The Kitchen Readings

by Michael Cleverly

  I explained that the sheriff was Hunter’s friend and mine. I told him that Bob’s people were out to do the right thing, not to see how many arrests they could make. Everything was going to be okay. I told him that in the spirit of cooperation and not getting into too deep shit, if he had any weapons in the vehicle it would be incredibly intelligent to pitch them out the window right now. I also mentioned that if he had any drugs in there, he should go ahead and give them to me. I saw the Sheriff’s Department cruiser coming up the road. I soothed the kid as best I could.

  The sheriff’s boys pulled up in front of the kid’s car, thus blocking the neighbor’s driveway. Naturally, the neighbor drove up almost as soon as the deputies got out. He gave me the “what’s going on?” look. I explained to the deputies that they were parked in this guy’s driveway, and explained to the neighbor, who was in fact a rock-and-roll star, that he had a different sort of fan base than Hunter and should be glad of it. He understood instantly; the deputies let him pass. I introduced myself to the constabulary and introduced them to the kid. I handed off and excused myself knowing that things could have gone much worse.

  I made my way up the driveway to the house and into the kitchen. Doug was there, Deborah, Tex, Anita, Hunter of course, and I think a couple of part-time assistants. As always, Hunter’s gratitude was almost suffocating. “I’m sick of you people running in here and hiding behind me” were the first words that I heard from him. My distinct impression had been that people were running out the door in an effort to place themselves between Hunter and the nut job. Realizing how wrong I must have been about that, I simply agreed with Hunter. “Okay, Doc, got to be going.” I asked Tex if he was coming along, figuring that nothing but abuse could follow. Tex allowed that he was going to stay a bit and bask in the warmth of the moment.

  Things were quiet in Woody Creek for the rest of the day.

  Braudis and Wheels

  It was midnight. I was shifting up through the gears on the entrance ramp to I-70 East, headed from Glenwood Springs to the Denver airport. We were trying to beat a blizzard that was likely to close DIA for another forty-eight hours just as one had done the week before.

  Instead of leaving much earlier in the day and spending the night in a hotel near the airport, DeDe and I had dinner at Ed Bradley’s house in Woody Creek. Ed had died forty-nine days before, and today was the Bardo, the day that his spirit would take residence in a new life form, according to Tibetan Buddhist beliefs. Ed’s wife, Patricia, had arranged for monks to chant, burn incense, and help Ed’s spirit to find its release. Later, she had a dinner party for close friends.

  Hunter and Ed were very close. Hunter had brought Ed to Aspen, and Ed became a resident of Woody Creek. Two “journalists in residence,” they shared an enthusiasm for fast cars and they are both gone now. I thought back to our adventures and the vehicles we drove.

  Hunter and machines had always enjoyed a close relationship. The mobility of cars or motorcycles meant independence and freedom to him. Hunter felt trapped if he didn’t control his mobility. On the road there was always a rental car parked close by, in case he wanted to disappear. If I drove him in his car (I hardly ever rode with him), he would ask for the keys as soon as I parked.

  “Never lose control of your ride,” he once told me as I handed him his key ring. “I’ve made that mistake a few times,” he added. I could relate. Handing him his keys meant that suddenly I wasn’t in control of my mobility.

  Ed and Doc; one was more gonzo and one was more golf.

  Bradley called Hunter one morning and suggested that they fly to Denver to do some car shopping. Hunter had just acquired a (for that time) state-of-the-art video camera. He put this twenty-pound monster into a duffel bag, and off to Denver they went. The cab rides to a couple of car dealerships were recorded, as was the negotiation that concluded with Ed’s ownership of a Porsche Carrera convertible. Ed, who had been a New York City guy for many years and not a car owner, couldn’t get anywhere with insurance. Hunter, by phone with his agent in Aspen, got Ed a binder and they drove off the lot with Hunter videotaping. Hunter called the tape “Mr. Ed Goes to Market.”

  The trip home took them to Leadville, where sundry purchases were made and memorialized on video, and where Ed handed Hunter the keys to the Porsche. Hunter packed the camera into his duffel, adjusted the seat and mirrors, and headed toward Independence Pass, a narrow, winding mountain road over the Continental Divide to Aspen. The camera was in the bag with the lens cap on but was still running, recording audio. After several minutes of wind and road noise and banter, Ed could be heard saying, “Hunter, you might want to slow down a little.” No response. “Hunter! This is a bad curve coming up, a thousand-foot drop-off! Slow down!” Hunter: “Don’t worry, Ed. I’m a pro.” Ed: “You motherfucker! You’re gonna kill us. Slow down!”

