The Kitchen Readings (11 page)

Hunter brought the gun up again, and tossed it to Carter. It was like the scene in the film
2001: A Space Odyssey
in which the pre-human throws the bone up in the air, slow-motion. It was a short distance across the room, but it gave Dick enough time to think things like, It holds twelve rounds, how many shots did he fire? Is the safety on? Is it cocked? Let's count the bullet holes. WHAT THE FUCK DO I DO? These questions seemed exquisitely pertinent at the time. Carter caught the gun. It was empty. Hunter was laughing.

There were now seven beautiful spider-webbed bullet holes in the window, so perfect they looked fake. Carter paused to consider his friend Bob Beattie, who lived across the street in the house the bullets were headed for. Should they call over there? If no one answered, maybe peek in the windows, check for bodies? In the end there was no problem; nobody got hurt. Hunter loved the holes; he had glass double-paned around them to preserve them. They lasted quite a while before eventually collapsing.

BOYS! TAKE YOUR TOYS OUTSIDE!

Besides being a painter, Carter did production design. Some film work, but mostly commercials. He often had occasion to deal with special effects, sometimes pyrotechnics. For smoke effects, the pyro guys would use things that looked like eighteen-inch-long sticks of dynamite. They'd produce acres of thick, noxious white smoke. After a project was completed there'd often be leftovers, so Dick had tons of the smoke bombs kicking around. Something made him think that it was a reasonable idea to give Hunter a case of them. As good ideas go, it was kind of like giving a small child a big box of razor blades to play with. Dick knew Hunter would find a use for them. He did.

It turned out to be yet another example of the inappropriate use of an outside toy. A thing designed to envelop acres was set off in a small roadside tavern. Years later the good people of Woody Creek still speak of the event. Dick still feels kind of bad. Especially now that people know who gave Hunter the bombs.

Carter's last conversation with Hunter was around Christmas 2004. Hunter got word that Dick was going to be in the valley for the holidays, and he called him. He asked Carter if he could bring some of those “fabulous smoke bombs. We have to have plenty of bombs to make New Year's Eve happen.” Dick
said he'd try but he doubted he could get them. Nobody used them anymore; the smoke was too awful to breathe. He made a couple of calls, to no avail. The holidays came and went with no smoke bomb events.

Early in February, Dick was rummaging in his storage shed and found a beer cooler full of the things. He figured he'd be in Aspen in March or April, and he'd surprise Hunter.

But Hunter died and surprised everyone first.

Now Dick Carter regrets waiting. He wrote:

“What the fuck am I gonna do with these things now? An opportunity for great mayhem has been missed. I should have called him and told him that I found these things. Stupid stuff like that would always buoy the guy, and get him excited. He might have waited…. Just a dream.

“Hunter was always great to me. Seemed genuinely glad to see you when you came over. Those visits became fewer over the last years as I spent more time in LA and less time in the valley. But it was always a trip to go by and catch up. Last time I went over was last summer, with Claudette. It was late, after dinner in town and he seemed great. Gave me a signed copy of the last book. Very touched by that. He had his usual cigarette, a cigar, a shot of black jack, beer and a glass of Pepto, all going at once. All seemed normal in the universe.”

Thinking about Hunter, Carter sums it up with this:

“One of my favorite HST quotes: ‘The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs. There is also a negative side.'”

Is He Sick Enough to Get Her Attention?

Randi Bolton is the hottest veterinarian around. She's a huge asset to Woody Creek, and naturally she was a welcome guest at Owl Farm. She first met Hunter at an Aspen party fifteen or so years ago. While she was standing around chatting with her future boyfriend, Don McKinnon, Hunter entered the room. Don, wanting to show her off, called Hunter: “Get over here, there's someone I want you to meet. Doc, this is Randi, she's a veterinarian and drives this special vet pickup truck. It keeps the warm drugs warm and the cold drugs cold.” Hunter's eyes widened. His reputation had preceded him. Dr. Bolton threw herself into the doorway, blocking it with her arms, “Touch my truck and you die.” Clearly the tiny blonde was the tougher of the two, instantly earning Hunter's respect.

