hunter

hunter s. thompson was starting to detox and i could see the thunderheads rolling in from behind his eyes. the magazine crew was setting up in the next room and i don't know why, but i felt protective of him. i thought maybe i could meter his intake so he could get through the interview and photos before the worst of his demons came out to play. i put my hand lightly on his shoulder, 'hey, how does a mojito sound?'. he tilted his head toward me and looked at me with what i can only describe as the kind of visible contempt a paraplegic would show to a happy/smiley 1st year nurse in answer to, 'do we want our full-to-the-brim colostomy bag changed out now?'. after a beat, he growled, 'over there...' and dismissively gestured toward the cabinets.

i'm not sure what i was expecting when i opened his infamous liquor cabinet- but it wasn't was i saw. instead of a treasure chest full of cool old liquor bottles, the shelves were crammed to overflowing with ancient tupperware pitchers- the one quart kind with the sad, red snap-close 'pour lids'. dried dregs of cheap, sweet booze from an uncountable number of refills lined the rims. prints from drunk, dirty fingers all frozen forever in the cloudy cataracts of all that degrading plastic. every one of those pitchers may as well have been filled with piss.

i gingerly began to sniff my way through the containers trying to bide my time and give the appearance of looking for something that resembled rum. 'hurry the fuck up!' he barked. 'fill it, just fill it! mix the shit up and throw some sugar in there for my nutritional requirements!'

i sloshed three of the liquors into a dirty glass until it was 1/2 full. i didn't bother with tongs as i fished for cool-ish shards in the melt water of the banged up ice bucket. hunter looked at the glass as i was about to hand it to him, 'GOD FUCKING DAMMIT! FILL THAT FUCKING THING UP!' 

all sets of eyes belonging to the sleek new york crew were focused on us now and they were wide with fear. in silence, i let them watch me as i turned and filled his glass to the brim. after i handed it to hunter, i looked toward them, tilted my head slightly to the right in a rather fetching manner and gave a little finger-wiggle 'goodbye'.

prince

he was so alive and the world hadn't frighten him yet. as our plane was about to touch down on the tarmac in detroit, i found myself thinking i was only dreaming of him healthy and laughing. 'wait, just wait,' he whispered, 'these kids are going to blow your mind!' soon we were on the ground and then the long black limo that now held us was crawling down the darkest factory streets of the city. one by one, his young detroit tribe members seemed to appear out of nowhere. they were not surprised to see him and only smiled as they each climbed into the cool belly of the car. i heard someone say, 'tent and ela are still working...' and just like that we were expelled like baby seahorses into the wide world of some 3rd world warehouse. there was ugly florescent lighting and workers busy everywhere. the space itself was a labyrinth of corridors, but prince seemed to know exactly where he was going. i abandoned trying to orient myself and instead, as i blindly followed, tried to focus on discovering the purpose of the factory. we passed thousands of fed-ex boxes closed with red tape that had the word 'MEDICAL' stamped in black every few inches- then we were surrounded by scores of uniformed workers quickly rolling samsonite luggage in a crisscross pattern through an open space. i decided it must be a luggage factory but then the aroma of frying donuts suddenly blanketed our motley conga line. i could smell each flavor distinctly but i never saw the source of it.

we left the medical/luggage/donut factory with tent and ela in tow, but only after prince marveled at the wonder of how these people could be so beautiful under the pressures of such a bleak environment.