Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

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Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
Hunter S. Thompson

Stylish reissue of a classic first published in the 1970s: Hunter S Thompson’s ether-fuelled, savage journey to the heart of the American Dream.‘We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold… And suddenly there was a terrible roar all around us and the sky was full of what looked like huge bats, all swooping and screeching and diving around the car, which was going about a hundred miles an hour with the top down to Las Vegas…’As knights of old buckled on armour of supernatural power, so Hunter S. Thompson enters Las Vegas armed with a veritable arsenal of ‘heinous chemicals’. His perilous, drug-enhanced confrontations with casino operators, bartenders, police officers and assorted representatives of the Silent Majority have a hallucinatory humour and nightmare terror never before seen on the printed page.

Copyright (#ulink_eb96b03a-a2bd-5a2b-a470-f236cdeec84f)

Fourth Estate

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd.

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by ‘Raoul Duke’ first appeared in Rolling Stone magazine, issue 95, November 11, 1971, and issue 96, November 25, 1971.

First published in Great Britain by Paladin 1972

Copyright © Estate of Hunter S. Thompson 1971

Illustration copyright © Ralph Steadman 1971

PS section copyright © Travis Elborough 2005

PS™ is a trademark of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd.

Hunter S. Thompson, asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins ebooks

HarperCollinsPublishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication

Source ISBN: 9780007204496

Ebook Edition © OCTOBER 2014 ISBN: 9780007596713

Version: 2017–02–15

Dedication (#ulink_4b0ee564-291e-58f5-9a6d-eecf526a673f)

To Bob Geiger,

for reasons that need

not be explained here

—and to Bob Dylan,

for Mister Tambourine Man

Epigraph (#ulink_2ca6bba6-2fa8-54f5-b22c-93d6d0810b24)

“He who makes a beast of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man.”

—DR. JOHNSON

Contents

Cover (#u74244cb1-84eb-5791-84a0-94cba948fcc8)

Title Page (#u5cfc331c-09c2-5c42-aa20-c23ed2bf1a39)

Copyright (#ulink_5c689869-673e-51de-830b-ba3b093f9ecf)

Dedication (#ulink_b9241c52-1f5f-5d50-ae28-747d0d316777)

Epigraph (#ulink_30f92b29-76b8-57a9-9a6e-94613234fa76)

PART ONE (#u0febdee8-d09b-5a66-a018-c76aeda2e047)

2. The Seizure of $300 from a Pig Woman in Beverly Hills (#ulink_79814016-bcbe-5abf-ada2-7191114d5c84)

3. Strange Medicine on the Desert … a Crisis of Confidence (#ulink_fc52310d-99c5-5d24-8754-b041f900ac13)

4. Hideous Music and the Sound of Many Shotguns … Rude Vibes on a Saturday Evening in Vegas (#ulink_3de05be7-63fc-5f83-96e1-cfcaba335c18)

5. Covering the Story … A Glimpse of the Press in Action … Ugliness & Failure (#ulink_0e950500-7355-5014-8f79-49d995eff2bc)

6. A Night on the Town … Confrontation at the Desert Inn … Drug Frenzy at the Circus-Circus (#ulink_cfb1435e-2976-59b8-923b-73dc39c1902b)

7. Paranoid Terror … and the Awful Specter of Sodomy … A Flashing of Knives and Green Water (#ulink_6b2620a0-cce8-5070-b815-7092eec9839f)

8. “Genius ’Round the World Stands Hand in Hand, and One Shock of Recognition Runs the Whole Circle ’Round” (#litres_trial_promo)

9. No Sympathy for the Devil … Newsmen Tortured? … Flight into Madness (#litres_trial_promo)

10. Western Union Intervenes: A Warning from Mr. Heem … New Assignment from the Sports Desk and a Savage Invitation from the Police (#litres_trial_promo)

11. Aaawww, Mama, Can This Really Be the End? … Down and Out in Vegas, with Amphetamine Psychosis Again? (#litres_trial_promo)

12. Hellish Speed … Grappling with the California Highway Patrol … Mano a Mano on Highway 61 (#litres_trial_promo)

PART TWO

2. Another Day, Another Convertible … & Another Hotel Full of Cops (#litres_trial_promo)

3. Savage Lucy … ‘Teeth like Baseballs, Eyes like Jellied Fire’ (#litres_trial_promo)

4. No Refuge for Degenerates … Reflections an a Murderous Junkie (#litres_trial_promo)

5. A Terrible Experience with Extremely Dangerous Drugs (#litres_trial_promo)

6. Getting Down to Business … Opening Day at the Drug Convention (#litres_trial_promo)

7. If You Don’t Know, Come to Learn … If You Know, Come to Teach (#litres_trial_promo)

8. Back Door Beauty … & Finally a Bit of Serious Drag Racing on the Strip (#litres_trial_promo)

9. Breakdown on Paradise Blvd. (#litres_trial_promo)

10. Heavy Duty at the Airport … Ugly Peruvian Flashback … ‘No! It’s Too Late! Don’t Try It!’ (#litres_trial_promo)

11. Fraud? Larceny? Rape? … A Brutal Connection with the Alice from Linen Service (#litres_trial_promo)

12. Return to the Circus-Circus … Looking for the Ape … to Hell with the American Dream (#litres_trial_promo)

13. End of the Road … Death of the Whale … Soaking Sweats in the Airport (#litres_trial_promo)

14. Farewell to Vegas … ‘God’s Mercy on You Swine!’ (#litres_trial_promo)

Keep Reading (#litres_trial_promo)

Notes (#litres_trial_promo)

P.S. Ideas, interviews & features … (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Author (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Book (#litres_trial_promo)

Read On (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Author (#litres_trial_promo)

Also by the Author (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)

(#ulink_07f815b9-cf86-5588-a0f8-190d64ed828f)

We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold. I remember saying something like “I feel a bit lightheaded; maybe you should drive. …” And suddenly there was a terrible roar all around us and the sky was full of what looked like huge bats, all swooping and screeching and diving around the car, which was going about a hundred miles an hour with the top down to Las Vegas. And a voice was screaming: “Holy Jesus! What are these goddamn animals?”