McKinnon and Hunter were buddies and had the same friends. Randi was the closest thing to a responsible adult in that circle. She did no drugs, and when out for the evening, she would stop drinking long before reaching the state of consciousness that everyone else was seeking to achieve at the greatest possible speed. When Hunter was buying the next round and Randi opted out, her boyfriend would dismiss it as a “one drink, one drunk” situation. Hunter would praise her. All beautiful women were potentially Hunter's next girlfriend, if he could just figure out how…

Early on, Randi was living on top of a hill in an apartment in a house owned by Alan Finkelstein. Finkelstein was based in L.A. but was an Aspen second homeowner, Little Woody Creek, actually. Randi lived in a small unit upstairs. One evening just after returning home from a hard day tending sick horses, Randi heard the sound of a vehicle speeding up the gravel driveway. It was Hunter, almost a caricature of himself: with the Red Shark's top down, fishtailing, a gambler's visor on his shiny pate, a large glass of Chivas in one hand and a cigarette holder clenched between his teeth.

As the sun set and the gravel flew, he screamed for Alan at the top of his lungs. They had been partying night after night for many days and now night was falling once more. Hunter was ready to go. Finkelstein had already gone. He had left for Los Angeles that morning. Just one of many facts of which Hunter was unaware. Having met Hunter only a couple times at that point, Randi was trying to decide whether to be uneasy or something else. She'd never had to put a human being down. Hunter fell out of the Shark and lurched toward her apartment; he moved with little grace, in fact, little motor control, bellowing still. Randi closed the door. It was handmade, far thicker than
any door one could purchase, more like something you'd find in a castle. She slid the deadbolt, hand wrought iron as thick as her wrist. Dr. Bolton was safe, but was Hunter?

Randi thought about it and decided to meet Hunter outside, on open ground. Hunter was taken aback when, instead of his party buddy, the little blonde emerged. “I'm sorry, Hunter, but Alan left this morning.” Hunter looked down at her and became thoughtful; his demeanor shifted from wild man to avuncular, and a look of genuine concern crossed his face. “Are you all right? Will you be safe here alone?” She assured Hunter that she was quite safe.

From that time on, Randi did feel safer; she had a real friend and potential protector in the neighborhood. If anyone bothered her and she felt they needed to be shot, she knew whom to call.

About a year later Randi gave a month's notice at the failing veterinary hospital she had been associated with. They told her she was done then and there. On her way home she stopped at the Woody Creek post office, which at the time was located right next to the Tavern. Preoccupied, trying to figure out what she was going to do for work next, she heard shouting from the bar. It was Hunter and Mary Grasso; Mary owned the gallery where Hunter showed his “shot art,” paint-splattered images created by shooting at containers full of enamel. They wanted Randi to join them. Sliding onto a bar stool, she announced that they were the first to know that she was opening her own practice. The timing of the transition wasn't exactly what she expected, but so be it; there might be a few awkward weeks. Hunter harrumphed, “You can share office space here at the bar, with me.” He called for a phone to alert the owners that two doctors would be sharing space at the Tavern. Dr. Bolton graciously declined.

Weeks later, Hunter was in the midst of a creative frenzy and Randi got an urgent call from him: he needed syringes and sixteen-gauge needles. Not knowing about the creative frenzy thing, she leapt to the most unfortunate conclusions. She stopped by Owl Farm, mostly in the hope that she might be able to talk her friend out of whatever depravity he had in mind.

Armed with speeches about medical ethics, her license to practice, and the dangers of drug abuse, she found Hunter out in the yard armed to the teeth. Large sheets of plywood were propped up all around with photographs and posters wall-papered to them. The images on the plywood were violently splattered with paint and riddled with bullet holes. Hunter would fill vials and balloons with enamel paint, tie strings to them, and strategically drape them down over the pictures and then shoot them. The balloons and vials would explode, sending paint flying. This “shot art” had been pioneered by his contemporary and friend, author William Burroughs. Hunter needed the syringes to fill the balloons and vials.

Mary Grasso had been selling Hunter's work at her Aspen gallery for very good money. This was the period when Hunter adopted the attitude that “it wasn't art until it was sold,” a philosophy that was repugnant to artists like Michael Cleverly, who chronically had more inventory than sales. For Hunter, though, sales were brisk, and lucrative, and art had to be made.

There was no reason for Randi to have put all this together without any background on the process, so she launched into one of her anti-drug speeches. Hunter stopped her and affected a pathetic, hurt expression. How could anyone think that he might do something unseemly with syringes and needles? He explained
what he was up to. When Randi looked around, it became obvious, of course; the whole thing was about truth and beauty. She gave him what he asked for.

