They start shooting in July”
Hunter S. Thompson
I thought the world exploded with holes and whores that July at Hunter’s house. There on the golf course I took my first ounce of psychedelia and the stars sang with stripes all night. I hit Eddie with a nine iron and he had to have gall stones removed two weeks later. He never forgave me for compacting his ample gut. Those days were like acid rain, and my teeth corroded with loss of morals. “Come up and we’ll play games,” Hunter would drawl. Later, when they asked me how he lived and what it was like to shoot the town red, I’d tell them Hunter had a coonskin hat and an ivory baseball bat.
Croquet was played on the marble terrace next to the infinity pool, the games went on forever. We drank wine like the sublime, time swam to the next deadline. New York calling. Old San Fran. Rolling Stone want a bone Gonzo, throw them a bone Thompson. Hunter bit a woman’s back and they called it rape. He just laughed and said he hoped Chicago win, he put his bail on it. He was courtly until you got in the way. Like most Southerners I suppose. I told them he was the Marv Albert of his time.
He name dropped like he knew the Queen. Who was Charles Kuralt? He said he always picked good friends. I went more than once to the Grand Piano to sing. Sometimes Sebastian Owl would dance on the chequered floor like a knight or knave. I asked him why he bought a bear, a big North American brown bear. He said it invaded Canada and he was jealous because they wouldn’t let him shoot over the border. When I said he was weird he said he’d turned pro and that I should buy the ticket and take the ride. Then we did lines.
When they blew up his bones, scattering Hunter S. Thompson to the stones and red earth of Kentucky, Bob Dylan played the tambourine. The cannon was large, large enough to hold Hunter and all his personality. He died with quirk, weird to the final dirt. Do you think he paid for the tower with the royalties from being a road man for the lords of karma. In the year 2000 the Sufi God was to take Hunter to somewhere, anywhere but the year 2000 where there will be no year 2000 as we know it. Do you think Sufi will collect all the dirt in Kentucky in case he misses some of Hunter. When they pushed his last button he kissed the stars goodbye with red and green fire. Up to the peyote button and on to the sky, goodbye Hunter S. Thompson, goodbye.