Then it was quiet again. My attorney had taken his shirt off and was pouring beer on his chest, to facilitate the tanning process. “What the hell are you yelling about?” he muttered, staring up at the sun with his eyes closed and covered with wraparound Spanish sunglasses. “Never mind,” I said. “It’s your turn to drive.” I hit the brakes and aimed the Great Red Shark toward the shoulder of the highway. No point mentioning those bats, I thought. The poor bastard will see them soon enough.

It was almost noon, and we still had more than a hundred miles to go. They would be tough miles. Very soon, I knew, we would both be completely twisted. But there was no going back, and no time to rest. We would have to ride it out. Press registration for the fabulous Mint 400 was already underway, and we had to get there by four to claim our sound-proof suite. A fashionable sporting magazine in New York had taken care of the reservations, along with this huge red Chevy convertible we’d just rented off a lot on the Sunset Strip … and I was, after all, a professional journalist; so I had an obligation to cover the story, for good or ill.

The sporting editors had also given me $300 in cash, most of which was already spent on extremely dangerous drugs. The trunk of the car looked like a mobile police narcotics lab. We had two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a salt shaker half full of cocaine, and a whole galaxy of multi-colored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers … and also a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of Budweiser, a pint of raw ether and two dozen amyls.

All this had been rounded up the night before, in a frenzy of high-speed driving all over Los Angeles County—from Topanga to Watts, we picked up everything we could get our hands on. Not that we needed all that for the trip, but once you get locked into a serious drug collection, the tendency is to push it as far as you can.

The only thing that really worried me was the ether. There is nothing in the world more helpless and irresponsible and depraved than a man in the depths of an ether binge. And I knew we’d get into that rotten stuff pretty soon. Probably at the next gas station. We had sampled almost everything else, and now—yes, it was time for a long snort of ether. And then do the next hundred miles in a horrible, slobbering sort of spastic stupor. The only way to keep alert on ether is to do up a lot of amyls—not all at once, but steadily, just enough to maintain the focus at ninety miles an hour through Barstow.

“Man, this is the way to travel,” said my attorney. He leaned over to turn the volume up on the radio, humming along with the rhythm section and kind of moaning the words: “One toke over the line, Sweet Jesus … One toke over the line …”

One toke? You poor fool! Wait till you see those goddamn bats. I could barely hear the radio … slumped over on the far side of the seat, grappling with a tape recorder turned all the way up on “Sympathy for the Devil.” That was the only tape we had, so we played it constantly, over and over, as a kind of demented counterpoint to the radio. And also to maintain our rhythm on the road. A constant speed is good for gas mileage—and for some reason that seemed important at the time. Indeed. On a trip like this one must be careful about gas consumption. Avoid those quick bursts of acceleration that drag blood to the back of the brain.

My attorney saw the hitchhiker long before I did. “Let’s give this boy a lift,” he said, and before I could mount any argument he was stopped and this poor Okie kid was running up to the car with a big grin on his face, saying, “Hot damn! I never rode in a convertible before!”

“Is that right?” I said. “Well, I guess you’re about ready, eh?”

The kid nodded eagerly as we roared off.

“We’re your friends,” said my attorney. “We’re not like the others.”

O Christ, I thought, he’s gone around the bend. “No more of that talk,” I said sharply. “Or I’ll put the leeches on you.” He grinned, seeming to understand. Luckily, the noise in the car was so awful—between the wind and the radio and the tape machine—that the kid in the back seat couldn’t hear a word we were saying. Or could he?

How long can we maintain? I wondered. How long before one of us starts raving and jabbering at this boy? What will he think then? This same lonely desert was the last known home of the Manson family. Will he make that grim connection when my attorney starts screaming about bats and huge manta rays coming down on the car? If so—well, we’ll just have to cut his head off and bury him somewhere. Because it goes without saying that we can’t turn him loose. He’ll report us at once to some kind of outback nazi law enforcement agency, and they’ll run us down like dogs.

Jesus! Did I say that? Or just think it? Was I talking? Did they hear me? I glanced over at my attorney, but he seemed oblivious—watching the road, driving our Great Red Shark along at a hundred and ten or so. There was no sound from the back seat.

Maybe I’d better have a chat with this boy, I thought. Perhaps if I explain things, he’ll rest easy.

Of course. I leaned around in the seat and gave him a fine big smile … admiring the shape of his skull.

“By the way,” I said. “There’s one thing you should probably understand.”

He stared at me, not blinking. Was he gritting his teeth?

“Can you hear me?” I yelled.

He nodded.

“That’s good,” I said. “Because I want you to know that we’re on our way to Las Vegas to find the American Dream.” I smiled. “That’s why we rented this car. It was the only way to do it. Can you grasp that?”

He nodded again, but his eyes were nervous.

“I want you to have all the background,” I said. “Because this is a very ominous assignment—with overtones of extreme personal danger. … Hell, I forgot all about this beer; you want one?”

He shook his head.

“How about some ether?” I said.

“What?”

“Never mind. Let’s get right to the heart of this thing. You see, about twenty-four hours ago we were sitting in the Polo Lounge of the Beverly Hills Hotel—in the patio section, of course—and we were just sitting there under a palm tree when this uniformed dwarf came up to me with a pink telephone and said, ‘This must be the call you’ve been waiting for all this time, sir.’”