The Kitchen Readings (3 page)

There's really no other way to put it. Facts are facts. Hunter mumbled. In short staccato bursts. The way they teach you to use a fully automatic weapon. A quick spray, then another, then another. Covering the field. His mind was so quick that he had his words processed and considered before he could get them out. When the rest of us speak before we think, it gets us in trouble. For Hunter it was just the opposite. He couldn't get the words out fast enough, and his pauses were semicolons, not commas. Besides, he didn't give a hoot and a holler what anyone thought anyway.

Our ability to comprehend Hunter—or not—was our problem, not Hunter's. I don't think that I ever witnessed him
make an effort to clarify himself. For some reason, none of this deterred TV hosts from courting him for their talk shows, or colleges from begging him to come lecture. Though these weren't Hunter's favorite activities, it wasn't because he was worried about people not understanding him—like I said, he really couldn't care less. What he didn't like was the structure of the things. In agreeing to them, he actually had to be somewhere at a certain time. You might say that tardiness was a shortcoming of Hunter's. People constantly forgave him this small flaw, I think, because it was so remarkable that he showed up at all. I suspect that the reason that he showed up was because he had some sort of agreement with his publisher—you know, the kind of agreement that's in writing, attended by lawyers, and signed with blood. That, plus I think the dough was pretty good on the lecture circuit. Money is always a wonderful motivator. Hunter tried to keep his lectures down to questions and answers; the way most people end their talks was how Hunter began his. He usually ended them by felonious assault with a handy fire extinguisher.

A few years ago I was sitting in a state of non-Zen nothingness and it occurred to me that at some unknown point I had become able to understand every word that Hunter said. How long had it been since I leaned closer in an effort to turn the sounds into words? I couldn't say. This epiphany kind of unnerved me. What did it mean? Was I spending too much time at Owl Farm? Was my ear–brain continuum evolving in some strange way? Was it the drugs? Nah. Couldn't be the drugs. I concluded that it didn't mean anything. I come to that conclusion a lot. It's safe.

Still, it did get me thinking, and took me back to the Jerome Bar years before, to what might have been my first one-on-one conversation with Doc, when we were just getting to know each other.

I walked into the place in mid-afternoon. Hunter was sitting at the bar having lunch. As usual he had ordered half the menu and was picking at the food. He had all the beverage bases covered as well: a Bloody Mary, a beer, a glass of water, and a tumbler of Chivas. Apparently some doofus had spotted Hunter just before I arrived. The doofus was dancing around the room, table to table, pointing out, “That's Hunter Thompson over there.” Everyone loves that stuff. Figuring me as his only potential ally, Hunter asked me to join him. I sat down, and he said to help myself to some lunch. He had enough in front of him to feed two or three. He ordered me a beer, and I started picking around the different plates the same way he was. The doofus began to hover closer and closer and finally sat down next to us. Doc explained how he and I were in the middle of an important meeting and could really use some privacy. The guy actually took the hint and drifted off.

Doc and I started chatting, both of us relieved that we didn't have to deal with the fool. We talked and drank and grazed over the food, with me occasionally leaning close to make sure that I wasn't missing any Hunter Thompson wisdom. I thought it was going all right; sure, I'd miss some stuff here and there, but I believed I was keeping up. That is, I thought that I was keeping up until Hunter really took the ball and started to run with it. Now he was doing all the talking; I was merely audience. I listened carefully to every word, straining to understand, with only intermittent success. Nodding and smiling when I hoped it was appropriate, half comprehending, half bluffing. It seemed to be working. Hunter went on and on. One of us was having a great conversation. I started to get nervous about what would happen if, all of a sudden, Hunter required a reply from me. No need to fret; Doc was happy. He continued.

Finally he stopped dead. He fixed me with a hard, searching look. “Michael,” he said, “you're the most unflappable person I've ever talked to.” I am? My God, I thought, what the hell have we been talking about? The possibilities raced through my brain. Everything from sedition to loaning him my wife. “Hunter,” I confessed, “I'm sorry. I haven't understood a word you've said for the last five minutes.” Hunter gave me a kindly smile. I knew it was all right because it wasn't about me.

The doofus was gone, and we had finished our drinks and Hunter's lunch. We bade each other a good afternoon and promised to do this again soon.

Hunter and Maria lived together for several years; but by 1987 Maria Khan had left the farm. A beautiful girl of Pakistani descent from a prominent Phoenix family, Maria finally decided that she had completed her enlistment as Hunter's live-in, sleep-in administrative assistant. Her black hair and gray/blue eyes probably accounted for part of Hunter's attraction to her, but she was also very smart. Smart enough to know it was time to return to Phoenix to continue her education.

