Proud Highway

by Hunter S. Thompson

  Presuming that I do find a job in the near future, I plan to find a place of my own and really grind out the copy. If I can manage to sell anything at all by September, I’ll be in great shape to pay for my ticket to the academic world. And after a few days of struggling with the New York job market, I find that I’d rather build my own figurative ladder than start at the bottom rung of the existing one. But that is in the future: as I said, I’ll keep you informed.

  Jerry is about to get himself to bed and I’ll have to silence this machine. He says to tell you “hello” and all that sort of thing, and has taken to wondering out loud about your failure to fill his mailbox. What he needs, I think, is a moral shot in the arm. For my part … I need money.

  And on that sour note, I close. Until I hear from you, or until the mushroom cloud, I remain, as grim, greedy, and serious as ever.…

  HUNTER

  PS … I wrote Wasil4 a note while under the influence of drink. Apologize for me, if necessary, for any misstatements or undue familiarity. After all, I depend on Wasil and his brothers in arms to keep my country safe. I am loath to offend him in any way.

  Also give my best to Pauline,5 Peter [Goodman], Fred [Fulkerson], and John [Edenfield] … and Pug. Yes, good old Pug: he was the apple of my eye and the pungent salt in my military soup.

  And yes, you might inform [Robert] Rosan that a tenement house collapsed today at 180 Riverside Drive6 … killing and maiming hundreds of Puerto Ricans and other foreigners.

  TO HENRY EICHELBURGER:

  Eichelburger was in his third year of studying biology and zoology at Tulane University. Thompson was looking to reap the fruits of an evening he had spent with “Ike” in the French Quarter, during which his friend did nothing but brag about all the women he had conquered one summer in New York.

  January 9, 1958

  110 Morningside Drive

  Apt. 53

  New York, New York

  Dear Ike,

  I trust this missive finds you healthy, wealthy, and striving for the dean’s list. I wouldn’t have you any other way, you know.

  Seriously, by now I’m sure that you’ve noticed the return address and that you’ve heaved the called-for sigh of relief at the realization that I’m not about to descend on you again … so let me come immediately to the point.

  The point is very biological, and that should suit you rather well. To be brief, I am in New York for an indefinite period and I’m desperately in need of sexual satisfaction. I seem to remember now that you spent the summer up here in an apartment full of lusty young women. Where is that apartment: I must know. I would also like to know—just as soon as you can get a letter in the mail—any other names, places, addresses, and so forth, which would be of aid to a young rake prowling around this over-populated isle. Come now, I’m sure you must know hundreds of uninhibited women I can comfort in my own peculiar manner. No living human could spend an entire summer here without making innumerable vital contacts. And I am indeed serious: if you know any drunks, bums, whores, etc.—by all means clue me in. I have come to write my way to fame and fortune, and I need colorful material.

  I shall await your material by return post.

  On the explanatory side, the truth of the matter is that I’m here because I have no money to go anywhere else. I had enough, but it went. I must now work.

  For the past month, I’ve been staying with three law students, one of whom was at Eglin with me. I live out by Columbia now, but intend to move elsewhere within two weeks. If you know any good places to live, fill me in on that too. I’d prefer the Village, of course, but will settle for almost anything cheap: the idea being to save some money to get into school next fall … not that I particularly look forward to going to school, but there are things I could learn more easily in an academic atmosphere than I could in a drunken, left-bank setting of some sort. And then too, there are things I could learn in a left-bank setting which I could never learn in school. But I suppose you know that by now.

  As of now, I am unemployed. Within a week, I will have to have a job. I have a tentative one with Time magazine, but it isn’t definite and I may have to load airplanes or something like that. Anything to get money. And for that matter, if you know of anyplace where I can get a job, by all means let me know immediately. […]

  Until then, I remain, sincerely,

  Hunter

  TO CAROL OVERDORF:

  Thompson had read Sherwood Anderson’s Winesburg, Ohio while working for the Jersey Shore Herald. Anderson’s collective portrait of small-town “grotesques” fueled Thompson’s disdain for “Rotarian America,” and he had sent his University of Chicago friend Overdorf, whom he had dated over the Christmas holidays while in Jersey Shore, a copy for Christmas. She found it dull.

