If you've never read any Hunter S. Thompson, here's you're chance

[charlesfransis]

I got off the plane around midnight and no one spoke as Icrossed the dark runway to the terminal. The air was thick and hot,like wandering into a steam bath. Inside, people hugged each other andshook hands...big grins and a whoop here and there: "By God! You old bastard! Good to see you, boy! Damn good...and I mean it!"In the air-conditioned lounge I met a man from Houston who saidhis name was something or other--"but just call me Jimbo"--and he washere to get it on. "I'm ready for anything, by God! Anythingat all. Yeah, what are you drinkin?" I ordered a Margarita with ice,but he wouldn't hear of it: "Naw, naw...what the hell kind of drink isthat for Kentucky Derby time? What's wrong with you, boy?" He grinned and winked at the bartender. "Goddam, we gotta educate this boy. Get him some good whiskey..."I shrugged. "Okay, a double Old Fitz on ice." Jimbo nodded his approval."Look." He tapped me on the arm to make sure I was listening."I know this Derby crowd, I come here every year, and let me tell youone thing I've learned--this is no town to be giving people theimpression you're some kind of faggot. Not in public, anyway. Shit,they'll roll you in a minute, knock you in the head and take everygoddam cent you have."I thanked him and fitted a Marlboro into my cigarette holder."Say," he said, "you look like you might be in the horse business...amI right?""No," I said. "I'm a photographer.""Oh yeah?" He eyed my ragged leather bag with new interest. "Is that what you got there--cameras? Who you work for?""Playboy," I said.He laughed. "Well, goddam! What are you gonna take picturesof--nekkid horses? Haw! I guess you'll be workin' pretty hard when theyrun the Kentucky Oaks. That's a race just for fillies." He was laughingwildly. "Hell yes! And they'll all be nekkid too!"I shook my head and said nothing; just stared at him for amoment, trying to look grim. "There's going to be trouble," I said. "Myassignment is to take pictures of the riot.""What riot?"I hesitated, twirling the ice in my drink. "At the track. OnDerby Day. The Black Panthers." I stared at him again. "Don't you readthe newspapers?"The grin on his face had collapsed. "What the hell are you talkin' about?""Well...maybe I shouldn't be telling you..." I shrugged. "Buthell, everybody else seems to know. The cops and the National Guardhave been getting ready for six weeks. They have 20,000 troops on alertat Fort Knox. They've warned us--all the press and photographers--towear helmets and special vests like flak jackets. We were told toexpect shooting...""No!" he shouted; his hands flew up and hovered momentarilybetween us, as if to ward off the words he was hearing. Then he whackedhis fist on the bar. "Those sons of bitches! God Almighty! The KentuckyDerby!" He kept shaking his head. "No! Jesus! That's almosttoo bad to believe!" Now he seemed to be sagging on the stool, and whenhe looked up his eyes were misty. "Why? Why here? Don't they respect anything?"I shrugged again. "It's not just the Panthers. The FBI saysbusloads of white crazies are coming in from all over the country--tomix with the crowd and attack all at once, from every direction.They'll be dressed like everybody else. You know--coats and ties andall that. But when the trouble starts...well, that's why the cops areso worried."He sat for a moment, looking hurt and confused and not quiteable to digest all this terrible news. Then he cried out: "Oh...Jesus!What in the name of God is happening in this country? Where can you getaway from it?""Not here," I said, picking up my bag. "Thanks for the drink...and good luck."He grabbed my arm, urging me to have another, but I said I wasoverdue at the Press Club and hustled off to get my act together forthe awful spectacle. At the airport newsstand I picked up a Courier-Journaland scanned the front page headlines: "Nixon Sends GI's into Cambodiato Hit Reds"... "B-52's Raid, then 20,000 GI's Advance 20Miles"..."4,000 U.S. Troops Deployed Near Yale as Tension Grows OverPanther Protest." At the bottom of the page was a photo of Diane Crump,soon to become the first woman jockey ever to ride in the KentuckyDerby. The photographer had snapped her "stopping in the barn area tofondle her mount, Fathom." The rest of the paper was spotted with uglywar news and stories of "student unrest." There was no mention of anytrouble brewing at university in Ohio called Kent State.I went to the Hertz desk to pick up my car, but the moon-facedyoung swinger in charge said they didn't have any. "You can't