Proud Highway: Saga of a Desperate Southern Gentleman, 1955-1967

by Hunter S. Thompson

  With Johnson as president, I can’t even work up an honest rage against Meredith, who’s constantly stealing from me. I feel on the verge of a serious freak-out … but if I get over that hump I’ll write a good article for you. In the meantime, we’re at least even on the money. This check is good. I’ve sworn off money articles a/o December, so maybe I’ll level it out then. If not, I might run for the Senate … or send off for a Carcano.25

  Savagely,

  Hunter S. Thompson

  TO TOM SLOTSKY:

  Slotsky was an Aspen ski bum who did carpentry work for the Thompsons at Owl Farm.

  October 31, 1967

  Woody Creek, Colorado

  Dear Tom.…

  I got your letter about two hours ago and was naturally depressed to hear about your spider nightmare. I was going to write you on Nevada State Prison stationery, but I figured that might cause trouble on your end. In any case, I know some good people at NSP, due to that National College of Trial Judges Conference at Lake Tahoe that I covered for The New York Times.

  From what you say, however, you won’t have any problem if you were the victim of an invalid and illegal search, which of course it would have to be if you were stopped on a phony stolen car complaint. Any good lawyer should be able to handle that. I don’t know any attorneys in Las Vegas, but if things get critical, I know some good ones in California. This is a rotten, stupid situation and very difficult to deal with in a letter, and it goes without saying that I don’t have much sympathy for you, considering that I warned you many months ago about the kind of people you were getting mixed up with. That dope crowd is pure trouble, especially for people who are too young to know better. I didn’t want to argue with you then, but I guess I should have. I knew, from talking to the sheriff, that a lot of the people you thought were just “happy-go-lucky” types were actually under suspicion for using narcotics. Now, in retrospect, I see that I should have been more frank with you. But since I didn’t know you that well, and since you were doing first-rate work on the house, I didn’t see any sense in creating problems by presuming to butt into your business.

  Frankly—and I say that in all seriousness here—I don’t know what the hell to say about the 20-pound charge as you state it. It’s an ugly situation, and especially so, to me, after spending the day in Nevada State Prison as the guest of Warden Hocker. To add to the horrible irony of the situation, I just talked to the editor of Playboy today about writing an article comparing marijuana in the Sixties to booze in the Twenties. The article they want me to write is based on their educated assumption that marijuana will be legal by 1970—or at least that’s what they said. (I just interrupted this to call one of my lawyer friends in California and he said you should try, if you’re not firm with a lawyer right now, to get a guy named Robert Foley, who went to law school with a friend of mine named David Pierce, the ex-mayor of Richmond. Foley is an ex-D.A., and Pierce says he’s as knowledgeable as anybody you could get down there.)

  This whole thing seems insane—to have you arrested for a “crime” that will shortly be made legal. Like getting a letter from somebody who got arrested in Reno for having a case of Old Crow. It’s hard to know what to make of it. Anyway, let me know if there’s anything specific I can do to help. […]

  Hunter

  TO PETER COLLIER, RAMPARTS:

  November 14, 1967

  Woody Creek, Colorado

  Dear Peter.…

  Yesterday’s telegram was inevitable. I sent four, all nearly identical, disclaiming all responsibility for articles long overdue. Today I went to my friendly local doctor and got shots in both arms—and I felt pretty good until I saw the Sevareid–Eric Hoffer26 chat on TV tonight. I hope you did that article right. Hoffer is pathetic; the whole thing was a nightmare … it, along with my penicillin and Vitamin B overloads, jolted me out of the month-long sloth I’ve been in.

  The failure with Texas was the lack of hard charges against the Rangers. The bundle of material that I put off reading for way too long was woefully inadequate, in terms of hand-holds. I’m sure the Rangers are vicious bastards, but everything I know about the Oakland cops makes the Rangers seem tame. I mention this disparity only in the context of entrenched positions. I felt a bit naked, in terms of the required moral outrage, after going through your Texas file, one clip at a time. But, even then, I decided to do an article simply on Texas, using the Rangers as a leitmotif … and then I went down the tube with my second case of flu in two months, and with even a normal Aspen winter coming on, I was obviously setting myself up as a non-resistant disease magnet—and I don’t really feel like I want that invalid scene right now.

