Stories I Tell Myself

by Juan F. Thompson

  In many of the photos, he is wearing a silver medallion that had been given to him in the late ’60s by Oscar Acosta, the activist Chicano lawyer and model for Hunter’s sidekick in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, and one of a small number of men whom Hunter respected and, I think, somewhat feared. He didn’t wear it every day, only for special occasions. The rest of the time it hung on a lamp next to the Command Chair in the kitchen, where he would see it every day. In the photos from the 1970 Aspen sheriff’s campaign, he is wearing the medallion. In portraits, he is wearing the medallion. He didn’t wear it at home, or out to parties, though, and he certainly never allowed anyone else to wear it.

  I now wear that medallion for events where I want to invoke Hunter’s presence, or when I am acting as his representative. I wore it to Ed Bradley’s funeral in 2006. Ed was another member of that small circle of men whom Hunter respected deeply. Ed was his equal, and Hunter did not have many equals in the realm of personal power. Unlike nearly every man in Hunter’s life, Ed made it clear that when he came to visit, he was not approaching the throne to pay homage, he came as an equal, and expected to be treated as such. If Hunter had been alive when Ed died, he would have been at the funeral to honor his dear friend. But Hunter was gone, so Ed’s widow invited me as a representative of my father and their friendship. I wore the medallion with pride and humility: pride that I was representing my father, humility because I was representing my father.

  Others recognized the power of the medallion. In 2007, Hunter’s close friend from the 1970s, Tom Benton, was dying of cancer in a Denver hospital. Jennifer and I went to visit him daily for the few weeks he was there. He was often delirious or asleep, but one day he recognized me, and he saw the medallion around my neck. It seemed right to wear it to see Tom. He reached up and held the medallion between his fingers, smiled a bit, and nodded, as if greeting an old friend. Later, I asked him if there was anything I could get for him, and he said, “Give me the medallion.” I couldn’t do it, though, not even to lend it to him, not even for Tom. I know that if I had been able to ask Hunter what to do, he would have said something like, “Fuck no! Give him anything else, but not that. It is yours now, and only yours.” It is bound to me now, until I give it to Will, a long time from now.

  Hunter was superstitious about his actions. He called himself a Road Man for the Lords of Karma. He used that expression several times, most recently the night before he died. I don’t know exactly what he meant by that, but I know he wasn’t joking. He took seriously the idea that evil actions bear evil fruit, and that this is not a matter of psychology, but is a universal law. How he reconciled this with the harm that he inflicted on people around him, on my mother, on me, on countless women, on cabbies, bartenders, waiters, editors, hotel maids, journalists, audience members, and anyone else who encountered his rage, I don’t know. Maybe it all balanced out, the good he did and the harm he did, because he did a tremendous amount of good. He also spoke and wrote of reincarnation. Maybe he was serious about this. Maybe he feared he would be reincarnated as a three-legged dog with the mange in a garbage slum in Brazil, as he once wrote. Or maybe knew he would return as a crazy bodhisattva, to tell the truth and shake us out of our complacency. It is said that when the Tibetan Dalai Lama dies, he is reincarnated not long afterward somewhere else in Tibet. A group of high lamas goes in search of him, based on visions received during meditation, and when they find a candidate, they present him with things owned by the previous Dalai Lama mixed in with other objects. The true reincarnation identifies unerringly those objects that had once belonged to him. Perhaps someday I will encounter a young boy who will recognize this medallion as his, and then I will tell him all about who he had been and all that he did.

  Hunter and Tom Benton on the porch at Owl Farm

  What I do know is that when Hunter tossed those coins into the graveyard after a midnight swim he wasn’t figuratively thanking those spirits, he was making an offering with sincerity and faith, just like the Greeks burned the flesh of animals, and a Catholic priest holds the host before him in consecration during a mass. Maybe he was thanking them at least in part for helping to bring us together in that mysterious and indirect way. In that way, the birth of my own son, Will, also helped to bring us together.

