Hunter Thompson - Fear and Loating in Las Vegas. A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream

She froze: her eyes fixed wildly on the blade. My attorney, watching her, moved about six feet down the aisle and the receiver off the hook of the pay phone. He sliced it off, then brought the receiver back to his stool and sat down.

The waitress didn’t move. I was stupid with shock, not whether to run or start laughing.

“How much is that lemon meringue pie?” my attorney’s voice was casual, as if he had

just wandered into and was debating what to order.

“Thirty five cents!” the woman blurted. Her eyes were turgid with fear but her brain was apparently functioning on some basic motor survival leveL

My attorney laughed. “I mean the whole pie,” he said.

She moaned.

My attorney put a bill on the counter. “Let’s say it’s five dollars,” he said. “OK?”

She nodded, still frozen, watching my attorney as he walked around the counter and got the pie out of the display case. I prepared to leave.

The waitress was clearly in shock. The sight of the blade, jerked out in the heat of an argument, had apparently triggered bad memories. The glazed look in her eyes said her throat had been cut. She was still in the grip of paralysis when we left.

EDITOR’S NOTE:

At this point in the chronology, Dr. Duke appears to have broken down completely; the original manuscript is so splintered that we were forced to seek out the original tape record ing and transcribe it verbatim. We made no attempt to edit this section, and Dr. Duke refused even to read it. There was only one way to reach him. The only address/contact we had, during this period, was a mobile phone unit somewhere on Highway 61—and all efforts to reach Duke at that number proved futile. In the interests of journalistic purity, we are publishing the following section just as it came off the tape—one of many that Duke submitted for purposes of verification—along with manuscript. According to the tape, this section follows an episode involving Duke, his attorney and a waitress at an all—diner in North Vegas. The rationale for the following section appears to be based on a feeling—shared by both Duke and his attorney—that the American Dream would to be sought out somewhere far beyond the dreary confines District Attorneys’ Confrrence on Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs.

The transcription begins somewhere on the Northeast out of Las Vegas—zooming along Paradise Road in the White Whale ...

Att’y: Boulder City is to the right. Is that a town?

Duke: Yeah

Att’y: Let’s go to Boulder City.

Duke: All right. Let’s get some coffee somewhere ...

Att’y: Right up here, Terry’s Taco Stand, USA. I could go for a taco. Five for a buck.

Duke: Sounds horrible. I’d rather go somewhere where’s there’s one for 5O cents.

Att’y: No ...this might be the last chance we get for tacos.

Duke:. . . I need some coffee.

Att’y: I want tacos

Duke: Five for a buck, that’s like ...five hamburgers for a buck.

Att’y: No ...don’t judge a taco by its price.

Duke: You think you might make a deal?

Att’y: I might. There’s a hamburger for 29 cents. Tacos are 29 cents. It’s just a cheap place, that’s all.

Duke: Go bargain with them..

[Only garbled sounds here.-Ed.]

Att’y: ...Hello.

Waitress: May I help you?

Att’y: Yeah, you have tacos here? Are they Mexican tacos or just regular tacos? I mean, do you have chili in them and things like that?

Waitress: We have cheese and lettuce, and we have sauce, you know, put on them.

Att’y: I mean do you guarantee that they are authentic Mexican tacos?

Waitress: ...I don’t know. Hey Lou, do we have authentic Mexican tacos?

Woman’s voice from kitchen: What?

Waitress: Authentic Mexican tacos.

Lou: We have tacos. I don’t know how Mexican they are.

Att’y: Yeah, well, I just want to make sure I get what I’m paying for. ’Cause they’re five for a dollar? I’ll take five of them.

Duke: Taco burger, what’s that?

(Sound. of diesel engine truck. -Ed.]

Att’y: That’s a hamburger. with a taco in the middle.

Duke: A taco on a bun.

Att’y: I betcha your tacos are just hamburgers with a shell sad of a bun.

Waitress: I don’t know

Att’y: You just started working here?

Waitress: Today.

Att’y: I thought so, I’ve never saw you here before. You go school around here?

Waitress: No, I don’t go to school.

Duke: Oh? Why not? Are you sick?

Att’y: Never mind that. We came here for tacos.

[Pause.]

Att’y: As your attorney I advise you to get the chiliburger. a hamburger with chili on it.

Duke: That’s too heavy for me.

Att’y: Then I advise you to get a taco burger, try that one.

Duke: ...the taco has meat in it. I’ll try that one. And coffee now. Right now. So I can drink it while I’m waiting.

Waitress: That’s all you want, one taco burger?

Duke: Well, I’ll try it, I might want two.

Att’y: Are your eyes blue or green?

Waitress: Pardon?

Att’y: Blue or green?

Waitress: They change.

Att’y: Like a lizard?

Waitress: Like a cat.

Att’y: Oh, the lizard changes the color of his skin ...

Waitress: Want anything to drink?

Att’y: Beer. And I have beer in the car. Tons of it. The back seat’s full of it.

Duke: I don’t like mixing coconuts up with beer and ham—let’s smash the bastards.. right in the middle of the highway ... Is Boulder City somewhere around

Waitress: Boulder City? Do you want sugar?

Duke: Yeah.

Att’y: We’re in Boulder City, huh? Or very close to it?

Duke: I don’t know.

Waitress: There it is. That sign says Boulder City, OK. Aren’t you from Nevada?

Att’y : No. We’ve never been here before. Just traveling through.

Waitress: You just go straight up this road here.

Att’y: Any action up there in Boulder City?

Waitress: Don’t ask me. I don’t ...

Att’y: Any gambling there?

Waitress: I don’t know, it’s just a little town.

Duke: Where is the casino?

Waitress: I don’t know.

Att’y: Wait a minute, where are you from?

Waitress: New York.

Att’y: And you’ve just been here a day.

Waitress: No, I’ve been here for a while.

Att’y: Where do you go around here? Say you wanted to go swimming or something like that?

Waitress: In my backyard.

Att’y: What’s the address?

Waitress: Um, go to the ...ah ...the pool’s not open yet.

Att’y: Let me explain it to you, let me run it down just briefly if I can. We’re looking for the American Dream, and we were told it was somewhere in this area .... Well, we’re here looking for it, ’cause they sent us out here all the way from San Francisco to look for it. That’s why they gave us this white Cadillac, they figure that we could catch up with it in that ...

Waitress: Hey Lou, you know where the American Dream is?

Att’y (to Duke): She’s asking the cook if he knows where the American Dream is.