Randi and Doc were always honest with each other. Randi was always honest with everyone, but some people tended to tell Hunter what they thought he wanted to hear. One night Randi wandered into the Tavern, and there was Hunter holding court with a bunch of acolytes. Randi had always heard of Hunter's famous mumble but had never actually noticed it. That night he was in full garble, with the acolytes nodding and smiling, not necessarily in unison or comprehension. When he saw Randi he greeted her and asked her to join the group, then continued his dissertation, more or less addressing it to her. When he finally paused, Randi said, “Hunter, I can't understand a word you're saying.” Hunter smiled, winked at her, and said with perfect diction, “Good for you.” With that, he turned back to his audience and proceeded to mumble. His fans got back to nodding and smiling, not necessarily in unison.

Randi later posed sort of in the buff (there was a damn horse standing in front of everything of interest) for
Calendar Vets 2005,
a fund-raiser for Colorado Animal Rescue, Inc. It was a big hit all over and was prominently displayed in Hunter's kitchen. Hunter died in February; the month on the calendar was August, as it had been since the day it was hung on the wall. It was Randi's month.

© Bob Millman

Jesse Steindler was the manager of the Flying Dog Ranch, three miles up Woody Creek Road from Owl Farm. By rural Woody Creek standards, that made him a fairly close neighbor of Hunter's. This was not always a big plus in Jesse's mind.

Jesse had been a working cowboy from the age of sixteen. He considered his horse and big hat about as glamorous as a carpenter would consider his hammer and saw. When, on occasion, someone asked him if he wanted to go riding, he'd respond that “riding a horse for fun would be like going for a ride in a wheelbarrow.” Like most real cowboys, Jesse didn't set aside too much of his day for nonsense.

Jesse and his family took up residence at the Flying Dog in the early nineties. It was Jesse, his first wife, their twin toddler boys, and daughters Julia, eight, and Alice, ten. Jesse had heard about the eccentric celebrity who lived down the road. One afternoon he stopped by Owl Farm to introduce himself and to alert Hunter to the fact that he was moving 150 head of cattle down from the ranch to the pasture directly across from Owl Farm the following morning. Hunter thought this was great and indicated that he would be around to videotape the event.

Shortly after dawn, Jesse and his daughters started moving the herd. Jesse up front, and the two girls in the rear. They grazed them down the road, moving slowly, with the animals stopping at every curve and bend so their buddies in the rear could catch up. This was in the last days before the rich started building in Woody Creek, so there was little traffic to be inconvenienced by a herd of cattle at that hour. The herd was about 150 yards from Hunter's house when Jesse saw Hunter out on his deck. He noticed that Hunter had a gun. Jesse was too busy with the cows, each one with ideas of its own, to think much about it. They were directly opposite Owl Farm and beginning to try to turn the herd into the pasture when Hunter opened fire.

Jesse was acquainted with a number of Hunter Thompson stories; some of them featured firearms. His first thought was that Hunter was shooting at them. Of course Doc would never do that; he was pointing the weapon in the opposite direction, toward the mesa behind the house. Jesse figured this out pretty quick, but the cows didn't. It was too fine a detail for their bovine brains to distinguish. The herd exploded like a flock of birds, with 150 cows taking off at full gallop in 150 different directions. Hunter blasted off half a dozen rounds while Jesse and his daughters tried to keep from getting trampled. They watched
helplessly as the beasts charged back up the road where they had come from, down the road toward the Woody Creek Tavern, up through Hunter's yard toward the mesa beyond, and off in every other available direction. Jesse was getting to know Hunter, and his sense of humor.

It took Jesse and his girls two hours to round up the cattle and get them into the pasture. Being ranch folk, they didn't think it was quite as big a deal as some might have, but Jesse felt he should have a little chat with Doc nonetheless. New in the neighborhood and new to the job, he didn't think it was his place to be overly critical of Hunter's behavior. They had a quiet talk and, with the benefit of perspective, Jesse came to think it was pretty funny, too. Hunter had just wanted to see what would happen. Living across from Owl Farm, the critters were going to be exposed to a lot of gunfire; they might as well start getting used to it.

