"Where were you?" Wednesday, March 2nd:
Most of you will no doubt be aware by now of the sad, untimely and dramatic exit from this realm of the one time candidate for sheriff of Pitkin County, the godfather of Gonzo, the first doctor (sic) of journalism, Hunter S Thompson (or J Walter Thompson as one of your number wrote in their Monday morning email to me).
It is no secret that the good doctor had been a literary hero and distant literary benchmark for me for quite some years now and I was deeply saddened and not a little shocked by the news of his passing. As those of you who I have regaled with stories of my road trip through the rockies last year will know, I went to great lengths to gain an audience with the great man at his fortified compound in Woody Creek, just outside of Aspen. My efforts, however, went unrewarded and not even a handwritten note handed to his cleaner on his porch managed to rouse his interest and desire to meet with me. I did, however, meet with his friend and handyman, Andy Hall, and also a close friend of his then current personal assistant (the one that replaced the one he mistakenly shot thinking she was a bear and the one after the one he married) and both were happy to stoke the legend of the gun totting wild man of Woody Creek, with well worn anecdotes about clashes with neighbours and lawmen and, the most loathsome of them all, Republicans.
There was, however, a twist in the tail of my expedition to meet the man. And, now he has gone, this is as good as it will get. For it was he who I bumped into as a exited the washroom at the Woody Creek Tavern on my last night, and it was he who I listened to bollocking on for half an hour as I sat trying to eat my dinner in peace, a few yards away along the bar. The sad fact of the matter was that I did not realise at the time that it was he, and it was only as I sat astride the great blue tipped shark, preparing for the ride to my hotel, watching the strange bald man in the extremely loud orange Hawaiian shirt, and his extraordinary pretty and large breasted but diminutive companion, being swallowed by the black of a moonless, back country night, that I did.
So much for my ill fated attempts to meet the man, and anyway, as another of your number pointed out, it's not good to meet your heros as they invariably fail to match up to your perceptions of them. Coming back to Monday morning and my reaction to the dreadful breaking news of the doctor's violent end the night before, my first instinct was to head to the Surf 'n' Lime, my local rum shack, and there raise a glass to mark his passing; and as first instincts are generally the best instincts, this is exactly what I did. Now, despite having slightly upped my alcohol consumption since arriving in Barbados, the decision to drink a large tumbler of Chivas Regal at around 11:30 in the morning, in 30 degree heat, wearing shorts and sitting alone in a bar, was not, as some might propose, something that I did lightly. This was my Kennedy, my Diana, this was the time and place I would remember for years to come. This was my little 'omage to a man who lived in a fortified compound thousands of miles away from me, whom I had once bumped into coming out of a toilet.
As I always find, the first bit of most things are invariably the best - cigarettes and class A for example - and so it was that morning with the Chivas. Once past the initial heavy jolt that all neat spirits deliver, I was into the smooth, light blend that Americans in general, and the doctor in particular, are and was so fond of. I had my laptop with me, and so whilst I continued my one man salute, I trawled the news web sites for more detail on the previous night's events. Unfortunately, nothing was forthcoming, aside from the basic facts that he had taken his life with a gun, which lets face it, is pretty much all the detail one needs. Most of the articles worked the irony angle without too much trouble: "gun nut in gun suicide", and most also crammed in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, drugs, counterculture, gonzo journalism, beatings at the hands of hells angels and at least one of his frighteningly honest quotes that helped make him both revered and mistrusted in equal measure. Working my way through this electronic wodge of obiturous news reports, I realised that some of the writers had subtly entered into the spirit of the occasion by dramatising the tone and quickening the pace of their coverage, to lend it a very faint gonzoid touch, that was the creation and mark of the good doctor. This, it seemed to me, was highly appropriate and also suggested that perhaps my little 'omage should, in true gonzoid style, not stop at a single tumbler, be it a large and well endowed Bajan tumbler, of Chivas Regal. Every day was not, after all, a Kennedy / Diana / Thompson day and thus it became perfectly obvious to me that I should write the day, and the day's writing, off... which in reality I knew, having kicked off at 11.30am, meant all of the next day and a slow start to the day following that. But what the hell, I was a fledgling author and disciple of the manic first hand account, and as I did with most things that didn't involve a keyboard and work and did involve alcohol and other stuff, I could always justify it as background for the next novel.
With my excuse note for teacher secured and a clear conscience ahead of me, I tucked into a few more, well endowed tumblers of Chivas, raising each one and uttering a few words to the doctor as I went. At precisely the point that I noticed a slight blip in my finger-to-keyboard coordination, I decided to ditch the laptop and the Surf 'n' Lime and move on in search of a new scene and perhaps some Monday afternoon drinking buddies. Now, in most places around the world the search for Monday afternoon drinking buddies would be a futile one, and even if one did manage to scare some up, they would most likely be of the toothless, homeless variety and the tipple would be purple and more suited to cleaning paint brushes. In Barbados, however, things are different. If there is no work, then the popular pastime is to lime. And to lime is to hang out and drink; we lime, they limed, I am liming. Thus if the sea was too rough and the West Side Boys couldn't operate their water-ski boats and jetskis for the punters, then regardless of day or time, they would be sitting in the shade at the back of Mullins beach, drinking.
I walked the short distance to the beach, stopping along the way at the 24 hour Texaco Star Mart to pick up mixers for the 2 litres of rum I had at home and three six packs of beer...because they were on offer, and, what's more, came in branded cool bags with long straps for easy carriage. The beach was packed by Mullins standards and with an easy, gentle swell not hampering the ability either the boats or the jet-skis to ply their trade, the West Side Boys were clearly not in liming mode. Not to be defeated, I made my way over to a couple of local lasses I knew, who where in fact from England and Ireland respectively, but who live here by virtue of visa extensions and day trips off the island to gain new entry day passport stamps. Unfortunately, they were not in liming mode either, but none the less gave me someone to chat to as a tucked into the first of my three cool bags of Carlsberg. An hour or so later they made their excuses and departed, leaving me to contemplate the usual stunning, water borne sunset and the next move of my live action 'omage. With Barbados being only a few degrees off the equator, the sun goes down extremely rapidly - none of this imperceptible movement malarkey - and to catch a good sunset on film, you need a camera with an auto winder. Within minutes I was sitting in full darkness, virtually alone and with my laptop, some mixers and about half of my original cool bagged stash of beer for company.
The thing is, I've always maintained that I'm somewhere between a light and middleweight when it comes to drinking, and as such I'm happy to admit that, with an initially empty stomach to my credit, by this stage things were beginning to get a little vague. Actually when I say vague, this applies more to my recollection of events from this point on and not to my actual corporeal experience. In reality, I'm sure everything was as bright and as ernest as things always are when the demon drink is in control.
I vaguely remember talking to Tash, a friend from England who is out here for six months, but I don't remember her picking me up from the Texaco garage in her car, giving me a thousand dollars which she had previously agreed to lend me for reasons far to prosaic to go into here, nor can I remember the short lift home. I do, however, remember phoning another local Irish lass and inviting myself over, despite, or possibly because of, the fact that she was entertaining two female friends/clients. Having stuffed a handful of condoms into my pocket, grabbed a rather special looking bottle of Sancerre that GBJ's mother-in-law had bought as a gift for GBJ, and having gathered up the remaining partially full cool bags of beer, I struck out towards Cliona's.
(to be continued)
Groovin' to: Blind Faith