  But that’s only half of it. I’ve been blowing fat assignments almost as punctually as they’ve come up for the past six months … and now that I’ve “evened” all the old, symbolic scores that I could dredge up in the meaningless, overtime vengeance of these Woody Creek nights, I feel sort of burned out. […] Anyway, I’ve been agreeing—with my left hand—to write a fantastic variety of articles, while my right hand has been refusing, for reasons I’m just beginning to understand, to do anything at all. Sort of “which side are you on?” That gig. And that’s the world’s longest story for everybody, so why fuck around with trying to explain it here? There was also the massive fuck-up of my car by the local Volvo dealer, which would have left me in possible need of a rent-a-car gig in Texas … and that would have come to several hundred bills, which I have a card for, so that wouldn’t have crippled me … except that I got a bit nervous about the lack of response (from Ramparts) to that expense bill I sent after the San Francisco trip. I only billed The New York Times for half the transportation on that thing, due to the fact that I’d sent you an over-simplified ticket … so I put myself in shape to lose about $200 on the thing, if anything went wrong, and when it looked like something might go wrong I had powerful second thoughts about running up big transportation bills in Texas, to be reimbursed by Ramparts. No doubt this is a petty consideration, and in some months it wouldn’t matter, but this is one of those months when I’m running pretty tight on the dollar count, and on top of everything else about the last thing I need is a money crash due to uncovered outlays.

  So my only physical efforts for the past few weeks have been in the direction of becoming a Volvo mechanic by default (the dealer’s default) and stealing about nine cords of winter firewood from the American Cement Corp. That last card I sent you about leaving for Texas was sent on Friday night, very late, prior to my total collapse from flu Saturday night and Sunday, just about the time I was scheduled to take off … which, obviously, I might have done anyway, but given all the factors: illness and probable car problems running into money, plus a relatively weak case against the Rangers, and the dread possibility of getting financially sucked into an article that might eventually cost me in terms of my own expense, etc.… so it came to me, in a terrible flash one night, that if I was going to get sick and broke all at once, I’d be better off doing it here, where at least I have credit. My image is very fat in Aspen … my hope is to get through the winter without spending a nickel, running up huge bills and mumbling something about “Random House” if anybody ever mentions payment … and then coming to grips with it all in the spring.

  In the meantime, I’m preparing a 1200-word “column” shot for you, to be dispatched momentarily … and I’ve put the Texas job in a sort of instant limbo where it can be tapped or maybe unleashed on a moments notice. Or a week’s or a month’s. Texas will always be there, and it won’t change much. That’s one of the few things we can count on in this world, for good or for ill.

  OK, send word if you got out from under Hoffer without injuries. Is there room for anything I might send as a “column”? Is there real money involved? Are you there?

  Constructively,

  Hunter S. Thompson

  FROM TOM WOLFE:

  Although Thompson had never met Wolfe, he enjoyed his “new journalism” essays.

  November
23, 1967

  Dear Hunter,

  As you may have seen in the famed truth stash TIME MAGAZINE, the erstwhile Herald Tribune Magazine NEW YORK has, in fact, been revived, on its own, coming out weekly, starting in March. I trust it will be a maniacally rich source of NEW JOURNALISM, the face of which we may all discover, and I hope you will contribute. The magazine will be about NEW YORK mostly, but we will stretch a point for all good stuff, from wherever. I see by the columns, Herb Caen’s particularly, that you may split because of the libel ogres—but I don’t truly believe it. Don’t let the bastids squash you. Honkytonk owners are unlibelable, their very limbs are inflammable scandals to the penetrating gaze of Dr. Strange. I am in Virginia finishing a book about Kesey and the Pranksters at last; will deliver the manuscript, 900 typeriddled pages, this weekend. I’ll spend a couple of weeks cutting if I have the stamina, but the mother is finally off my back anyway. Well, you knew the feeling first. I see HELL’S ANGELS on every paperback rack everywhere, here in Virginia included. I think you may be a rich devil, except that the paperback people are so slow settling up. Anyway—

