Excerpts

Late Saturday night Hunter (Thompson) was at the theater. Not only did he have a deadline to meet for his weekly San Francisco Examiner column, he was supposed to write three pages, to begin the book on Mitchell Brothers', before his girlfriend Maria would bring down the Chivas. An IBM typewriter was set up in the office and Hunter bent over it, teetering on a barstool. On the pool table lay a set of videotapes from the Survival Research Laboratories, and Hunter put one on. Huge destructive machines and flame-throwers battled each other. Then animal-like shapes, like sides of beef, were ripped to bits.

As Hunter typed, Jim Mitchell summarized the plan for the documentary he and Artie had asked me to take part in. They would begin by shooting Hunter getting a medical exam by Dr. Nick. I smiled, thinking of the combination. "He doesn't know about this," Jim gestured to me covertly. My jaw dropped. "The doctor will tell him he's on his last legs and that he has to come here--to the O'Farrell. Everyone comes here to drop their last tusks--tusk. Then we'll follow him around. You'll drive a golf cart as a gorilla--as Hunter's caddy. Late at night, we'll hit Tosca and just you and Hunter will sit at the bar. Then we'll make a stop at the Goethe Institute where you and Hunter will discuss German philosophy."

Hunter interrupted, "I argued with the guy at the Goethe Institute, and I can't go back there in the middle of the night, not even in the afternoon!"

"O.K.," Jim said. "We'll end up here, Hunter will line up all the girls and he'll ask them, 'Are you eighteen?' or whatever he wants to ask them."

Hunter wanted me to stay, but it was now 3:00 a.m., and Jim wanted me back at the theater at 2:00 the next afternoon. "Trust me on this one," Hunter said to me. "Don't go."