  The birth of Will changed my life completely. I expected that. What I did not expect is how it changed my relationship with my father, and how important my son was to Hunter.

  When Jennifer was about three months pregnant, we drove up to Woody Creek to tell Hunter and Deb. We didn’t tell them why we were coming, it was just a normal visit. We got there in the evening, as we usually did, and Hunter was just waking up, sitting in his Command Chair. That morning he was groggy and silent, reading the paper and gradually reengaging with the waking world.

  It was just the four of us, Hunter, Deb, Jennifer, and me, and it was good to be together. This was rare. Most of the time when we arrived during this period between Will’s birth and Deb’s forced departure several years later, there were visitors. It could be Oliver, it could be a few neighborhood friends over to watch a football game, it could be an out-of-town visitor, or a lovely, young, so-called writing assistant, or a couple of lawyers strategizing with Hunter about how to handle the latest crisis or local political battle. The time when he was fresh from sleep was special because it meant we had his full attention, undiluted by distractions or drugs, whether that was weed, LSD, hash, too much whiskey at the end of two days without sleep, or some other substance that took him away from us.

  We told them that Jen was having a baby. Deb was, of course, thrilled. Hunter was quiet. He probably nodded, muttered some words of congratulation, and then went back to reading the paper, though as always keenly aware of everything that was happening around him. What he was thinking I don’t know, but I suspect it was the sudden realization that he was no longer a young man, or even a vigorous middle-aged man, but that he was now an elder, a grandfather. He continued reading and we talked about the usual things: politics, neighborhood news, anything interesting at my work. After a couple of hours he asked me to go down into the basement and bring up a bentwood rocking chair from the laundry room. I brought it up and he had me set it in the kitchen. The rocker was to be Jen’s baby-nursing chair. He told her to sit, and when she tried to get up, he told her to sit down again. He had her sitting in that chair from time to time all weekend, practicing how she was going to take care of his grandson.

  Later that night, or more accurately early the next morning, around four or five a.m., since we were on Hunter’s time now, we went next door to the cabin to sleep, and found on the bed a sling, a maternity nightgown, and a rag doll. Deb had apparently been trolling the Aspen used stores for baby items, and it was now evident that they had been expecting this announcement.

  Sunday we were to drive back to Boulder. Usually we would plan to leave in the afternoon, and between Hunter’s schedule and the long good-bye, we would end up leaving around nine or ten p.m. This time, though, Hunter was up by late morning, and suggested that we go to lunch in Basalt. He generally disliked leaving the house, preferring that people come to him, and he especially didn’t care for restaurants because of HST fans, smoking restrictions, and in general any rules that prevented him from doing exactly as he liked.

  The fact that he wanted to go to a restaurant, and bring Oliver, meant that this was a very big deal. When we were seated, Hunter ordered a glass of milk for Jennifer. She was not a milk drinker, and she protested, but Hunter insisted. Just like with the rocker, she was going to take care of his grandson properly, and he wasn’t asking her, he was telling her.

  Leaving that afternoon was hard, harder than usual. It was downright sentimental, Hunter and Deb taking us to lunch to celebrate our announcement, and his concern for Jen. I did not expect this, not from Hunter, and I was overwhelmed by it.

  —

  HE MAY HAVE ACCEPTED that he was a grandfather among those very closest to him, but he wasn’t enthusiastic
about letting other people know. A couple of months later we came up for Christmas and were preparing to go to a dinner party with Hunter and a few of his friends, including Jimmy Buffett and Ed Bradley. Jennifer asked Hunter what she should wear, and he said, “Something that hides the fact that you’re pregnant.”

  We arrived at Buffett’s house, and as soon as Jennifer walked in the door, everybody knew. Jimmy said with a big smile, “So Hunter, you’re going to be a grandfather!” Everyone was excited and made a big deal of it. During dinner both Jimmy and Ed teased him about it, and began discussing whether he would be a reluctant or a doting grandfather. They both agreed that he would be a doting grandfather. The worst was past, his friends now knew. From then on he did not hesitate. He was proud.