  January 15, 1958

  110 Morningside Drive

  Apt. 53

  Winesburg, Ohio

  Dear Carol,

  If you think Winesburg, Ohio is a vicious satire on small towns, you should have your mind fumigated. And if you think Sherwood Anderson’s people are “small town oddities,” then you’d better get out and live a little … and look in a mirror once in a while.

  I liked your pithy analysis of aphrodisiac drinks … at least you aren’t completely hopeless, anyway. I get the feeling every now and then that you might drown in Lake Michigan.

  My mind is cloudy, but not with work vapors. My fortune has dwindled from $110 to $4.46 and days of heavy crisis are close at hand … a period of belt-tightening, blood, sweat, tears, and very possibly … work. Yes, it seems inevitable. We got a magnum of absinthe in from the Azores yesterday and spent a few merry moments early this morning doing controlled skids around Sheridan Square in the Village. I imagine I can last until the absinthe runs out: then I’m afraid I’ll have to work. I can’t even afford gas for my car anymore.

  When I first began to sound out the job market—one or two days in late December—several excellent places appeared immediately. So naturally I stopped looking at once and concentrated on enjoying life until my money ran out. Well, the money ran out and so did the jobs. If there is a jesus, I feel sure he’ll come to my aid. God is good.

  Yes, all that talk about orgies was nonsense: I just thought it would make you feel better … to think that you’d unwittingly driven me into a sexual frenzy. And unaccustomed as I was, of course, to anything but young boys and clean old men, the entire affair was a bit tedious.

  I enjoyed the way you parried my forthright attempt to move in with you … crude as hell, really: and actually you’d have been quite safe if you hadn’t qualified your invitation, because I couldn’t get to Chicago now if my life depended on it. Well, I suppose I could if I really placed any value on my life, but I honestly think I’d rather sit here and die à la Bodenheim.7 Life is complicated enough—with all this worrying about money—without bothering oneself with thoughts of staying alive.

  But I do hope you’re enjoying your efforts at earning your daily bread and I hope your apartment has now become a showplace of some sort. I too will have an apt soon … soon … soon. When I get a job. But I don’t understand why you’re leaving the bedroom unfurnished … why don’t you breed mandrills in it?

  And yes I do have guilt feelings about St. Louis: they were thick letters: and I guess I’m a little stupid for not going there instead of sinking into this abyss so willingly. But I will find a way.… I always find a way. I’ve got to believe that.

  So cheerio … stay pure and smile as you wither.

  Hunter

  TO SALLY WILLIAMS:

  Sally Williams had moved from Eglin, where she had lived with her father, a colonel, to work as a beautician in Mobile, Alabama. Here Thompson toasts life as a “slacker.”

  January 17, 1958

  110 Morningside Drive

  Apt. 53

  New York, New York

  Dear Looney,

  Yes, it’s me again: probably much to your surprise, if you’re anything like several other people I’
ve written to recently. Apparently, I don’t give the impression of being the kind of person one ever hears from again … unless, of course, I happen to need money.

  But be that as it may: I hadn’t realized I had so many gloomy, cynical acquaintances. Everybody wants to give me religion, sympathy, hope, forbearance, all sorts of idiotic priestly qualities so that I may better weather the storm of unemployment.

  To hell with unemployment: I think it’s a fine thing. I like sleeping all day and having nothing to do but read, write, and sleep whenever I feel tired. I like waking up in the morning and going immediately back to bed if the weather is foul. In short, I think it’s a fine situation for a man to be in: provided, of course, that he has enough money to eat and pay the rent.

