Smashing Windows

I met Hunter S. Thompson when we covered the 1970 Kentucky Derby for Scanlan's Monthly. He was not what I had expected after reading his book on the Hell's Angels. No timeworn leather shining with old sump oil, no manic tattoo across a bare upper arm and certainly no hint of menace. He did have an impressive head cut from one piece of bone, the top part covered down to the eyes by a flimsy tight-brimmed sun hat. His eyes revealed nothing of what he thought of me. I found out later that his first impression was of "a matted-hair geek with string warts." Despite all that (or because of it) we worked together for the next 35 years, on Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and the other F&Ls and on more than a dozen books (the last was Fire in the Nuts, which I did as a limited chap-book of 150 copies in 2004), many assignments, movies and dozens of magazine articles. We covered the fall of Richard Nixon, the Ali-Foreman fight in Zaire, the Super Bowl, the America's Cup, the rise of greed and the slow erosion of personal freedoms in America that Hunter always railed against.

People were fucking with Hunter's beloved Constitution, and he was born to banish the freaks who were doing it. In that way he was a real live American of the noble kind: a pioneer, a frontiersman, the last of the cowboys, even a conservative redneck with a huge and raging mind, taking the easy way out and mythologizing himself at the same time. I had the good fortune to work with one of the great originals of American literature. Maybe he is the Mark Twain of the late 20th century. Maybe not. Time will sort the bastard out, and I leave it to others more qualified than I to assess and appraise his legacy.

Hunter said more than once, "Don't write, Ralph. You'll bring shame on your family." Needless to say I ignored his warning in writing a book about our four decades of gonzo collaboration. In the process, I set about collecting everything we had ever written to each other. Hunter's letters were sometimes solicitous and caring, sometimes cruel, but above all funny. When one of my sons got into trouble in late 1981, I wrote to him, asking for advice.

"Dear Hunter:

My son has been picked up by the police with another brick in his hand. The other one was already through a $500 plate-glass window. He also finds your book Hell's Angels fascinating but doesn't care much for Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas because you don't dwell at length on petroleum-based substances. He's nearly 16 and locks the bathroom door. When he comes out he leaves the wall heater on and opens the bathroom window. He denies this flatly even though I hang about outside the bathroom door until he comes out.

I beat him to within an inch of unconsciousness, and still he denies it.

As a concerned Protestant father, what should I do next? How can I stand by and watch him destroy himself---and more important, the family name?

I confiscated his gun because he shoots at children. He demands the gun with menace but would settle for the money.

Juan was never like this, was he?

Are we the first generation of parents to spawn a mutant tribe? Have we taught them tricks even we would rather forget?

Is it because they don't believe in anything anymore, and is the white man fucked?

Are the sins of the fathers visited immediately on the sons, or aren't they supposed to wait a generation or two?

And finally---why me?

Don't try to answer any of these questions, because you can't. You, like me, have nothing to say, no right to explain and certainly no ability to understand.

I rue the day I gave my son the justification to call me Judas.

So there it is---and we await the outcome. At least it's not theft or rape.

Yeh! God bless, send word or wire.

Ralph"

"Dear Ralph,

I received yr. tragic letter about yr. savage glue-sniffing son & read it while eating breakfast at 4:30 A.M. in a Waffle House on the edge of Mobile Bay, and I made some notes on yr. problem at the time, but they are not the notes that any decent man would want to send a friend. So I put them away until I could bring a bit more concentration to bear on the matter.

And I have come to this conclusion: Send the crazy little bugger to Australia. We can get him a job herding sheep somewhere deep in the outback, and that will straighten him out for sure. Or at least it will keep him busy.

England is the wrong place for a boy who wants to smash windows. Because he's right, of course. He should smash windows. Anybody growing up in England today without a serious urge to smash windows is probably too dumb to help.

You are reaping the whirlwind, Ralph. Where in the name of art or anything else did you ever see anything that said you could draw queer pictures of the prime minister and call her no worse than a denatured pig but yr. own son shouldn't want to smash windows

We are not privy to that level of logic, Ralph. They don't even teach it at Oxford.

My own son, thank God, is a calm & rational boy who is even now filling out his applications to Yale & various other Eastern elitist schools, and all he's cost me so far is a hellish drain of something like $10,000 a year just to keep him off the streets & away from the goddamn windows.

What do windows cost, Ralph? They were about $55 apiece when I used to smash them---even the big plate-glass kind---but now they probably cost about $300 apiece. Which is cheap, when you think on it. A wild boy with a good arm could smash about 30 big plate-glass windows a year & still cost you less than $10,000 per annum. (concluded on page 130) Smashing Windows(continued from page 66)

Is that right? Are my figures correct?

