March 1, 2005

Ghouls of the Rockies

I WAS A BIT TOO HARSH on old Hunter Thompson the other day when I observed in Hunter Thompson: What A Man! Yeah, Right. that he was a selfish bastard for leaving his shot-through-the-mouth corpse for his wife and family to clean up. Yup, too harsh by half. We now learn that his family actually liked having his corpse around as, I guess, a conversation piece as they got snozzled.

According to a bizarre story in the Rocky Mountain News within hours of his death

Hunter S. Thompson still heard the ice clinking.

The literary champ was sitting in his command post kitchen chair, a piece of blank paper in his favorite typewriter, dead of a self-inflicted gunshot through the mouth hours earlier.

But a small circle of family and friends gathered around with stories, as he wished, with glasses full of his favored elixir — Chivas Regal on ice.

"It was very loving. It was not a panic, or ugly, or freaky," Thompson's wife, Anita Thompson, said Thursday night in her first spoken comments since the icon's death Sunday. "It was just like Hunter wanted. He was in control here."

What can one say other than that a man with the back of his head blown out will always, in a sense, control the attentions of a drinking party. I suppose it would be uncharitable of me to note that designating the cheap blend of Chivas Regal as a favored elixir does not speak well of the tastes of the departed, so I won't. Instead, I'd like to reflect on the loving nature of the gathering.

Old memories. "Hey, remember when he..." "And then there was the time that..." Toasts. Clinking ice. Refills on the house. "Hunter, what's up? You haven't touched your drink. Here, let me help you. Oops, leakage. Well, can't be helped I suppose."

The "piece of blank paper in his favorite typewriter" is a nice touch, don't you think? The very stuff of which legends are crafted. Of course it would have been much better had the paper been half-filled with "All work and no play makes Hunter a dull boy...," but you can't think of everything when whipping together an impromptu apres-morte tableau.

Present in the house when Thompson pulled the trigger were:

Juan Thompson and his wife, Jennifer Winkel Thompson, were up from Denver at the property known as Owl Farm for one of their weekend visits. It was typical: They went sledding and watched The Maltese Falcon Saturday night. They were with their son, 6-year-old Will.
News reports don't say if the 6-year-old grandson was part of the apres-morte drinking party. If not, one wonders where he was and who was taking care of him.

As for Thompson's wife of the moment, she is quoted in a burst of obviousness as saying:

"I always knew that Hunter was going to die before me," Anita Thompson, 32, said of her 67-year-old husband. "I'd accepted that. I just did not know it was going to be like this. I would rather have him back."
This yearning, however, did not keep her from finding the beauty of the moment:
After wading through the police officers outside, Anita Thompson recalls seeing her husband's dead body for the first time. "He was sitting in the chair when they brought me in, and I got to hug him and kiss him and rub his legs," she said. "All the anger was gone when I saw him."
On the other hand, since she obviously can't have him back, keeping the house will make up for her loss:
Anita Thompson believes she will stay on at the expansive property and famous house that was an ever-changing archive of political, literary and name-your-category items. And she will continue to help administer Hunter Thompson's works.

"I'm going to keep on working for Hunter," she said. "He wanted this. He made sure that I was in place to continue on. I'll just do my job until I can be with him again."

In like, maybe, 50 or 60 years and two to four other husbands.

In the meantime, Prosit! Skol! Have another hit.

What a family! It's dysfunctional enough to make you want to, well, just shoot yourself.

Posted by Vanderleun at March 1, 2005 10:16 AM
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Just out of curiosity, what is your preference over Chivas Regal? My usual is a gin, but I thought Macallan's was decent.

Posted by: Howard Larson at March 1, 2005 11:10 AM

The Macallan is more than decent even though I was a booster of Laphroig for some time.

These days, I must say, that I have lost my taste for Scotch entirely. Too much of a taste and you end up sitting around drinking with dead men.

Posted by: Gerard Van Der Leun at March 1, 2005 12:31 PM

Sounds like a wake to me. But I'm sure you know better, having not been there, and not knowing any of these people personally, I'm sure you're qualified to make that assessment.

Posted by: z at March 1, 2005 1:40 PM

Actually, it sounds like sitting around drinking with a dead guy in a chair. Sooper-dooper!

Posted by: Gerard Van Der Leun at March 1, 2005 1:47 PM

Breakfast at Bernie's. Cocktails at Hunter's.

Posted by: mark butterworth at March 1, 2005 2:50 PM

Now *that's* funny.

Posted by: Gerard Van Der Leun at March 1, 2005 3:38 PM

What a complete bunch of creeps. The six-year-old should have dumped all the scotch in the house and forced his Kool-Aid on everyone in that pathetic family. Maxwell's silver hammer isn't good enough for those fools.

Posted by: Amy at March 1, 2005 6:27 PM