  That’s one of the reasons I never rode with Hunter. He took pleasure in scaring the hell out of people, and often did. But as is often the case with people who are good at dishing it out, he didn’t take it well.

  Ed enjoying a peaceful evening with the Doctor and friends.

  One night, returning to Woody Creek from Aspen, Hunter’s next-door neighbor Ed Bastian was at the wheel, with Hunter in the backseat. Bastian declared that we were going to “run silent,” meaning that he was turning off the headlights. As Ed wheeled his Ford Explorer through the curves on McLain Flats Road in total darkness, Hunter screamed from the back seat, “Ed! You’re gonna kill us! Ed! For Christ’s sake! What about people coming at us?” Boys at play. Ed in some small way getting even.

  After a couple of years enjoying his Porsche convertible, Bradley pulled into the parking lot at the Woody Creek Tavern one summer evening. Hunter and I had just finished dinner and it was suggested that we go into town for drinks. I had my car, but HST wanted to ride into Aspen in the Shark. Ed said that he needed gas and followed us to Owl Farm.

  We gassed both convertibles from Hunter’s three-hundred-gallon tank, and Ed pulled out of the driveway first. Hunter and I were right behind, with me at the wheel of the Chevy. Hunter ordered me to pass Ed, but Ed wasn’t going to be passed. Hunter was yelling at me to go faster as the Porsche disappeared from view. Porsche versus Chevy: Porsche wins. We arrived in Aspen and walked into the bar. Ed was sitting in the lounge and asked, “What took you so long? I’m on my second drink.” Somehow I got stuck with that check.

  In 1970, Hunter and I pulled out of Owl Farm and turned left on the dirt road to Lenado. We were both riding Bultaco Matadors, Spanish dirt bikes that were built for racing. I followed him up the road. He was comfortable in the seat and understood counter-steering and gyroscopic force. We were two of the few riders who appreciated this motorcycle designed by Señor Bulto; it was still superior to Japanese bikes. Hunter had logged a lot of miles on his BSA in California and on his BMW in Colorado. Cycle World magazine would arrange for him to test-ride motorcycles from Ducatis to Triumphs and write about them. Over the years to come, as his motor skills began to deteriorate, I began to worry about him on two wheels. Riding with him eventually became out of the question.

  One day he called me at home and wanted to know what I was doing. I told him that I was about to have dinner with a bunch of friends and invited him over. We were on the back porch eating when we saw Hunter on his BMW riding through the next-door neighbor’s backyard. He saw us and turned into my yard, lost control of his motorcycle, and fell. He was lying on the grass under the 750-cc bike with gasoline running from its tank and onto his chest. I lifted the giant motorcycle off him, gave him a clean shirt, and filled his drink order. I insisted that I drive him home after dinner. Two weeks later he called and asked if I could deliver his bike. I rode it to Owl Farm. The throttle stuck, and the brakes didn’t work. I told him that the motorcycle was not safe, but I knew he was going to ride it again. I didn’t want to think about it.

  At one point, feeling the need of something big and bright red, Hunter bought himself a vintage Pontiac convertib
le. Not long after, the Mitchell Brothers, of O’Farrell Theater fame, came to Aspen in support of Hunter’s defense against charges of assault by a retired porn star. With them the brothers had a 1970 Impala convertible, fully restored and fully red. It was to replace the Shark, which had played a prominent role in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Hunter told me that he had hidden the Pontiac in the barn, and not to tell the Mitchell brothers about it; he was afraid that they might take the Chevy back. Soon after they left town, Hunter bought another convertible, a Cadillac, from his buddy Earl Biss, a crazy Crow Indian artist with a crack problem. Hunter couldn’t get a good title to the car but he had it detailed anyway. He parked it on the lawn, side by side with the two other large trophy vehicles. Biss was proud that his ride was part of that collection.

  One night I was in the kitchen with Hunter and Woody Creek lawyer John Van Ness. In the middle of our conversation, Earl walked in with a camel hair sport coat over his arm. With a grin, he said, “You white men are easy. I took a cab to your meadow, walked across to your house, let myself in, and I’ve been lying on your porch with my coat as a pillow listening to you talk for an hour.” Earl had been practicing his Native American sneaking-up skills. “What do you want, Earl?” Hunter asked.