Soon Jesse and Hunter became friends. Jesse was a good neighbor to everyone and was always willing to lend a hand. He was as capable at standard household repairs as Hunter was not. When the godawful pink toilet sprang a leak, and Hunter apparently thought it was the sort of thing that could be repaired with a baseball bat, Deborah could make an urgent call to Jesse and he'd come over, turn the water off, and install a new toilet. Standing in water up to his ankles, he'd only ask that Hunter do his yelling in the other room. There was no waiting to be fit into a plumber's schedule or need to frighten an outsider. When the official Owl Farm skunk, varmint, and predator trapper finally had enough of Hunter and quit, Jesse took over those duties, too. He used smaller traps so the skunks couldn't lift their tails and spray. He never complained—but damn those 3:00 or 4:00
A.M
. phone calls.

By the summer following Hunter's “recreational stampede,” Jesse had been at the ranch for a year, and everyone understood
one another. They weren't grazing cattle across from Owl Farm anymore; they were growing hay. Hay has no response to gunfire. It was approximately 3:00
A.M
. one fine day when Jesse's phone rang. Hunter's newest “editorial assistant” was on the line. Hunter was stuck in the hayfield. Those of us who have driven out of the Owl Farm driveway countless times always thought we had two options, left and right. Hunter had discovered option three: straight. He, the assistant, and the old Jeep Cherokee had bounced a hundred yards down into the field. Hay requires an awful lot of water, and therfore a lot of irrigating. The field was being irrigated that night and was really, really wet. Hunter had buried the Jeep up to the axles. The hay was three feet high, which rendered the Jeep, and Hunter, almost totally invisible. The assistant left Hunter in and bushwhacked back up to the house to call Jesse, who dutifully got up and headed to Owl Farm.

When he arrived, the assistant refused to leave the house. Hunter's mood was too foul, and she wanted no part of whatever was going to happen next. Jesse got into the old ranch pickup he was driving and set out into the field to find Doc. Since Jesse was the one who did the irrigating, he knew where to drive and where not to. He kept to the fence line, the dry ground. Circumnavigating the field, he finally spotted Hunter's Jeep, only because of the flash of a lighter and the glow of a pipe in the interior. The roof was the only thing visible above the hay. Jesse turned off his rig and approached. He tapped his flashlight on Hunter's driver's-side window, in the style of a cop rousting teenagers at play. Hunter jolted and locked the doors. Clearly the flashlight tap had called up some disturbing, primal memory, some situation that he did not want to revisit. He hunkered down, pretending not to exist.

Hunter had bogged himself down in the worst possible place. The giant agricultural sprinklers used to water a hay field are pretty much the same as the back-and-forth oscillating type that you use on your lawn, only much, much bigger. Each one covered about an acre, with the maximum amount of water being dumped at the outside of the arc. In this case, approximately twenty gallons of water were being dumped on Hunter's Jeep every thirty seconds. The water was cycling back toward the Jeep, and Jesse really wanted to get inside. Hunter had been sitting in there smoking hash since the assistant had left and was feeling a little paranoid. There was a sense of urgency. Jesse finally shined the flashlight into his own semi-panicky face so Hunter could recognize him. Hunter unlocked a door.

So now it was 4:00
A.M
. and Hunter and the cowboy were filling the Jeep with hash smoke, and water was pounding down on the roof every thirty seconds. Jesse had to be up to run a ranch in a couple of hours and really wanted this to be over. Of course at this point, he was completely stoned.

Through the smoke, Jesse could see that just out beyond the arc of the sprinkler was dry ground. He reckoned that if he could get his ranch truck to the point closest to Hunter, an area that was still dry, he might have enough purchase to be able to drag the Jeep out. He timed his break between drenchings and made for the truck. He brought the rig up as close to the Jeep as he dared and stretched out the tow strap; it was just short. Rummaging around the bed, he found some old rope with which to make up the distance. He triple-wrapped the rope between the hook on the tow strap and the truck's undercarriage. Jesse and Hunter conferred, made a plan, and got to work. Soon they were behind the wheels of the two vehicles, tires spinning wildly, mud and hay flying, rope straining. Well, the strap held, but the
rope broke. Under the strain, it snapped like a rubber band, and the steel hook flew back over the Jeep's hood and shattered the windshield. Hunter came flying out of the Jeep as if he'd been shot from a cannon. For some reason he was sure it was a bullet. Pure paranoia. The timing wasn't good. Hunter flattened himself on the ground, to present a smaller target to the phantom sniper, just as the sprinkler arrived depositing its twenty-gallon load. Hunter, usually as capable of appreciating low comedy as much as anybody, was having a little trouble with this one.

