The Great Shark Hunt: Strange Tales From a Strange Time

by Hunter S. Thompson

  It boiled down to a question of armaments -- or lack of them -- and their long-term effects in the crunch. Looking back on my experience over the years, I was confident of being able to function at peak-performance level, at least briefly, after 80 or 90 hours without sleep. There were negative factors, of course: 80 or 90 hours of continuous boozing, along with sporadic energy/adrenaline sappers like frantic, rock-dodging swims in the high surf at night and sudden, potentially disastrous confrontations with hotel managers -- but on balance, I felt, the drug factor gave us a clear-cut advantage. In any 24-hour period, a determined private eye can muster the energy to keep pace with veteran drug users. . . but after 48 straight hours, and especially after 72, fatigue symptoms begin manifesting drastically -- hallucinations, hysteria, massive nerve failure. After 72 hours, both the body and the brain are so badly depleted that only sleep will make the nut. . . while your habitual drag user, long accustomed to this weird and frenzied pace, is still hoarding at least three hours of high-speed reserve.

  There was no question in my mind -- once the plane was finally airborne out of Cozumel -- about what to do with the drugs. I had eaten three of the remaining five caps of MDA during the night and Bloor had given our hash and all but six of his purple pills to the black-coral wizard as a bonus for his all-night efforts. As we zoomed over the Yucatan Channel at 8000 feet, we took stock of what he had left:

  Two hits of MDA, six tabs of acid, about a gram and a half of raw cocaine, four reds and a random handful of speed. That -- plus $44 and a desperate hope that Sandy had made and paid for our reservations beyond Monterrey, Mexico -- was all we had between Cozumel and our refuge/destination at Sam Brown's house in Denver. We were airborne out of Cozumel at 8:13 a.m., Mountain Daylight Time -- and if everything went right, we would arrive at Denver's Stapleton International Airport before seven.

  We'd been airborne for about eight minutes when I looked over at Bloor and told him what I'd been thinking: "We don't have enough drugs here to risk carrying them through Customs," I said.

  He nodded thoughtfully: "Well. . . we're pretty well fixed, for poor boys."

  "Yeah," I replied. "But I have my professional reputation to uphold. And there's only two things I've never done with drugs: sell them or take them through Customs -- especially when we can replace everything we're holding for about ninety-nine dollars just as soon as we get off the plane."

  He hunkered down in his seat, saying nothing. Then he stared across at me. "What are you saying? That we should just throw all this shit away?"

  I thought for a moment. "No. I think we should eat it."

  "What?"

  "Yeah, why not? They can't bust you for what's already dissolved in your belly -- no matter how weird you're acting."

  "Jesus Christ!" he muttered. "We'll go stark raving nuts if we eat all this shit!"

  I shrugged. "Keep in mind where we'll be when we hit Customs," I said. "San Antonio, Texas. Are you ready to get busted in Texas?"

  He stared down at his fingernails.

  "Remember Tim Leary?" I said. "Ten years for three ounces of grass in his daughter's panties. . ."

  He nodded. "Jesus. . . Texas! I'd forgotten about that."

  "Not me," I said. "When Sandy went through Customs in San Antonio about three weeks ago, they tore everything she was carrying apart. It took her two hours to put it back together."

  I could see him thinking. "Well. . ." he said finally, "what if we eat this stuff and go crazy -- and they nail us?"

  "Nothing," I said. "We'll drink heavily. If we're seized, the stewardesses will testify we were drunk."

  He thought for a moment, then laughed. "Yeah. . . just a couple of good ole boys O.D.'d on booze. Nasty drunks, staggering back into the country after a shameful vacation in Mexico -- totally fucked up."

  "Right," I said. "They can strip us down to the skin. It's no crime to enter the country helplessly drunk."

  He laughed. "You're right. What do we start with? We shouldn't eat it all at once -- that's too heavy."

  I nodded, reaching into my pocket for the MDA and offering him one as I tossed the other into my mouth. "Let's eat some of the acid now, too," I said. "That way, we'll be adjusted to it by the time we have to eat the rest -- and we can save the coke for emergencies."

  "Along with the speed," he said. "How much do you have left?"

  "Ten hits," I said. "Pure-white amphetamine powder. It'll straighten us right out, if things get tense."