  I don’t … and therefore I must work: but what the hell? Is it anything to cry and pray for forgiveness about? Is it some sort of heinous shame, some great soul-sucking agony for which universal pity is the only cure? Hell no it’s not. I get goddamn tired of getting letters telling me to “buck up,” to “keep my chin up,” to “keep trying,” to “pray and be virtuous,” and to read Horatio Alger books. I like being unemployed. I’m lazy. There are plenty of jobs, but I just plain damn don’t want to work. It’s that simple: you work in Fort Walton because you’re a good sportswriter … you loaf in New York because you’re not a good sportswriter. Everything is relative … and I have an ode:

  “Ah, lives there a man with soul so dead, who never to himself hath said, as he hunched and rolled in his comfortable bed:

  To hell with the rent … I’ll drink instead!”

  Let us toast to animal pleasures, to escapism, to rain on the roof and instant coffee, to unemployment insurance and library cards, to absinthe and good-hearted landlords, to music and warm bodies and contraceptives … and to the “good life,” whatever it is and wherever it happens to be.

  Let us strip to the ankles and revel in everything sensual: let us laugh at the world as it looks at itself through mushroom-cloudy glasses … and I suppose we might as well pay the rent too: for eviction is second only to hunger as the dirtiest word in the dictionary.

  So there you have it: a slacker’s credo for pleasure. I shall type forty carbons and send them out to all who would send me their sympathy, enclosing the motto for the month: “tithe, for the sake of Hunter.”

  I’ll let you know when I meet the final degradation … work: it probably isn’t far in the future, but I’ll do my best to find an easy job. Then you can come and visit with me. I’ll probably be here until the summer, anyway, and you probably need a vacation.

  So drop me a line and tell me when you’ll arrive. Until then.…

  … it’s cheerio:

  Hunter

  TO VIRGINIA THOMPSON:

  Perhaps Thompson’s biggest break in journalism came when Time hired him as a copyboy. Although he earned only $50 a week, he got the invaluable experience of working on America’s biggest weekly newsmagazine.

  January 23, 1958

  110 Morningside Drive

  Apt. 53

  New York, New York

  Dear Mom,

  Since your last letter berated me for not writing, I can only assume that my most recent missive was lost in the mail or that I forgot to put a stamp on it. But nevertheless, I wrote a long letter exactly one week ago today, bringing you up to date on every facet of my existence and wrapping up all the loose ends I could find.

  But things were uncertain then: the financial outlook was deathly black and it looked as if all things optimistic had flown south for the winter. In short, I was none too glad to be alive and hungry.

  Ah, but not so today: even the sun is out and the air is warm, and the pendulum has finally begun to swing my way. You see I have a job: granted, I don’t begin till the first of February, but that makes only a slight difference. Allow me to explain.

  To understand just what a triumph I’ve engineered, you must first understand the situation here:

  First, by New York standards, I’ve had no experience: anything with a circulation under 50,000 rates in the same league with school papers, by Newspaper Guild standards. So I’m stuck with the “beginner” label.

  For “beginners” there are two plums in the journalism field, a copyboy’s job on The New York Times, and a copyboy’s job on Time magazine. The salary for both jobs borders on the ridiculous and the competition is almost unbelievable. Seriously, I had to go through three interviews of over an hour each, tell the story of my life in detail, and submit to an extensive physical, before I got the job I did … copyboy with Time Inc. And even then, I would have been completely out of luck if I hadn’t come in at almost the precise moment one of the boys was announcing his resignation. But I did get the job: $51 a week, half days Wednesday & Thursday, full days (8hrs) Friday & Saturday, and a 12-hour day on Sunday. Monday & Tuesday off.