Yeah, they are. If Juan smashed 30 big windows a year, I would still save $1,000---So send me the boy, Ralph---along with a certified check for $10,000---and I'll turn him into a walking profit machine. Indeed. Send me all of those angry little limey bastards you can round up. We can do business on this score. Just ship them over, with a $10K cheque for each one, and after that you can go about yr. filthy, destructive business with a clear conscience.

The prime minister is a denatured pig, Ralph, and you should beat on her like a gong. Draw horrible cartoons of the bitch and sell them for many dollars to The Times & Private Eye! But don't come weeping to me when your son takes it into his head to smash a few windows. You might as well try to teach a young dog not to piss on a tree.

Have you ever put a brick through a big plate-glass window, Ralph? It makes a wonderful goddamn noise, and the people inside run around like rats in a firestorm. It's fun, Ralph, and a bargain at any price.

What the fuck do you think we've been doing all these years? Do you think you were getting paid for yr. goddamn silly art?

No, Ralph. You were getting paid to smash windows. And that is an art in itself. The trick is getting paid for it.

What? Hello? Are you still there, Ralph?

You sniveling, hypocritical bastard. If yr. son had your instincts, he'd be shooting at the prime minister instead of just smashing windows.

Are you ready for that? How are you going to feel when you wake up one of these mornings & flip on the telly at the Old Manor just in time to catch a news bulletin about the prime minister being shot through the gizzard in Piccadilly Square, and then some BBC hot rod comes up with exclusive pictures of the dirty freak who did it, and he turns out to be your son?

Think about it, Ralph, and don't bother me anymore with yr. minor problems. Just send the boy over to me. I'll soften him up with trench work until his green card runs out, then we'll move him to Australia. And five years from now you'll get an invitation to a wedding at a sheep ranch in Perth.

And so much for that, Ralph. We have our own problems to deal with. Children are like TV sets. When they start acting weird, whack them across the eyes with a big rubber basketball shoe.

How's that for wisdom?

Something wrong with it?

No, I don't think so. Today's plate-glass window is tomorrow's BBC story. Keep that in mind & you won't go wrong. Just send me the boys and the cheques.

(I can't spell that word, Ralph, but I think you know what I mean. It's what happens when the son of a famous English artist shows up on the telly with a burp gun in his hand & the still-twitching body of the prime minister at his feet.)

You can't even run from that one, Ralph---much less hide---so if you think it's a real possibility, all I can advise you to do is stock up on whiskey and codeine. That will keep you dumb enough to handle the shock when that ratchet head, glue-crazy little freak finally does the deed.

The subsequent publicity will be a nightmare. But don't worry---your friends will stand behind you. I'll catch one of those polar flights out of Denver and be there eight hours after it happens. We'll have a monster press conference in the lobby of Brown's Hotel.

Say nothing until I get there. Don't even claim bloodlines with the boy. Say nothing.

I'll talk to the press. And we will bury your shame forever, in a blizzard of angry bullshit.

Right. And how's that for art?

Never mind. Let's get back to this terrible problem you're having with your son. He's a murderous little bastard for sure, and Jesus, Ralph, I think I might have misspoke myself when I said 10,000 would cover it.

No, let's talk about 30, Ralph. You've got a real monster on your hands. I wouldn't touch him for less than 30.

[Handwritten] (Whoops---I just got a call with regard to the opening of F & L in Las Vegas in London on Jan 25---where I will be the guest of honor.)

You're in luck, Ralph. I can counsel the boy personally in my suite at Brown's Hotel.

I can film my personal counseling sessions, as well as the stage production.

See you soon, Yr. buddy, HST"

•

As it happens, Hunter was right. It was hell at the time, but I think it worked, and today Theo is a great guitarist, singer, songwriter and all-around fine human being, who serves his community as a printer---not quite his own choice of penal servitude but an honest job. He stands like the Statue of Liberty operating state-of-the-art printing equipment, transforming drivel into elegant documents about mail-order bargains for personalized diapers, brochures for money-laundering opportunities and funeral-parlor circulars on how to die with dignity and be buried with long-term afterlife opportunities.

As I have said, it is a way to earn an honest living. He is a musician, for God's sake! And that is exactly what he should be doing---all the time. But the world is warped, so he plays at being a printer. He would just as willingly print a political leaflet to impeach George W. Bush, if given the chance, and also Tony Blair. Just as easily he would print one advocating a third term for both those sons of bitches. He is my beloved son and I love him dearly. Like me, he looks through a glass darkly.

Since those far-off optimistic times, I have met some of the children of our generation, and they seem pretty good to me, but the parents on the whole are a miserable mess, fucked-up and lost---a wandering tribe of disillusioned mutants whose brains died inside an ideology that seemed like a good idea at the time.