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Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas :: Thompson Hunter S.
Страница: 248 из 255All 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. But my mood was already shattered… and now the fiendish cactus juice took over, plunging me into a sub - human funk as we suddenly came up on the turnoff to the Mint Gun Club. “One mile,” the sign said. But even a mile away I could hear the crackling scream of two - stroke bike engines winding out… and then, coming closer, I heard another sound.
Shotguns! No mistaking that fiat hollow boom.
I stopped the car. What the hell is going on down there?
I rolled up all the windows and eased down the gravel road, hunched low on the wheel… until I saw about a dozen figures pointing shotguns into the air, firing at regular intervals.
Standing on a slab of concrete out here in the mesquite - desert, this scraggly little oasis in a wasteland north of Vegas.. They were clustered, with their shotguns, about fifty yards away from a one - story concrete/block - house, half - shaded by ten or twelve trees and surrounded by cop - cars, bike - trailers and motorcycles.
Of course. The Mint Gun Club! These lunatics weren’t letting anything interfere with their target practice.
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. But my mood was already shattered… and now the fiendish cactus juice took over, plunging me into a sub - human funk as we suddenly came up on the turnoff to the Mint Gun Club. “One mile,” the sign said. But even a mile away I could hear the crackling scream of two - stroke bike engines winding out… and then, coming closer, I heard another sound.
Shotguns! No mistaking that fiat hollow boom.
I stopped the car. What the hell is going on down there?
I rolled up all the windows and eased down the gravel road, hunched low on the wheel… until I saw about a dozen figures pointing shotguns into the air, firing at regular intervals.
Standing on a slab of concrete out here in the mesquite - desert, this scraggly little oasis in a wasteland north of Vegas.. They were clustered, with their shotguns, about fifty yards away from a one - story concrete/block - house, half - shaded by ten or twelve trees and surrounded by cop - cars, bike - trailers and motorcycles.
Of course. The Mint Gun Club! These lunatics weren’t letting anything interfere with their target practice.