  The existence of my son was still an abstract thing to me. To Jennifer, carrying this growing weight daily, feeling her body change, it was an undeniable reality, but to me, the fact of a child was not quite real, even though we were planning and talking to him inside Jen’s belly. The day we went to get a sonogram made him very real.

  It must have been around seven months. It was an incredible thing to see on that little black-and-white screen, full of static, the shape of a little human being, and the most magical was watching the screen as we went on a tour of his body. The doctor told us it was a boy. We saw inside Will’s tiny skull, and then his spine, with its soft core surrounded by the hard vertebrae. We saw inside his heart, saw the chambers pumping. It was fascinating and disturbing, and it made Will, William Hunter Winkel Thompson, my son, real.

  But not as real as his emergence into the world. We drove to the Boulder Community Hospital around six p.m. on a March evening in 1998. Jennifer’s labor was long and difficult, so that the doctor had to drag Will out with a little suction hat and two huge spoons, but then he popped out, long, wet, skinny, and crying. The doctor put him on Jen’s stomach, put two clips on his umbilical cord, and asked me if I wanted to cut it. I said yes, and he handed me the scissors. I can still feel the sensation as the blades touched the cord, the slight resistance, and then it was done. The nurse wrapped him in a blanket and handed him to me, and I held him tightly, amazed and quietly joyful. There were friends and relatives in the room, but I would not give him up except to Jennifer. When the nurses came for him to do their rituals of measuring, weighing, and so on, I was with him the whole time, holding him whenever I could, at least keeping my hand on him. It was over quickly and he returned to Jennifer’s breast. A few hours later we were moved to a little room where we could sleep, and the two of us lay on the bed with this tiny, wrinkled, beautiful boy between us. After a few hours, we decided that we were better off at home. By three p.m. that afternoon we were driving our brand-new baby boy home, all wrapped in blankets and tucked into a baby seat.

  It hit me hard that moment when I held Will for the first time. I loved him immediately and completely. I didn’t love my son because he was beautiful, or healthy, or because of his name or his hair color. I loved him because I did, I had to. My son needed love and I had to love him because he was my son. That is all there was to it. The love comes first. As he grows, he gives me reasons to admire and respect him for what he does, but the love that was there in the beginning, unearned and without justification or condition, persists.

  It seemed obvious then that to doubt a father’s love, that instinctual and powerful embrace of love, would be to doubt some undeniable physical fact of our lives, like doubting the ocean tides, or the sun.

  A few days later I called Hunter. I told him that I understood now how much a father loves his son, and that I was sorry that I had doubted his love before. It was suddenly so clear to me that a father must love his son.

  He didn’t say much, but I didn’t need him to say anything, I just wanted him to hear me. He said something like, “Yes. Good. That’s true.” I told him I loved him, and I hung up.

  I suddenly had a completely new perspective on my father. Of course he loved me. Yet this wasn’t a Hollywood movie where the main character has an epiphany, the clouds roll back to reveal a smiling sun, and they live happily ever after. That’s not how it works in my experience. It’s more like fits and starts, a few steps forward, a few steps back, a flash of insight, and then back into the darkness until the next flash briefly illuminates the landscape. Thank god for those flashes, though, they keep me from walking in circles and giving up, despairing of ever seeing things clearly, even for a second.

  So it was with this insight. It didn’t resolve everything between my father and me completely and forever. What it did do, though, is give a starting place I could go back to. If I ever seriously wondered if my father loved me, and I did, I could go back to this and remember, of course he loves me. He must, he can’t help it. He just has to. Just like I have to love Will. And it helped. It helps.