  I’ll be working at Rockefeller Center, a choice location by any standard, and will have the proverbial “one foot in the door” in one of the best doors in the business. Whether or not I ever get any further, of course, remains to be seen. The competition, as I said, is a trifle stiff. I’ve met three of the copyboys so far: one is a Harvard grad, one a Yale grad, and one speaks nine languages. A former copyboy wrote fourteen plays during his tenure with Time, and only left when one of his productions landed on Broadway. […] Although they keep a list of copyboys who go on to fame and fortune, I haven’t seen the one of those who turn into rumheads. I imagine it’s pretty long too.

  Time also pays half of the tuition (up to $300 a year) at any of the local colleges—probably a concession brought on by guilt feelings manifested over a long series of painless paydays. $50 a week, especially in New York, is not one hell of a lot.

  Needless to say, if I’m not too late, I’ll make an attempt to get into Columbia for the spring semester. I don’t know, as yet, whether Time will pay their half at the beginning or at the end of the course. In either case, I might run short of money. And again the perennial question: how affluent is Memo in this respect? Needless to say, if Time works on the “reimbursement” principle, I won’t have enough to register for anything at Columbia. I might, however, get into a writing course of some sort at one of the other local learning palaces. More on this later.

  The past week or so has been full of poverty. My money ran out about ten days ago and times are indeed hard. I’ll manage, of course, but not without suffering a few scars on my youthfully optimistic soul. Now I know why people shop at the A&P.

  But talking of poverty tends to depress me. If I have any further business with money, I’ll let you know later: in the meantime, I’ll drop the subject.

  Give Davison my congratulations on the All-American selection. It’s nice to know that he and his buddy John were together right up to the end. Has Dave made a definite decision on college yet? And how did he like his visit to Vandy? And is there any further news on the Grantland Rice deal? […]

  Now that I’ve found gainful employment, I suppose I’ll have to get down to the business of finding a place to live. Today or tomorrow, I intend to journey down to Greenwich Village and see what they have to offer: on my salary, I imagine the selection will be somewhat meager … cold water flats and that sort of thing. But that can be put off until something worthwhile appears: until then, I’ll be either here or somewhere in this neighborhood while I seek a place to my liking in the Village.

  And by the way, I hadn’t intended to “retire” when I left Jersey Shore. I decided to go to St, Louis and merely stop by Louisville for the holidays—not for good. But now I see that coming to New York was a far wiser move for the time being, at least. After I begin working, I’ll be about as “on my own” as a person can get: and if I can weather New York on $50 a week, I’ll be able to get along anywhere.

  So this just wraps it up for now. And for god’s sake, don’t complain about my not writing. This is the longest letter I’ve written in months.

  Love,

  Hunter

&n
bsp; TO CAPTAIN K. FELTHAM:

  Nearly three months after his discharge Thompson was still trying to get the U.S. Air Force to issue the $70 severance pay he had been promised. After three more letters farther up the chain of command, Thompson was paid on May 22, 1958.

  January 28, 1958

  110 Morningside Dr.

  Apt 53

  New York, New York

  Captain K. Feltham

  Chief, Finance Division

  Eglin AFB, Florida

  Dear Captain,

  Reference is made to your letter of December 26, promising swift and decisive action on my inquiry of December 18.

  To date I have received neither money nor explanation from your office. Although I’m not in the least surprised that nothing seems to have been done after ONLY a month and a half, I intend to be as persistent as your office is inefficient. If $70 seems like a small matter to you, then you have my undivided envy. Unfortunately, I have yet to reach a like level of financial security. To me, $70 constitutes a large portion of my tuition for the spring semester at Columbia: and, not being a happy-go-lucky career airman, I can ill afford to sit around for three eternities while somebody’s finance office struggles desperately in its own red tape.

  And IF, as you suggested in your previous letter, the USAF does NOT owe me the aforementioned $70, then the staff sergeant who took such pains to misinform me should be strapped up by his genitals and given an intensive “refresher” course. As I remember, it took him close to twenty minutes to explain the situation to me: and, although it sounded illogical at the time, I had no choice but to take his word. Apparently, I shall live to regret my gullibility.