  "You should save that for the end," he said. "We can use this coke if we start getting messy."

  I swallowed the purple pill, ignoring the Mexican stewardess with her tray of sangria.

  "I'll have two," said Bloor, reaching across me.

  "Same here," I said, lifting two more off the tray.

  Bloor grinned at her. "Pay no attention. Were just tourists -- down here making fools of ourselves."

  Moments later we hit down on the runway at Mérida. But it was a quick and painless stop. By nine a.m., we were cruising over central Mexico at 20,000 feet, headed for Monterrey. The plane was half empty and we could have moved around if we'd wanted to -- but I glanced across at Bloor, trying to use him as a mirror for my own condition, and decided that wandering around in the aisles would not be wise. Making yourself noticeable is one thing -- but causing innocent passengers to shrink off with feelings of shock and repugnance is a different game entirely. One of the few things that can't be controlled about acid is the glitter it puts in the eyes. No amount of booze will cause the same kind of laughing, that fine predatory glow that comes with the first rush of acid up the spine.

  But Bloor felt like moving. "Where's the goddman head?" he muttered.

  "Never mind," I said. "We're almost to Monterrey. Don't attract attention. We have to check through Immigration there."

  He straightened up in his seat. "Immigration?"

  "Nothing serious," I said. "Just turn in our tourist cards and see about the tickets to Denver. . . But we'll have to act straight. . ."

  "Why?" he asked.

  I gave it some thought. Why, indeed? We were clean. Or almost clean, anyway. About an hour out of Mérida we'd eaten another round of acid -- which left us with two more of those, plus four reds and the coke and the speed. The luck of the split had left me with the speed and the acid; Bloor had the coke and the reds. . . and by the time the ABROCHE SU CINTURON (FASTEN SEAT BELTS) sign flashed on above Monterrey, we'd agreed, more or less, that anything we hadn't eaten by the time we got to Texas would have to be flushed down the stainless-steel John in the plane's lavatory.

  It had taken about 45 tortured minutes to reach this agreement, because by that time, neither one of us could speak clearly. I tried to whisper, through gritted teeth, but each time I succeeded in uttering a coherent sentence my voice seemed to echo around the cabin like I was mumbling into a bullhorn. At one point, I leaned over as close as possible to Bloor's ear and hissed: "Reds. . . how many?" But the sound of my own voice was such a shock that I recoiled in horror and tried to pretend I'd said nothing.

  Was the stewardess staring? I couldn't be sure. Bloor had seemed not to notice -- but suddenly he was thrashing around in his seat and clawing frantically underneath himself with both hands. "What the fuck?" he was screaming.

  "Quiet!" I snapped. "What's wrong with you?"

  He was jerking at his seat belt, still shouting. The stewardess ran down the aisle and unbuckled it for him. There was fear in her face as she backed off and watched him spring out of his seat. "Goddamn you clumsy bastard!" he yelled.

  I stared straight ahead. Jesus, I thought, he's blowing it, he can't handle the acid, I should have abandoned this crazy bastard in Cozumel. I felt my teeth grinding as I tried to ignore his noise. . . then I glanced across and saw him groping between the seats and coming up with a smoldering cigarette butt. "Look at this!" he shouted at me. He was holding the butt in one hand and fondling the back of his thigh with the other. . .

&n
bsp; "Burned a big hole in my pants," he was saying. "He just spit this dirty thing right down in my seat!"

  "What?" I said, feeling in front of my mouth for the cigarette in my filter. . . but the filter was empty, and I suddenly understood. The fog in my brain suddenly cleared and I heard myself laughing. "I warned you about these goddamn Bonanzas!" I said. "They'll never stick in the filter!"

  The stewardess was pushing him back down into his seat. "Fasten belts," she kept saying, "fasten belts."

  I grabbed his arm and jerked downward, pulling him off balance and causing him to fall heavily onto the back of the seat. It gave way and collapsed on the legs of whoever was sitting behind us. The stewardess jerked it quickly back to the upright position, then reached down to fasten Bloor's seat belt. I saw his left arm snake out and settle affectionately around her shoulders.