  “Give me a forty-five. I want to kill myself” was Earl’s reply.

  “I have to go” Van Ness said as he put on his coat.

  “You coward,” Hunter said to Van Ness.

  “Give me the gun,” Biss demanded.

  “You’re crazy, Earl,” Hunter said.

  “Give him the gun, Hunter. Call his bluff,” I said.

  “You’re crazy, too” Hunter said to me.

  After a long silence that no one enjoyed, Earl started laughing like a hyena and said, “I don’t know what I would have done if you had given me the gun.”

  Just another night in the kitchen.

  On another day, Hunter pulled the freshly waxed and shampooed Cadillac, Geronimo’s Cadillac, out of the row of cars and said, “Hop in. It’s got front-wheel drive,” as if that explained everything—or anything.

  We headed toward the Woody Creek Racetrack, off-road all the way. Trying to climb a six-foot berm onto the racetrack, Hunter bogged the Eldorado down in rain-soaked dirt. The front wheels spun, and mud flew all over the car. Hunter, not to be defeated, asked me to place the spotless floor mats under the drive wheels. I did. Hunter gassed it, and the rugs flew into the sage. “Move over,” I said to Hunter.

  Turning the steering wheel lock to lock and shifting the transmission repeatedly from Drive to Reverse, I loosened the beast and drove it back to the farm. The car and I were covered in mud. Hunter hated to fail at anything and pouted all the way home.

  “At least I stayed clean,” he said to me as I pulled the filthy Cadillac into its space in the line.

  Now it was 2:00 A.M. No snow yet, and we were halfway to Denver. We pulled into an all-night Denny’s to take on some caffeine. It had been a long time since DeDe and I threaded a car through the night and I looked over the crowd here just off the Interstate and saw a bunch of people each with his or her own story.

  I thought of Ed Bradley, Hunter, Earl, gone too, and us driving in the dark to catch the last plane out of the Rockies to the East Coast.

  Sheriff Bob Relates Fun and Games at the Vail Clinic

  After Hunter’s hip replacement, which is another story, his spine was declared a Superfund site. Pain was his game. He would brag of his tolerance of it, tolerance assisted by all known and some unknown chemicals. When pain eclipsed his pharmacopoeia, the Doc went to the docs.

  I had recently had spinal surgery, and Hunter asked for a referral. I was glad to help. My surgery had been a complete success. Tests, diagnosis, and good patient-surgeon chemistry resulted in Hunter having a “spine replacement,” as Hunter told his friends.

  The surgery, while complex and successful, led directly to a very difficult “withdrawal.” Anita, Juan, and Deborah shared watches over the operation and the ensuing withdrawal. I would get updates they issued from the clinic in Vail. The essence of these dispatches was that the surgery was a technical success but that Hunter was suffering significantly. This had resulted in a decision to induce coma and to transfer the patient to the Intensive Care Unit, not because Hunter needed intensive care but because the unit had solid doors, which would protect the other patients from Hunter’s screaming outbursts of rage when he briefly awoke from his enforced sleep.

  Withdrawal is a phenomenon that most good hospitals have experience with. The Vail Clinic had seen its share of patients with hooch complications. A 5 percent, ten-proof IV solution works in most cases. The MDs told me that 5 percent was not enough with this particular patient, but that rules were rules. They also told me that it was not merely the alcohol that was causing Hunter’s problems. A list of drugs, many unknown to me, were blamed for the “kick.” Pills in all shapes and sizes were the cause of my friend’s hinky freak-outs. The coma was not induced merely because of alcohol, but so what? Cleanse the man.

  Two weeks after the surgery I was sitting in my office when Doc called. He wanted me to be his first visitor outside the family. I agreed to drive to Vail over the next two hours. I walked into the hospital and was immediately routed to the ICU Deb had already warned me the IV wasn’t working. I had brought a bottle of port that I knew HST liked. What I didn’t know was that the feeding tube—critical while Hunter was in a coma, but now removed—had made swallowing an Olympic event. I poured a glass of port, hoping to alleviate at least part of the withdrawal pain. HST thanked me and lifted the glass to his lips. He dropped it and it shattered on the hospital floor. What next?

  Hunter ordered Juan, Anita, and Deborah from the room. He raved to me that Juan only wanted his money, that Anita was depressed that she was the wife, nurse, housekeeper, editorial assistant, and future widow of an old and decrepit journalist who believed that he was soon to expire or require 24-7 care. Now it was me, HST, and his beautiful blond nurse. Hunter whispered in my ear, “Get me out of here!” I replied “Spring you?” Hunter said, “No, take me to a bar.” I told the nurse that the Doc wanted me to take him to a bar. She said it was against doctor’s orders but it would probably do him a world of good.