Her parents despised Hunter, and although he knew it, he had difficulty accepting it. He retaliated by writing a gonzo exposé of the Khan clan in the Sunday supplement of a prominent Phoenix newspaper. This resulted in a serious widening of the Thomp
son/Khan chasm. His charges against the Khans were borderline libel, but in some sense funny—particularly if you knew that part of Hunter's motivation was revenge for the family's supporting Maria's escape from Woody Creek. She had moved out unexpectedly, and Hunter was having trouble locating the particular straw that broke the back of the relationship. Certainly there had been some behavior issues, but nothing that dovetailed with the time immediately preceding her departure. Perhaps he deserved it, but in a just and fair universe there'd be an explanation, a measure of understanding. There'd be a straw.

Maria and Hunter in happier times, joined on the links by David McCumber, Tex, Deb Fuller, and a pro.

After Maria left him, Hunter had been sent to Phoenix on assignment with the
San Francisco Examiner
to cover the Evan Mecham impeachment hearings.

Evan Mecham had run for governor of Arizona three times before finally being elected in 1986. After one short year in office,
a recall effort was under way. An archconservative with megalomaniacal tendencies, he had canceled Martin Luther King Day, defended the use of the word
pickaninny,
along with other racist slurs, and had declared the editor of the
Phoenix Gazette,
John Kolbe, a nonperson.

Mecham's whacko, loose-cannon style had cost the state of Arizona plenty of money, which was a matter that even those who could have forgiven those other little missteps couldn't ignore. Some estimates claim that his behavior cost the state as much as five hundred million dollars, including two hundred million in revenues when the NFL decided to pull the Super Bowl out of Phoenix. A recall petition was circulated garnering twice the necessary number of signatures. An election was scheduled, but before it could be held, impeachment proceedings were begun. Mecham was accused of concealing $350,000 in campaign contributions, and misusing state funds with an $80,000 state loan to Mecham Pontiac, a dealership owned by you know who. It was a made-for–Hunter Thompson kind of story.

When Hunter arrived in Phoenix he immediately called Maria, and she refused to see him. There was nothing left for him to do but invite me and a couple of other Aspen guys to join him for a few rounds of golf. When I got to his room at a Scottsdale resort, he had rearranged it, tearing off some wainscoting in an effort to find a receptacle that would accept the plug of his IBM Selectric typewriter. He had just ordered $160 worth of shrimp cocktails and two bottles of champagne, two bottles of Chivas, and two cases of beer. The place looked like a landfill. In one corner of the mess was his golf bag. He didn't have a traveling case for the bag, so he'd wrapped the top with two blankets and used about a roll of duct tape to keep the clubs in the bag. His rental car—a convertible, of course—had been delivered but
not released to him because his driver's license had expired.

While Maria boycotted his visit to Arizona, her brother, Bobby, who didn't share the Khan loathing for Hunter, responded to an invitation. When he came into the hotel room, Bobby said hello as Hunter was untaping his golf bag. Hunter opened a zippered pouch, pulled out a nine-millimeter semiautomatic pistol, and flipped it across the room to Bobby. Bobby fielded it, and Hunter said, “Nice catch,” adding, “That's the best way to get a gun on an airplane.”

When the phone rang, Hunter asked me to answer. It was Willie Hearst, Hunter's editor at the
Examiner
. I had often run interference for Hunter with Hearst, especially in reference to deadlines. This time he was questioning the room service charges, the still-parked rental car, and the lack of reports on the impeachment. I told Hearst that Hunter had taken a cab to the hearings venue and that I would tell him to call the
Examiner
on his return. I lied.

Hunter eventually submitted his coverage of one of the juiciest political scandals in recent memory without ever leaving the hotel. Another in a long list of hotel rooms was utterly destroyed. Maria didn't visit, and we never got Hunter to the golf course.

 

A few months later, Hunter used his wiles to convince Maria to come back to Colorado for a long weekend to attend his son Juan's graduation, summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa, from the University of Colorado. This was the only sort of bait that could work on Maria. Juan was a huge source of pride for Hunter, his ex-wife Sandy, Juan's mother, and everyone in their orbit. People were willing to accept the smallest scrap of credit for how well he had turned out, and did their best to conceal their amazement at his achievements. Juan hadn't grown up in a normal household.

Despite the unimaginable strangeness of being a child at Owl Farm, Juan was an excellent student from the get-go. He attended The Aspen Community School during his primary years. The Community School was an extremely liberal, progressive private institution located just up the hill from the farmhouse. Some might have called it a hippie school. The school gave over an inordinate portion of its academic year to the school play, and had spawned successful actors such as Oliver Platt and Felicity Huffman. Juan, too, was an emerging talent. At that time, a friend of Hunter's named Paul Rubin was directing most of the plays.