rent oneanywhere," he assured me. "Our Derby reservations have been booked forsix weeks." I explained that my agent had confirmed a white Chryslerconvertible for me that very afternoon but he shook his head. "Maybewe'll have a cancellation. Where are you staying?"I shrugged. "Where's the Texas crowd staying? I want to be with my people."He sighed. "My friend, you're in trouble. This town is flat full. Always is, for the Derby."I leaned closer to him, half-whispering: "Look, I'm from Playboy. How would you like a job?"He backed off quickly. "What? Come on, now. What kind of a job?""Never mind," I said. "You just blew it." I swept my bag offthe counter and went to find a cab. The bag is a valuable prop in thiskind of work; mine has a lot of baggage tags on it--SF, LA, NY, Lima,Rome, Bangkok, that sort of thing--and the most prominent tag of all isa very official, plastic-coated thing that says "Photog. Playboy Mag."I bought it from a pimp in Vail, Colorado, and he told me how to useit. "Never mention Playboy until you're sure they've seenthis thing first," he said. "Then, when you see them notice it, that'sthe time to strike. They'll go belly up ever time. This thing is magic,I tell you. Pure magic."Well...maybe so. I'd used it on the poor geek in the bar, andnow humming along in a Yellow Cab toward town, I felt a little guiltyabout jangling the poor bugger's brains with that evil fantasy. Butwhat the hell? Anybody who wanders around the world saying, "Hell yes,I'm from Texas," deserves whatever happens to him. And he had, afterall, come here once again to make a nineteenth-century ass of himselfin the midst of some jaded, atavistic freakout with nothing torecommend it except a very saleable "tradition." Early in our chat,Jimbo had told me that he hadn't missed a Derby since 1954. "The littlelady won't come anymore," he said. "She grits her teeth and turns meloose for this one. And when I say 'loose' I do mean loose! Itoss ten-dollar bills around like they were goin' out of style! Horses,whiskey, women...shit, there's women in this town that'll do anything for money."Why not? Money is a good thing to have in these twisted times.Even Richard Nixon is hungry for it. Only a few days before the Derbyhe said, "If I had any money I'd invest it in the stock market." Andthe market, meanwhile, continued its grim slide.**********The next day was heavy. With only thirty hours until post timeI had no press credentials and--according to the sports editor of theLouisville Courier-Journal--no hope at all of getting any. Worse, I needed twosets: one for myself and another for Ralph Steadman, the Englishillustrator who was coming from London to do some Derby drawings. All Iknew about him was that this was his first visit to the United States.And the more I pondered the fact, the more it gave me fear. How wouldhe bear up under the heinous culture shock of being lifted out ofLondon and plunged into the drunken mob scene at the Kentucky Derby?There was no way of knowing. Hopefully, he would arrive at least a dayor so ahead, and give himself time to get acclimated. Maybe a few hoursof peaceful sightseeing in the Bluegrass country around Lexington. Myplan was to pick him up at the airport in the huge Pontiac BallbusterI'd rented from a used-car salesman name Colonel Quick, then whisk himoff to some peaceful setting that might remind him of England.Colonel Quick had solved the car problem, and money (four timesthe normal rate) had bought two rooms in a scumbox on the outskirts oftown. The only other kink was the task of convincing the moguls atChurchill Downs that Scanlan's was such a prestigioussporting journal that common sense compelled them to give us two setsof the best press tickets. This was not easily done. My first call tothe publicity office resulted in total failure. The press handler wasshocked at the idea that anyone would be stupid enough to apply forpress credentials two days before the Derby. "Hell, you can't beserious," he said. "The deadline was two months ago. The press box isfull; there's no more room...and what the hell is Scanlan's Monthly anyway?"I uttered a painful groan. "Didn't the London office call you?They're flying an artist over to do the paintings. Steadman. He'sIrish. I think. Very famous over there. Yes. I just got in from theCoast. The San Francisco office told me we were all set."He seemed interested, and even sympathetic, but there wasnothing he could do. I flattered him with more gibberish, and finallyhe offered a compromise: he could get us two passes to the clubhousegrounds but the clubhouse itself