  Good God! I thought. This is it. I could see the headlines in tomorrow's News: "DRUG FRACAS ON AIRLINER NEAR MONTERREY: GRINGOS JAILED ON ARSON, ASSAULT CHARGES."

  But the stewardess only smiled and backed off a few steps, dismissing Bloor's crude advance with a slap at his arm and an icy professional smile. I tried to return it, but my face was not working properly. Her eyes narrowed. She was clearly more insulted by the demented grin I was trying now to fix on her than she was by Bloor's attempt to push her head down into his lap.

  He smiled happily as she stalked away. "That'll teach you," he said. "You're a goddamn nightmare to travel with."

  The acid was leveling out now. I could tell by the tone of his voice that he was into the manic stage. No more of that jerky, paranoid whispering. He was feeling confident now; his face had settled into that glaze of brittle serenity you invariably see on the face of a veteran acid eater who knows that the first rush is past and now he can settle down for about six hours of real fun.

  I was not quite there myself, but I knew it was coming -- and we still had about seven more hours and two plane changes between now and Denver. I knew the Immigration scene at Monterrey was only a formality -- just stand in line for a while with all the other gringos and not get hysterical when the cop at the gate asks for your tourist card.

  We could ease through that one, I felt -- on the strength of long experience. Anybody who's still on the street after seven or eight years of public acid eating has learned to trust his adrenaline gland for getting through routine confrontations with officialdom -- traffic citations, bridge tolls, airline ticket counters. . .

  And we had one of these coming up: getting our baggage off this plane and not losing it in the airport until we found out which flight would take us to San Antonio and Denver. Bloor was traveling light, with only two bags. But I had my normal heavy load: two huge leather suitcases, a canvas sea-bag and tape recorder with two portable speakers. If we were going to lose anything, I wanted to lose it north of the border.

  The Monterrey airport is a cool, bright little building, so immaculately clean and efficient that we were almost immediately lulled into a condition of grinning euphoria. Everything seemed to be working perfectly. No lost baggage, no sudden outbursts of wild jabbering at the Immigration desk, no cause for panic or fits of despair at the ticket counter. . . Our first-class reservations had already been made and confirmed all the way to Denver. Bloor had been reluctant to blow 32 extra dollars "just to sit up front with the businessmen," but I felt it was necessary. "There's a lot more latitude for weird behavior in first class." I told him. "The stewardesses back in the tourist section don't have as much experience, so they're more likely to freak out if they think they have a dangerous nut on their hands."

  He glared at me. "Do I look like a dangerous nut?"

  I shrugged. It was hard to focus on his face. We were standing in a corridor outside the souvenir shop. "You look like a serious dope addict," I said, finally. "Your hair's all wild, your eyes are glittering, your nose is all red and --" I suddenly noticed white powder on the top edge of his mustache. "You swine! You've been into the coke!"

  He grinned blankly. "Why not? Just a little pick-me-up."

  I nodded. "Yeah. Just wait till you start explaining yourself to the Customs agent in San Antonio with white powder drooling out of your nose." I laughed. "Have you ever seen those big bullet-nosed flashlights they use for rectal searches?" He was rubbing his nostrils vigorously. "Where's the drugstore? I'll get some of that Dristan nasal spray." He reached into his back pocket and I saw his face turn gray. "Jesus," he hissed. "I've lost my wallet!" He kept fumbling in his pockets but no wallet turned up. "Good God!" he moaned. "It's still on the plane!" His eyes flashed wildly around the airport. "Where's the gate?" he snapped. "The wallet must be under the seat."

  I shook my head. "No, it's too late."

  "What?"

  "The plane. I saw it take off while you were in the rest room, snorting up the coke."

  He thought for a moment, then uttered a loud, wavering howl. "My passport! All my money! I have nothing! They'll never let me back into the country, with no I.D."

  I smiled. "Ridiculous. I'll vouch for you."

  "Shit!" he said. "You're crazy! You look crazy!"

  "Let's go find the bar," I said. "We have forty-five minutes."

  "What?"

  "The drunker you get, the less it'll bother you," I said. "The best thing, right now, is for you to get weeping, falling-down drunk. I'll swear you staggered in front of a moving plane on the runway in Mérida and a jet engine sucked the coat right off your back and into its turbine." The whole thing seemed absurd. "Your wallet was in the coat, right? I was a witness. It was all I could do to keep your whole body from being sucked into the turbine."