  Many salutes,

  Tom

  TO TOM WOLFE:

  November 28, 1967

  Woody Creek, Colorado

  Dear Tom.…

  Your letter came as a fine shot in the liver, or wherever I’ve been needing a shot recently. Oddly enough, somebody the previous night had mentioned Kesey in connection with Jackson Hole and I suddenly thought about the tapes I said I’d send27 … so it was a bit of shock to wake up and find your letter. Especially from Richmond. It was like falling back in time, since another one of my haggles these days is a mandatory trip to Kentucky for Christmas. The idea that anybody still goes back to Richmond to finish a book rings a brain-bell that I’m not sure I want to hear anymore.

  Anyway, I’ve spent half of this Saturday (or sattidy) nite listening to my bag of tapes and all they tell me is that I should never have told you I’d send them in the first place. But I’m winging two or maybe four in your special envelope and you will see for yourself. Like I said, they weren’t what you were looking for … so now that you’ve finished the book you won’t have to apologize to me for not using them. Just be sure to send them back sometime, so I won’t have any holes in my family album. You’ll need a small, cassette-type recorder to hear them at all, and most of what you’ll get is my own drunk-talk. I use the machine primarily to make notes, not to gather slices of life for the market. I’ve never enjoyed sticking mikes or cameras in front of people. As a matter of fact I’m getting to the point where I don’t even enjoy writing.

  You guessed right about my not splitting, at least for the moment, but my legal/contractual dealings have become so heinous of late that I might as well be in a Mexican jail. I’ve been quoting your $20,000 figure for the past few months and everybody says, “Yeah, we’d give it to you except we’re afraid of being sued by Scott Meredith.” Well.… Balls.… It’s 5:10 on a very cold and snowy Sunday morning here, and I have to be up by noon to watch the Bears rap the Packers (remember, you read it here first) and then a nightmare struggle between the Colts and 49ers. I’ve been supporting myself recently by whipping locals around on the weekly point spreads. Nobody will bet with me tomorrow, and these are two fat-city games I’ve been waiting for. People spook easily in these mountains.

  On other fronts.… It was good to hear about NEW YORK. I gave up reading Time, along with most other things, a few months ago. But I’m still curious about the New Journalism, although I doubt Manhattan Island is going to yield a hell of a lot of it, at least in terms of source material. Your best stuff in Tangerine, etc. was all geographically strange. Some punk named Fitzgerald explained it in terms of a “sense of wonder.” New Yorkers shouldn’t write about New York, like I shouldn’t write about Aspen … although I probably will. I’ve blown enough assignments recently to support five writers for five years. I just kept putting them all off until they were all impossibly overdue and then I sent off a bunch of ugly telegrams, saying I was overcome by a fit of bad angst and had canceled obligations. So now I’m stone broke and deep in my Wood Period. Working constantly with wood. Many walls, shelves, tables, firewood … tonight I put up a huge wall of cork in my living room. So I guess we’re getting toward the Cork Period. And shotguns. Many clay pigeons off the porch, and a touch of the strange grass while the barrels cool off. I have also become a Volvo mechanic and a sound freak. Everything but writing. I have a tentative agreement to write a book on the Joint Chiefs, but all this legal bullshit has caused me to pull my brain in like a turtle every time I talk to somebody from New York. I’ll be there again sometime after my bluegrass xmas, mainly to settle things one way or another, so if you’re going to be in town, let’s have a peaceful drink … and right now I’m going to cut this off and finish it tomorrow, after the olympian struggles on TV.…

  … now, 24 hours later, hurting from all those unmade bets. Yeah, the Packers won (so I blew that), but not by enough to hurt any sound-minded investor. The Bears copped out on two huge occasions; the Packers keep winning on the same principle that Mailer keeps writing … but I guess I’ll save that for some other time. Anyway, I hurt because I’m poorer than I should be right now … these swine won’t even watch the games with me any more, much less bet in advance.… I think they fear the half-time wagers, which can be treacherous. And so much for all that. I’m about to clump another article and devote the rest of this wrong year to straightening out my personal papers.

