a little insecure, but there you are. These guys also performed household staff duties—butler, valet parking, coat checkers, waiters. The sorts of services we hope maybe to get when we go out and splurge is what rich Arabs demand 24/7. Mostly, though, they were bodyguards. Unlike a regular household staff, who would stay at the house when the boss went out, these fellas traveled wherever the boss went. They were always packing and had the look of men with virtually no sense of humor. Undoubtedly a plus in that line of work.

  At the house, the guards would never do anything as gauche as patting guests down, so they didn’t become aware of Hunter’s pistol until after the first couple of Monday-night events. The topic came up when Hunter, ever the populist, decided to engage one of them in conversation. He must have felt that a common talking point would be weaponry, so he asked the guy what his firearm of choice was. That was no problem. The problem arose when Hunter drew his gun to compare. The bodyguards clearly found this disconcerting, judging from their response. I guess no guest had ever whipped out a piece in the presence of the Arab before. From that night on, while Ed and everyone else were checking their coats, Hunter was asked to check his gun.

  After graduating from Lompoc, Ed took up the straight life in Chicago. He proved to be as good at making an honest living as he was at the other kind. He and Hunter were in regular contact via phone, fax, and e-mail. Hunter had set up meetings with his Chicago friends for Ed, to help smooth his transition back into the world. Hunter’s Chicago friends became Ed’s friends, so they were all excited when they learned that Doc’s next speaking tour would bring him to Chicago.

  The guys made the appropriate plans and fêted Hunter to a fare-thee-well when he got to town. The day after the lecture, and the partying that followed, Hunter was enjoying some down time at Ed’s apartment. He noticed and was appreciating Ed’s new black leather jacket. It was a cross between what you’d see a “button man” wearing in a gangster movie and your standard storm trooper issue. What Hunter admired most were the large flap pockets. They had to be ten inches square, roomy. Roominess was a quality that Hunter greatly admired in pockets, as he traveled with equipment that wasn’t always 100 percent legal and was sometimes bulky. Obviously, bulging pockets were a drawback: probable cause. He asked Ed where he might acquire such a jacket. North Beach Leather, a shop whose owner happened to be a friend of Ed’s. North Beach Leather was located in the Watertower mall on Michigan Avenue. The Watertower is a vertical mall. Up and down, not spread out like suburban malls. One travels it by elevator or escalator, not by hiking around the acreage.

  When Ed and Hunter arrived at the mall, all the elevators were packed—a bad start. The full elevators necessitated them taking the escalator. Hunter never liked rubbing up against a lot of people, especially people who had no idea who he was. North Beach was on the seventh floor, which meant an awful lot of human contact for Doc. Up one escalator, off it, on to the next. Hunter’s mood was changing.

  When they arrived at the shop, Ed introduced Hunter to his friend, the owner, who, in turn, introduced Hunter to whatever employees were in the immediate area. The whole thing was becoming an event, with other sales people and curious shoppers gathering around. It was having a bad effect on Hunter. The little group made its way to the rack of SS “button man” jackets. Ed’s friend sized Hunter up, selected one, and helped Hunter into it. Hunter’s perceptions were often colored by his mood, and his mood had gone south, far south. It had all become too big a project. “This is the ugliest thing I’ve ever seen. I wouldn’t pay ten dollars for this piece of shit.”

  The crowd dispersed, and Hunter and Ed went back to Ed’s for some more down time.

  People close to Ed and Hunter are sure that this wisdom passed on to President Clinton proved to be invaluable.

  The leader of the free world and a clearly simpatico human being.

  Cleverly Tells a Few Animal Stories

  Peafowl, Dogs, and Cats

  There was something odd about the Dobermans’ gait as they loped across the lawn toward my truck. As the two dogs came closer, I realized what had happened and I knew that these would be the last dogs to reside at Owl Farm. When they were gone, there would be no replacements.

  Hunter was mistrustful of the “establishment.” His rules were his own and often didn’t quite dovetail with those of the people who ran things. And next to law enforcement, banks and bankers are pretty much right at the heart of the mainstream establishment. Doc didn’t care for bankers. He didn’t like handing over his money to that kind of person. How could you trust them?

  As with many people in the arts, Hunter’s income was sporadic: feast or famine. As his fame grew, this situation became less pronounced, but even as recently as the seventies it was still the general fiscal pattern. Upon receiving the occasional large cash injection, he would, of course, give some thought to paying the bills. Then he’d stock up on the things that he’d been denying himself. And then his thoughts would turn to savings. Looking to the future, retirement. Krugerrands were Hunter’s version of a 401k. He would bury them in ammo canisters in the yard. Stealing out in the wee hours, on moonless nights, shovel and canisters in hand, he’d dig, carefully removing the sod, and replacing it when the burial was complete. The dogs were the only witnesses. (You can see where this is heading.) Dogs love to dig. Dogs have good memories when it comes to this sort of thing, and always have great noses. Over a period of time it became clear that the Dobies had been digging around looking for the ammo canisters. Hunter felt he had to deal with the problem. So, today, their awkward gait was caused by the boxing gloves that he had duct-taped onto their front paws. This was a serious impediment to their digging, and didn’t make loping any walk in the park either.

  As expected, when these two went to their reward, and passed into legend, they weren’t replaced. But the potential for a security breach was unacceptable. It was the beginning of the era of the peacocks.

  Peacocks are excellent watchdogs. They squawk and screech at the least little thing—without the digging. Perfect for Owl Farm. Collectively speaking, they’re called peafowl; the females are peahens, and the males are peacocks. We always referred to them as “the peacocks,” though. Gender be damned. No one at Owl Farm was particularly concerned about offending the 4H Club.

  The inventory of birds at Owl Farm would always vary, depending on a number of factors. Attrition due to predator interest was one significant factor. The peacock
s were a link in the food chain, waiting to be consumed. The predator population of Woody Creek is diverse. Of course there were countless coyotes; they were ubiquitous. Then there were the foxes; they were always the prime suspects when a peacock went missing. This because when a bird was done in, the culprit would usually return on subsequent nights looking for more of the same. Hunter would trap the peacock killer, and nine tenths of the time it was a fox. Hunter would use something called a “live trap.” This was exactly what the name implies. A live trap neither kills nor injures an animal. The trapper has the option of carting the critter away and setting it loose, or, if he’s less a gambler and wants to rid himself of the creature forever, he has a target that’s hard to miss. There were days when I arrived at Owl Farm to find a fox in one of the live traps, docile, awaiting its fate. Hunter’s assistant, Deborah Fuller, who lived in the other cabin on the property, once told me that the foxes responded the same way to her, docile, resigned—but when Hunter would arrive to inspect the catch, they’d go nuts, snarling and frothing and pacing. How did they know? Hunter would give them a little lecture before he shot them; he thought he owed them that much, an explanation. It didn’t seem to help. When I’d occasionally come upon one post mortem, its body would be frozen in such an attitude of crazed fury, with such an expression of viciousness and rage on its face, that there was no question about the creature having “gone gently into that good night.”