Had Hunter Thompson become sheriff (and he almost did) I’d still be living in Aspen, probably in an abandoned car or a cardboard box in the farrier’s barn who offered the only job I could find at that time. Apprentice farrier. It was on a bulletin board in one of the few ungentrified greasy spoons left in the entire county. I might still be skiing at my advanced creaky age, but I doubt that; more likely nursing the dregs of a bottle of Schnapps tossed aside by someone with a five hundred dollar season pass and a Canada Goose parka.
You see, if Hunter and Freak Power had come out on top, I had promised myself I would move to Aspen. I’ve made dumber decisions. Much.
But Hunter didn’t take over the law enforcement of Aspen and Pitkin County, and the fizzling remnants of Freak Power confined itself to the Hotel Jerome and Owl Farm. I didn’t know Hunter but did know his right-wing adversary/nemesis, Mayor Guido Meyer. Liked him, too. Stayed at his motel, and his dog, Butch, attached himself to me to the point where he spent nights in my room. Had Hunter won the Sheriff’s race, Butch and I would have volunteered and been factotums at the Sheriff’s Department. Runners for donuts, coffee, rum and bud. Who knows what that future held? Different paths taken.
Probably for the better, since Hunter left Owl Farm in a spectacular cannonade of music and fireworks. I wrote a poem about it, Hunter in the Sky with Cordite,and it was published in Heartland! (exclamation point theirs) and here it is! (exclamation point mine).
Hunter in the Sky with Cordite
By accident or design he took his life
and turned Owl Farm to icon, Johnny
Depp and friends shot his ashes into
the sky and swirled them like a flock
of birds or leaflets a ticker tape parade
of ball-drop confetti that came to rest
on aspen meadows, thickets and on
the backs of leaping deer who took
it to the roads and threw themselves
at trucks in throes of actuarial herd-
thinning and very little thought to the
gonzo genius whose ashes rode them
to their own felo de se in headlights
grille and fender mauling endgame.
Deer aside, the wake is the thing and
this one was classic HST red white
and blue lit the sky and then the famed
flamed exitus flagrante in preplanned
thundrous salute a single salvo that
said I left the way I lived, out of my
way you bastards and a long cigarette
holder whipped through the night sky
slamming into place on the bear Ursa
Major pointing forever at Polaris the
star that guides lost sailors, writers,
bikers and artists, those voyagers who
step into the unknown with nothing
but their try, their lashed-together
boats of sticks and hubris to float
them all the way to Styx and maybe
who the hell knows, to Elysium.
Anyway, they sent him off in a way he’d have endorsed, and ad perpetuam memoriam.
Top left: Brilliant campaign poster. Top right: Ajax. Bottom right: Viva Montesa and a bike ski rack that I never saw the likes of again.
I have an Aspen wall within sight of my writing desk in the loft of my wife’s studio. It bears three items; Hunter’s campaign poster, a painting by an artist named Bert in Milwaukee, and a poster for Montesa. The fellow named Bert was an old school art director who wore a smock and regarded the rest of us as silly, or at least I got that impression. One day he was gone, but I had the painting. It reminded me of a run on Ajax called Lazy Boy. And I saw the Montesa poster in a clothing store in Aspen and had to have it because of a bike I’d seen on the street. They said not for sale, it was part of their decor. I persisted. Later they sold it to me for five bucks, which would be about a hundred in today’s money.
I’d seen a Montesa scrambler with knobby tires in Aspen during a ski trip; it was outfitted with a home made ski rack in which the skis were perpendicular behind the rider. I liked that. It was parked on the street in front of The Chart House. That guy was a serious resident. And no doubt lively. Viva Montesa.
The anarchists were taking over, or giving it a serious try and they liked to ski, drink, and drive on the rim. I felt a strong attraction to their sanguine ways. Res ipsa loquitur.