  I wish to hell you were right about my being a “rich devil,” but the truth of the matter is that I’m down to $200 or so and Ramparts sent my last check to Austin, Texas. God only knows why. I’m now trying to pry it out of the postmaster down there, but I figure he has instructions to burn anything in a Ramparts envelope. I agreed to write a “column” for them, but I have no idea how to start.… I just hung an antelope’s head over my fireplace. Things are happening. And I have credit, so I’ve given up worrying about cash except that I have to settle this contract thing somehow. If you see Lynn Nesbit … no, fuck her. I think she has the fear. But I’m really at my wit’s end in these dealings. I’ve developed such a loathing for the typewriter that I rarely even enter this room. In all truth, this is the first half-human letter I’ve written in nearly two months. I’ve instructed Sandy to tell anyone who calls to say I’m not at home and probably won’t be. The only people I’ll talk to are those who want to place hard-rapping bets. Wagers on olympian spectacles. The Woody Creek line would appear to be very generous, but with massive discrepancies and lunatic deviations from the Reno judgments. And so much for that … again. You see why my mind is in trouble.

  As for Kesey, I’m uncommonly curious about your book [The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test] and I’m not sure why. Kesey doesn’t need any gratuitous canonization at this point. (Is canonization a word?) Did you see that Chronicle headline the day after he got out of jail? I thought of writing and offering anonymous limbo here, but our general relationship was always so goddamn drugged that I’m not even sure I know what he’s like when he’s straight. And I don’t know how many people he’d want to bring in. A scene like he had at La Honda would have me on Death Row in two months.

  … but on that score, and on the subject of hospitality, etc., consider this as a standing invitation—room, board, etc.—if you feel like coming out for a shot at the mountains. One of my projects this winter is to master this ski business. I’ve done it a few times, but not enough to come to grips … but now I’m going to deal with it. So if you have any loose time, come on out. I have all the extras.

  Yeah, and it’s getting late again. Eight above zero & very crisp outside. If you know any good, human agents, send me a name or so. All I really need right now is somebody to keep my act in line … like I just alienated Playboy permanently, clue to my angst. What I really need is a personal manager. Send word if you know of any. Or send word anyway. I’m sending the tapes in a different package, with a differe
nt stamp and a different drummer. Beware.…

  Hunter

  TO LEE BERRY:

  December 7, 1967

  Woody Creek, Colorado

  Lee—

  […] Your goddamn cop’s badge28 has caused me nothing but trouble. Everybody in Aspen thinks I’m a cop … so I bought a “police” badge for my hat and the other day on the radio I said I was the Woody Creek Narcotics Magistrate. A lot of the IQ-70 types tremble at the sight of me. You sound like you’re stoned all the time; what’s happening to those articles you wrote? Try the National Observer. […] You’re right about free-lancing, but it’s fun when you hit.

  The hippie thing is over; now they’re all desperate refugees and beggars. Or serious dope freaks. They’re a drag to be around, but in fact they always were. People who were fucking the Sun and calling me uptight six months ago now show up at the house driving cars with New York and California plates, trying to borrow money or sell me everything they have—including the clap-ridden teeny-boppers who own the cars. Depressing. Grass is down to $50 a kilo in San Francisco; the market is glutted, the whole scene is glutted—bad news and losers. Hostility and paranoia. Fuck it.

  Christ, it’s five in the morning here. I just realized it. I’m sore as hell after tumbling down Ajax [Mountain] yesterday on a pair of borrowed White Stars. This time I’m going to make a real run at it—lessons, etc.—to get good so I’ll know if I like it or not. But starting out at the top of Ajax is ugly. I gave up hunting for a while; I got tired of dragging the bodies. Now I shoot clay pigeons off the porch. And I do a lot of wood-work—shelves, walls, etc. Somehow, I forgot how to write. Blew $6,500 worth of assignments in two weeks, just threw up my hands and said to hell with it. Yeah, that goddamn agent is suing me. I have to get around him somehow. The paperback is selling better than I expected, but I can’t get the money. Somewhere in New York I have a half-million nickels, but so far I haven’t seen one. I don’t know how it’s going to turn out, but right now it looks bad. That’s why I’m going to New York again.