Jesse drove the soaked and livid Hunter S. Thompson home. As Hunter sloshed out of the truck, he screamed at Jesse to never call him again. Jesse could have let it go, but he had a better handle on the humor of the situation than Hunter. He reminded Doc who actually had done the calling at 3:00
A.M
. The conversation ended right there.

 

It was after 1:00
A.M
. Christmas morning. Jesse had finished wrapping presents at midnight and had made it to bed to try to get a couple in before the kids got up. The phone rang. Jesse's wife, Jill, answered. It was Deborah. “There's a mountain lion in the house!” Jill handed the phone to Jesse.

“Ha ha,” Jesse said. He could hear Hunter in the background; they were on the speakerphone. Considering the holiday, Jesse just assumed that Hunter was giving the gift of “mirth” for Christmas this year.

Hunter came on:

“Jesuschristthisisnofuckingjokethere'sagoddamnmountain lioninthegoddamnhousewillyougetoverhere?”

Jesse patiently suggested that mountain lions were more the bailiwick of the Fish and Game Department, and perhaps that's who they should be calling at two-something o'clock on Christ
mas morning. Jesse was pretty sure that Hunter and Deborah wouldn't have any luck with Fish and Game, but he figured that if Hunter was screaming at their answering machine then he wouldn't be hollering at him. It might buy him enough time to take a ball-peen to every phone in the house and become incommunicado. This, of course, didn't play, and Jesse found himself hiking it up Hunter's steps, .30-30 in hand, not too many minutes later. As it turned out the critter, whatever it was, wasn't in the house. It was in the peacock cage.

The peacock cage was on the deck built up against the house. Five or six feet square and about eight feet high. It was cobbled together with two-bys, chicken wire, and Plexiglas. On the deck side was a person-size door made out of chicken wire and two-bys. On the opposite wall was a smaller peacock-size door. Inside were shelves and perches running up two walls. Apparently peacocks like banana peels and orange rinds and stuff of that nature, so between cleanings, the interior of the cage looked like a compost heap covered with bird shit.

The peacock cage, sans mountain lion, bobcat, lynx…whatever.

Jesse was plenty nervous when he started easing the cage door open. He noticed that Hunter was standing behind him with a shotgun. Jesse pleaded with him to go somewhere else. He didn't want it to turn into a shooting gallery. He peered in; the birds were all huddled together on a top perch. He looked to his right and realized he was nose to nose with an extremely large, agitated bobcat. Backing up slowly, he left the door wide open.
The cat's butt was pressed up against the chicken wire. Jesse figured that if he gave him a poke with the barrel of the .30-30, the frightened cat would run out the open door and be gone. Jesse poked; the cat hissed. Kind of like a house cat, only basso profundo. It was a toss-up as to who was more anxious, Jesse or the cornered cat. Jesse poked again, harder. The cat sprang, bounced off a window, hit the floor running, out the cage door and in through the living room door where Hunter had been standing. Now there really was a wildcat in the house.

The decor of Hunter's house was what you'd call eclectic. A little cluttered in some areas. There must have been a million places for a cat to hide, half a million in the living room alone. The stuffed wolverine, the skulls, the gator heads. This wasn't going to be easy. The two intrepid hunters stood in the middle of the room peering and pointing the barrels of their guns in this direction and that. No bobcat to be seen. They flung the front door open all the way and decided to open all the windows to make it easier for the cat to escape. After opening the last window as far as they could, they turned back to the search. Suddenly they heard a sound behind them and spun around. It wasn't the cat. It was the last window they had opened. It was newly installed; the carpenter had set it in the rough opening, but hadn't yet nailed it in place. This sort of thing wasn't totally uncommon at Owl Farm. Sometimes workers would feel the need to leave in a hurry; sometimes they'd ingest something that would leave them confused. Jesse and Hunter watched, paralyzed, as the window, frame and all, slowly tilted in, crashed onto the living room floor, and shattered. It was December 25. Hunter's house was becoming pretty chilly. Snow was flurrying in through the huge new hole in the wall.

The good news was that the crash had frightened the cat, too. Driven from its hiding place, it sat perched on the back of an easy chair. Jesse had had enough. He raised his rifle. The bullet went through the bobcat, the wall behind the bobcat, Hunter's bedroom, and into the back wall of the house. Later Hunter never let anyone dig it out or patch it. He liked having stuff around to remind him of the good times.