A Pair of Deviant Bookends

"Buy the ticket, take the ride." These are the words that echo in my skull. The words that our Good Doctor lived by and, by God, died by. He dictated, created, commanded, demanded, manipulated, manhandled and snatched life up by the short hairs and only relinquished his powerful grasp when he was ready. There's the rub. When he was ready. That is what we are left with. We are here, without him. But in no way are we left with nothing, far from it. We have his words, his books, his insights, his humor and his truth. For those of us lucky enough to have been close to him, which often meant rather lengthy and dangerous occasions that would invariably lead to uncontrollable fits of laughter, we have the memory of his Cheshire grin leading us wherever he felt we needed to go. Which, by the way, was always the right direction, however insane it may have seemed. Yes, the doctor always knew best. I have, seared onto my brain, the millions of hideous little adventures that I was blessed enough to have lived through with him and, frankly, in certain instances, blessed to have lived through. He was/is a brother, a friend, a hero, a father, a son, a teacher, a partner in crime. Our crime: fun. Always, fun.

In December 1995 I was vacationing in Aspen, Colorado.... The fucking town is just lousy with "beautiful people." My first instinct was to stay inside and drink grog, or as the twinkling jet set refers to them, "hot toddies." My time in Aspen was spent as far from the madding crowd as humanly possible until, in spite of my self-induced seclusion, I ran into Alan Finkelstein. Alan, being no stranger to fun, sprang the news on me that Dr. Hunter S. Thompson lived nearby, and would I like to meet him that night at Woody Creek Tavern?

A few of us wandered out into the snow and waited for lightning to strike. Somewhere around 11 p.m., an unusually loud noise stole my attention and then demanded the room's attention -- a hush on one side, fearful murmurings on the other, were replaced by mounting screams, as what appeared to be an electric saber swung wildly near the entrance of the bar. A deep, raspy voice was hollering for people to get out of his way, threatening to shock the living shit out of any swine who lingered in his path.

Tall and lanky, wearing a woolen Native American-looking knit hat that trailed down past his shoulders, the ubiquitous aviators tight to the face attached to that smile -- a massive hand shot toward me. I placed my hand in his firm hold and gave back what I got. The beginning, I knew, of a long and deep-rooted friendship.

He plopped himself into a chair, laid his armaments on the table -- a giant cattle prod and a hefty Taser gun. We had a few rounds, talked about this and that and connected on more than a few levels, not the least being the discovery that we both hailed from the same dark and bloody ground, the great state of Kentucky. That fact alone sent Hunter into eloquent tirades ranging from Southern chivalry to hillbilly moonshine-running to our fellow Kentuckian Cassius Clay. Within no time, the group was invited back to Owl Farm, Hunter's fortified compound just up the road from the tavern. Upon arrival, we were greeted by Hunter's assistant, Deborah Fuller, who would later become known as the Vitamin Queen, because of her painstaking and meticulous nursing of Hunter -- and myself when I moved into the house. Her daily delivery of B's, C's, D's and E's and general TLC kept us as healthy and alive as was within reason, bless her.

Hunter and I hunkered down in the kitchen, better known as the "command center," babbling ourselves silly, when I paid him a compliment concerning a smartlooking nickel-plated shotgun hanging up on a rack. Before I knew what was what, I found my hands wrapped around a rather large propane tank, and he was meticulously instructing me to duct-tape a fist-size box to the side of it. While in the process of this bizarre ritual, I inquired as to the box's contents. "Oh, yeah...that??? Uh...nitroglycerin." Panicked, I instantly and deftly heaved the cigarette I was smoking into the kitchen sink and continued the job.

At roughly 2:30 a.m. we strolled out to Hunter's back yard. My larger-than-large propane bomb sat approximately fifteen yards dead ahead. The Good Doctor was off to my right coaching and coaxing, giddy with anticipation. Shotgun firmly in hand, I pumped a shell into the chamber and leveled the beast at our preposterously explosive target. Pitch-black night, a thousand million stars in the sky, dead calm, the neighbors safely tucked in for a pleasant nighty-night and then, BLAMMO! A direct hit and the target exploded into an eighty-foot fireball. "Good shooting, man!" Hunter feverishly screamed. "That was one hell of a shot.... Hot damn! Yes!"

(Excerpted from RS 970, March 24, 2005)