Paul Rubin's taste in theater was adult and sophisticated. He never let the fact that his cast and crew were schoolchildren affect his choices. He never pandered to the kids. Paul directed them in Eugene O'Neil's
Desire Under the Elms,
in
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest,
and in James Baldwin's
Blues for Mr. Charlie.
Juan Thompson always had good roles. In
Blues,
he had the male lead, Preacher; the female lead, Juanita, was played by Thea Bent, the cute blond daughter of a well-loved Aspen physician.
Blues for Mr. Charlie
was performed by the cast of whiter-than-white Aspen kids in blackface. Thea wore a huge black frizzy wig. I'm not sure if even Woody Creek was ready for Paul Rubin, but you can see why he and Hunter got along.

Acting and academics were Juan's strengths; sports, not so much, so he was just about the perfect Community School student, as academics and the arts were what the parents were interested in. They didn't give a hoot about jock stuff, except maybe skiing.

The last two weeks of rehearsal before opening night, the kids' asses belonged to Rubin. They'd rehearse all day in groups and individually. When the kids weren't rehearsing, they'd get
a pickup co-ed softball game together. Paul noticed that Juan didn't own a glove; he always had to borrow one. One weekend, Hunter and Paul were having lunch at the Jerome Bar. Hunter stopped in mid-conversation and looked up. “Tomorrow's Juan's birthday”—seemingly something just remembered. “What am I going to get him?” Doc had instantly made this Paul's project. Sensible, since Paul was spending more time with the kids than their parents were at that point. Paul thought. “A baseball glove. Juan doesn't have one; he always has to borrow one.” Doc was ecstatic. Sports had always been so much a part of Hunter's life, and Juan had always leaned toward the academic. Hunter bolted from the J-Bar and down the block to Carl's Pharmacy, not just close but maybe the only place to purchase a ball glove in Aspen in those days.

On Monday it was back to school and rehearsals. Paul kept his eye out for the first sign of a softball game. When he saw bats and balls being rounded up, he told the kids he was working with to take five and he sought out Juan. Paul caught up with him on the side of the field. “How'd you like your birthday present?” he asked with pride, knowing he was the author of the idea. Juan looked down at the palms of his gloveless hands, then looked up into Paul's eyes and, with a sardonic smile, said, “I'm left-handed.”

And yet, somehow, the combination of the Community School and Owl Farm had bred a young man who was graduating from CU with highest honors.

Hunter sent Maria a round-trip ticket to Aspen, and they drove to Boulder for Juan's commencement.

When Hunter and Maria returned to Woody Creek, he hid her purse and return ticket. He was de facto holding her hostage. Just after lunch one day, Maria called my office at the county
courthouse and asked me to help her escape. She had a plane to catch in two hours.

She told me she was sitting on the bus stop bench outside the Woody Creek Tavern. Hunter was inside, at the bar. She said his house was locked tight, doors and windows, and she needed help. She emphasized that only I could possibly help. She didn't want any “official” intervention. With chivalry in my heart and no fear of Hunter, I drove down to the Tavern and talked to Maria. Then I went inside and saw Hunter at the bar with a tall Chivas-water the hue of mahogany in front of him. I asked him to return Maria's purse and her ticket to Phoenix, but he only grinned and told me that it was between him and Maria. I said I was going to help her, and he said, “So you're going to take her side?” I said, “Yes, she's right and you're wrong,” walked out, and escorted Maria to my car. One can only speculate as to what went through Hunter's mind in the face of such betrayal. An educated guess might be “Right? What the hell does right have to do with anything?” However, Hunter followed me out and shouted, “Good luck getting into the house. It's a fortress, locked up tight as a drum. You'll never get in!”

I drove Maria to Owl Farm, tried the doors and some windows. It was indeed locked tight. She suggested the bathroom window. It's eight feet off the ground, and she hadn't been able to reach it. My own Spider-Man skills weren't up to the task, so I put her on my shoulders and boosted her up, an oddly pleasurable experience. She lifted the window open and climbed in. Drifting through the house, she unlocked the front door for me just as Hunter entered the driveway, his car in a four-wheel drift. He got out and said to me, “Well, that didn't take you long. But good luck finding Maria's stuff. Ho ho!”

Hunter and I watched. In less than a minute Maria appeared with her purse and ticket. With jaw-dropping efficiency she'd gone right to the smoke shelf inside the chimney for her ticket and directly to the freezer for her purse. She knew where her captor hid things. It was an impressive display to me, but painful for Hunter—to be thwarted so easily. We headed to my car as Hunter watched in stunned silence. I drove her to the airport and waited until she boarded her flight.

What to think in the face of such treachery and abandonment? Later, as Hunter watched the sun slide behind the Rocky Mountains, the darkness that fell over Woody Creek was indeed greater than night.

The next evening I called Hunter, and he expressed his admiration for our “defeating” his craft and invited me for a drink, which I accepted, and we watched a basketball game. He knew he had been wrong and never mentioned that day again. I certainly did, when it benefited conversations in the kitchen.