  I was laughing wildly now; the scene was very vivid. I could almost feel the terrible drag of the suction as we struggled to dig our heels into the hot asphalt runway. Somewhere in the distance, I could hear the wail of a mariachi band above the roar of the engines, sucking us ever closer to the whirling blades. I could hear the wild screech of a stewardess as she watched helplessly. A Mexican soldier with a machine gun was trying to help us, but suddenly he was sucked away like a leaf in the wind. . . wild screams all around us, then a sickening thump as he disappeared feetfirst into the black maw of the turbine. . . The engine seemed to stall momentarily, then spit a nasty shower of hamburger and bone splinters all over the runway. . . more screaming from behind us as Bloor's coat ripped away; I was holding him by one arm when another soldier with a machine gun began firing at the plane, first at the cockpit and then at the murderous engine. . . which suddenly exploded, like a bomb going off right in front of us; the blast hurled us 200 feet across the tarmac and through a wire-mesh fence. . .

  Jesus! What a scene! A fantastic tale to lay on the Customs agent in San Antonio: "And then, officer, while we were lying there on the grass, too stunned to move, another engine exploded! And then another! Huge balls of fire! It was a miracle that we escaped with our lives. . . Yes, so you'll have to make some allowance for Mr. Bloor's unsteady condition right now. He was badly shaken, half-hysterical most of the afternoon. . . I want to get him back to Denver and put him under sedation. . ."

  I was so caught up in this terrible vision that I'd failed to notice Bloor down on his knees until I heard him shout. He'd spread the contents of his kit bag all over the floor of the corridor rummaging through the mess, and now he was smiling happily at the wallet in his hand.

  "You found it." I said.

  He nodded -- clutching it with both hands, as if it might leap out of his grip with the strength of a half-captured lizard and disappear across the crowded lobby. I looked around and saw that people were stopping to watch us. My mind was still whirling from the fiery hallucination that had seized me, but I was able to kneel down and help Bloor stuff his belongings back into the kit bag. "We're attracting a crowd." I muttered. "Let's get to the bar, where it's safe."

  Moments later we were sitting at a table overlooking the runway, sipping margaritas and watching the ground crew load the 727 that would take
us to San Antonio. My plan was to stay hunkered down in the bar until the last moment, then dash for the plane. Our luck had been excellent, so far, but that scene in the lobby had triggered a wave of paranoia in my head. I felt very conspicuous. Bloor's mannerisms were becoming more and more psychotic. He took one sip of his drink, then whacked it down onto the table and stared at me. "What is this?" he snarled.

  "A double margarita," I said, glancing over at the waitress to see if she had her eye on us.

  She did, and Bloor waved at her.

  "What do you want?" I whispered.

  "Glaucoma," he said.

  The waitress was on us before I could argue. Glaucoma is an extremely complicated mix of about nine unlikely ingredients that Bloor had learned from some randy old woman he met on the porch of the Bal-Hai. She'd taught the bartender there how to make it: very precise measurements of gin, tequila, Kahlua, crushed ice, fruit juices, lime rinds, spices -- all mixed to perfection in a tall frosted glass.

  It is not the kind of drink you want to order in an airport bar with a head full of acid and a noticeable speech impediment; especially when you can't speak the local language and you just spilled the first drink you ordered all over the table.

  But Bloor persisted. When the waitress abandoned all hope, he walked over to speak with the bartender. I slumped in my chair, keeping an eye on the plane and hoping it was almost ready to go. But they hadn't even loaded the baggage yet: departure time was still 20 minutes away -- plenty of time for some minor incident to mushroom into serious trouble. I watched Bloor talking to the bartender, pointing to various bottles behind the bar and occasionally using his fingers to indicate measurements. The bartender was nodding his head patiently.

  Finally, Bloor came back to the table. "He's making it," he said. "I'll be back in a minute. I have business."

  I ignored him. My mind was drifting again. Two days and nights without sleep plus a steady diet of mind-altering drugs and double margaritas were beginning to affect my alertness. I ordered another drink and stared out at the hot brown hills beyond the runway. The bar was comfortably air conditioned, but I could feel the warm sun through the window.