A deranged Detour with Hunter S Thompson

Photo Amelia Troubridge

In 1998 Bill Dunn went for a drive with literary outlaw Hunter S Thompson at his home in Woody Creek, Colorado. Like most things involving Thompson, it quickly got weird.

“He’s just getting up,” says his assistant and girlfriend Heidi. “YASS YASS,” he says, shambling into the kitchen of his home, Owl Farm, at 6.30pm. Powerfully built, but at 60, slightly stooped from the 6ft 3in of his younger days, he is funkily dressed in a casual shirt, bright baggy surfer’s pants and moccasins. When I present him with a bottle of 10-year-old Laphroaig, he accepts it graciously and slops it into his breakfast whiskey glass, then stabs me in the neck with a realistic 8-inch stage dagger, just to get things rolling.

In a slight concession to health, he offers me a plum and then a pack of Dunhill Internationals from a large stash in the cupboard while “checking my credentials” – reading a couple of my articles. I pass, and he lights a pipe full of marijuana. His first toke sets him off on a coughing fit – “FUCK! FUCKING FUCK! I hate it when that happens!” Then, “Have you eaten? Let’s go get some dinner.”

Going out is a complicated procedure. Heidi fusses round Thompson like a mum preparing her kid for school. She decants his whisky into a straight glass that will fit into his car’s coffee cup holder, then helps him choose a jacket, then a hat (he picks a white one with a black plastic spider). Then a cigarette holder. Then she goes out to the garage and pulls off the dust sheet to reveal “The Red Shark”, a massive ’72 Chevrolet Caprice, roof down, white leather. It rumbles into life and Heidi backs it out then dutifully gets into the back seat. Thompson finally emerges, pulls on fingerless driving gloves, and we’re off.

Thompson is a spirited driver, but knows these Colorado mountain roads. He feels totally in control, even during 80mph bursts approaching corners that take your breath away and throw the blood to the back of your brain. “Racing suspension,” he confides to me. I put “New Year” by The Breeders on the tape deck (which he seems to love) and we float down the valley in the cold night mountain air to Woody Creek Tavern, the informal bar and eatery that has featured in many of his short stories.

The Tavern is busy on Saturday night, and Thompson is hailed by many of the locals. “Hey, Hunter,” says one, “got any more dynamite?” “GODAMN YOU FUCKPIG,” he yells. “NEVER ask me things like that in public – these are DECENT PEOPLE!”

Then Thompson spots a friend at a nearby table. “He’s just recovering from a heart attack,” he tells us. He approaches from behind, encircles the man’s throat with his left arm and plunges his trick dagger repeatedly into the man’s chest, yelling, “DIE, SCUM!”

“He seems… much recovered,” says Hunter returning to the table. After a light dinner, beers and a discussion about local politics, we get back in the car.

The air is so clear that the Milky Way is a huge white speckled band across the sky. “Let’s go to our star watching place,” Heidi suggests to Hunter. So we go back to the house and load up with blankets, more marijuana, the bottle of Laphroaig, beer, military binoculars and a high-powered hunting torch and then drive up the mountain at the back of Thompson’s property.

“I normally only take the Jeep up here,” mumbles Thompson. You can see why. The track is pitch dark, but potholes, rocks and branches loom in the headlights. Somehow he powers the low, highly-unsuitable car up the track without ever bottoming out or dragging off the exhaust, then makes a sharp turn off… into a field.

Objectively we must have looked a surreal sight; four giggling people off-roading a red Chevrolet, ploughing through a sea of grass as high as the bonnet. But at the time it seemed normal – we had entered Thompson’s world of drug logic and extreme clarity.

 “There’s Saturn,” he says, handing me the binoculars. “GODAMN, we forgot the acid! We need ACID to look at the stars… it gives a man EYES.”

Eventually we all get cold and Thompson pilots the car back down again. The Red Shark must have had a forcefield of magic around it, because after talking through the night, I emerge at dawn to find it totally unscathed, if erratically parked.

Now Hunter’s gone, I still feel privileged to have spent a night with him. He was the perfect host and driver, and lived up to his description of himself in my favourite HST book, Generation of Swine: “A lazy drunken hillbilly with a heart full of hate who has found a way to live out there where the real winds blow – to sleep late, have fun, get wild, drink whiskey and drive fast on empty streets with nothing in mind except falling in love and not getting arrested.”

Words Bill Dunn Twitter