Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas   ::   Thompson Hunter S.

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He thought for a moment, then picked up the phone and asked for the garage. “This is Doctor Gonzo in eight fifty,” he said. “I seem to have lost my parking stub for that red convertible I left with you, but I want the car washed and ready to go in thirty minutes. Can you send up a duplicate stub?… What… Oh?… Well, that’s fine.” He hung up and reached for the hash pipe. “No problem,” hesaid. “That man remembers my face.”

“That’s good,” I said. “They’ll probably have a big net for us when we show up.”shook his head. “As your attorney, I advise you not to about me.”

The TV news was about the Laos Invasion - a series of horrifying disasters: explosions and twisted wreckage, men fleeing in terror, Pentagon generals babbling insane lies.

“Turn that shit off!” screamed my attorney “Let’s get out of here!”

A wise move. Moments after we picked up the car my attorney went into a drug coma and ran a red light on Main Street before I could bring us under control. I propped him up in the passenger seat and took the wheel myself… feeling fine, extremely sharp. All around me in traffic I could see people talking and I wanted to hear what they were saying. All of them. But the shotgun mike was in the trunk and I decided to leave it there. Las Vegas is not the kind of town where you want to drive down Main Street aiming a black bazooka - looking instrument at people.Turn up the radio. Turn up the tape machine. Look into the sunset up ahead. Roll the windows down for a better taste of the cool desert wind. Ah yes. This is what it’s all about. Total control now. Tooling along the main drag on a Saturday night in Las Vegas, two good old boys in a fireapple - red convertible… stoned, ripped, twisted… Good People.

Great God! What is this terrible music?

“The Battle Hymn of Lieutenant Galley”:

“… as we go marching on

When I reach my final campground, in that land

beyond the sun,

and the Great Commander asks me… ”

»(What did he ask you, Rusty?)

“Did you fight or did you run?”

»(and what did you tell him, Rusty?)

“… We responded to their rifle fire with everything we had… ”

No! I can’t be hearing this! It must be the drug. I glanced over at my attorney, but he was staring up at the sky, and I could see that his brain had gone off to that campground

beyond the sun. Thank christ he can’t hear this music, I thought. It would drive him into a racist frenzy.

Mercifully, the song ended.

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