  Okay.

  The wheelchair-bound Hunter asked to be dressed in scrubs like the nurse. She agreed, and we dressed him. No small task: spinal surgery, chemically induced coma, his first visitor, a sympathetic RN.

  I lifted him while the nurse garbed him in scrubs. The nurse gave HST an injection in the thigh. “What’s that?” I asked. “Haldol” was her answer. “Haldol? Jesus, we use that in my jail on psychotic inmates. It’s a chemical Rip Van Winkle. He’ll be a noodle in a chair with wheels, with me in charge.” “It’s a very small dose,” she replied. “Hot damn!” the Doc exclaimed. “Let’s go!”

  I pushed him out onto the streets of Vail. In a car with suspension and shocks, these streets feel and look like glass. Now two voyagers on foot and wheel going uphill, we found the road pocked with potholes. It was ninety degrees, and I was sweating like a lord. HST was vibrating in the wheelchair like an astronaut just after liftoff. His voice was in tremolo, and his teeth were chattering.

  The first liquor license that we came to was fortunately ADA-compliant. A three-switchback ramp led to an outdoor patio with umbrella tables. “Want to sit outside?” I asked, assuming that two weeks indoors at a hospital would have Hunter yearning for sunshine. I forgot the Doc’s vampire syndrome; he feared sunlight. “No, let’s go inside.” Once we were settled at a table inside, Hunter lit up a Dunhill. Instantly, a ponytailed waiter materialized and announced, “There’s no smoking here.” I took over. “Look, dude, the guys been in the hospital for weeks, and this is his first cigarette.” I simultaneously peeled a twenty from my wad and offered the mordida. Ponytail looked left and right, swished the twenty from my fingers like a snapping turtle, and returned with an ashtray. We ordered drinks. After the delivery of HST’s Chivas and my
gin and tonic, Hunter pulled out a pipe and a Bic. Shit. Well, in for a penny…

  But before he could light the pipe, his chin was on his chest. He was nodding. Jesus. “Hunter! Hunter!” He lifted his head and met my eyes.

  “Want to go back?”

  “Yeah. Better take me back.”

  I overpaid for the untouched cocktails and started pushing the chair. HST was slumping farther forward, and I feared that he was going to fall on his face. I grabbed him by the collar of his surgical scrubs. The chair had a seat belt, and I cinched him up just before total unconsciousness descended. Back inside the hospital, six of us used a blanket to gently return Hunter to his crib. He was snoring. I drove back to Aspen.

  At about eight o’clock that night I was dining in Woody Creek at the home of a friend. My cell phone lit up. It was Anita calling. “Bobby, I’m in the valley following a limo that has Hunter in it. He called it to drive him home from Vail. I may need some help getting him into the house.” I told her I was five minutes away and to call when they got to the house. She phoned a little later and said that with the help of the driver and Cleverly, Hunter was back at Owl Farm and grinning.

  After weeks of physical therapy, stretching, and a commitment to mobility, Hunter was recovering from a major overhaul that he could barely recall. We all celebrated his return and did what we could to support him physically, mentally, and intellectually. Reflecting on his accepting the necessity of the surgery and the inherent pain, before and after the procedure, reinforced my belief that Hunter wanted more out of life—or at least, more life.

  When he asked me to ride with him in his Jeep Grand Cherokee a few days after his return, I balked, but he convinced me that it would be a short test-drive in his quest for eventual automotive independence. He promised to stay on Owl Farm property. Against my better judgment, I got the car from the garage. He groped his way to the driver’s door, hand over hand on the roof rack, and into the seat. I got in beside him, and he put it in drive. With feet numb from the days in bed and spinal swelling, he floored the accelerator. Wheels spinning, we bounced into the large field behind the house. He could press down on the accelerator, steer, jump two-foot logs, and mow down fence posts, but somehow he just could not move his right foot to the brake pedal. We careened over a pile of rotting cottonwood logs, through a wire sheep fence, and across two irrigation ditches before I could reach over and turn off the engine. I yanked the keys out of the ignition. “Switch seats or stay here as long as you want!” I bellowed. He grinned, thanked me, and complied with my order. “Mission accomplished,” he said with a smile.