  When Will was four months old, we brought him to Owl Farm to meet Hunter and Deb for the first time, and they organized a party in Will’s honor for that weekend. The evening we arrived, though, it was another of those special times with no visitors and no distractions. Hunter was the picture of the doting grandfather. Sitting in his Command Chair, he held Will in his lap. He was gentle and patient, and Will, who would only let Jennifer, me, and Wendy, a good friend of ours, hold him without crying, sat quietly. Some men hold babies awkwardly, as if they don’t want to hold them too close, or they’re afraid they might break them. Hunter held Will easily, as if he were used to having babies on his lap. He talked to him, let him explore his breakfast on the plate on the counter, and held his tiny fingers. He showed Will the IBM Selectric typewriter that was always on the counter in front of him. He enfolded Will in an aura of warmth and concern. Hunter turned on the typewriter, and Will hit the keys. A couple of weeks later we got the sheet of Will’s first typing in the mail.

  While Will was sitting on his lap, playing with the typewriter, Hunter said, “I recognize this boy.” I think Will recognized his grandfather as well. The next day during Will’s party, Hunter was outside on the front porch, and Jennifer stepped outside carrying Will, who was crying, no doubt overwhelmed by the rush of stimuli and unfamiliar faces. Hunter reached and said, “Here, give him to me.” This was madness. I could rarely calm him down once he got started crying, certainly Hunter would only make it worse. Jen handed him over, though, and Will suddenly stopped crying.

  I’m not angry at Hunter very often about his suicide. I am angry, though, that he did not stay around for Will. His body was falling apart, he could barely walk, his new marriage seemed like a complete disaster, he couldn’t concentrate long enough to write more than a few sentences, and his few, true friends were dying off. But what about his grandson? What about Will? It still makes me sad, as I write this years later, that they got to spend so little time together. Maybe it’s my own sadness too. I miss my father very much still.

  Hunter was remarkably patient with Will, but his self-restraint was not perfect. Football and basketball games were a vital part of his week, and though he liked having company during the games, there were rules that had to be observed. The most important rule was that while the game was on, side conversations must be quiet and discreet. Hunter would let people know in clear terms that their jabber was unwelcome and that they could either shut up or move to another room. Persistent violators were not invited back.

  This was all very well for adults, but it was not reasonable for small children such as his grandson. While Jennifer and I watched the game, Will would play on the floor in the kitchen, and sometimes he would cry, or screech, or drop something. One time Hunter turned to Will and said something like, “Be quiet, you little bastard!” Jennifer glared at him and said, “Hunter, don’t you dare talk to your grandson like that!,” picked up Will, and went next door to the cabin. Hunter looked abashed and angry, and said nothing. I said later to him, “Hunter, he’s a small child. He doesn’t know what he’s doing, and you can’t yell at him like that.” He may have grunted, but that was all. However, not long afte
rward he called Jen next door, apologized, and asked her to bring Will back over. It was a rare thing to get an apology like that.

  That’s how it was with Hunter. He could restrain himself for a while, and he tried very hard when we were there, but beyond a certain point he couldn’t, or wouldn’t, control himself, and if we hadn’t left already, it was then time to go. We had worked out these compromises over many years without ever discussing them. We would come to visit almost monthly. When I was there, I would accept things like his schedule, which meant staying up until dawn a couple days in a row, and accept his drinking and drug use. In return, he would try his utmost to refrain from unreasonable outbursts at me, or asking me to fix his drinks for him. Sometimes the bargain broke down. We’d be talking, and in his frustration he would suddenly yell at me. It was like being caught in the path of a flamethrower. The intensity and fullness, the heat, of his sudden rage would strike me. When I was younger, it would stun me into silence. Later, it would provoke me to rage. My rage lacked the intensity and volume of his, but I think its very presence surprised him. Sometimes that’s all it took—a quick return blast from me, and he would settle down again. But sometimes his rage was overflowing, and he would continue, and then I would say something like, “Fuck you, Hunter, I’m leaving. I’m not going to talk to you. You’re out of control,” and walk across the yard to the cabin.