and especially the press box were outof the question."That sounds a little weird," I said. "It's unacceptable. We must have access tp everything. Allof it. The spectacle, the people, the pageantry and certainly the race.You don't think we came all this way to watch the damn thing ontelevision, do you? One way or another we'll get inside. Maybe we'llhave to bribe a guard--or even Mace somebody." (I had picked up a spraycan of Mace in a downtown drugstore for $5.98 and suddenly, in themidst of that phone talk, I was struck by the hideous possibilities ofusing it out at the track. Macing ushers at the narrow gates to theclubhouse inner sanctum, then slipping quickly inside, firing a hugeload of Mace into the governor's box, just as the race starts. OrMacing helpless drunks in the clubhouse restroom, for their own good...)By noon on Friday I was still without press credentials andstill unable to locate Steadman. For all I knew he'd changed his mindand gone back to London. Finally, after giving up on Steadman andtrying unsuccessfully to reach my man in the press office, I decided myonly hope for credentials was to go out to the track and confront theman in person, with no warning--demanding only one pass now, instead oftwo, and talking very fast with a strange lilt in my voice, like a mantrying hard to control some inner frenzy. On the way out, I stopped atthe motel desk to cash a check. Then, as a useless afterthought, Iasked if by any wild chance a Mr. Steadman had checked in.The lady on the desk was about fifty years old and verypeculiar-looking; when I mentioned Steadman's name she nodded, withoutlooking up from whatever she was writing, and said in a low voice, "Youbet he did." Then she favored me with a big smile. "Yes, indeed. Mr.Steadman just left for the racetrack. Is he a friend of yours?"I shook my head. "I'm supposed to be working with him, but Idon't even know what he looks like. Now, goddammit, I'll have to findhim in the mob at the track."She chuckled. "You won't have any trouble finding him. You could pick that man out of any crowd.""Why?" I asked. "What's wrong with him? What does he look like?""Well..." she said, still grinning, "he's the funniest looking thing I've seen in a long time. He has this...ah...this growth all over his face. As a matter of fact it's all over his head." She nodded. "You'll know him when you see him; don't worry about that."Creeping Jesus, I thought. That screws the press credentials. Ihad a vision of some nerve-rattling geek all covered with matted hairand string-warts showing up in the press office and demanding Scanlan'spress packet. Well...what the hell? We could always load up on acid andspend the day roaming around the clubhouse grounds with bit sketchpads, laughing hysterically at the natives and swilling mint juleps sothe cops wouldn't think we're abnormal. Perhaps even make the act pay;set up an easel with a big sign saying, "Let a Foreign Artist PaintYour Portrait, $10 Each. Do It NOW!"**********I took the expressway out to the track, driving very fast andjumping the monster car back and forth between lanes, driving with abeer in one hand and my mind so muddled that I almost crushed aVolkswagen full of nuns when I swerved to catch the right exit. Therewas a slim chance, I thought, that I might be able to catch the uglyBritisher before he checked in.But Steadman was already in the press box when I got there, abearded young Englishman wearing a tweed coat and RAF sunglasses. Therewas nothing particularly odd about him. No facial veins or clumps ofbristly warts. I told him about the motel woman's description and heseemed puzzled. "Don't let it bother you," I said. "Just keep in mindfor the next few days that we're in Louisville, Kentucky. Not London.Not even New York. This is a weird place. You're lucky that mentaldefective at the motel didn't jerk a pistol out of the cash registerand blow a big hole in you." I laughed, but he looked worried."Just pretend you're visiting a huge outdoor loony bin," Isaid. "If the inmates get out of control we'll soak them down withMace." I showed him the can of "Chemical Billy," resisting the urge tofire it across the room at a rat-faced man typing diligently in theAssociated Press section. We were standing at the bar, sipping themanagement's Scotch and congratulating each other on our sudden,unexplained luck in picking up two sets of fine press credentials. Thelady at the desk had been very friendly to him, he said. "I just toldher my name and she gave me the whole works."By midafternoon we had everything under control. We had seatslooking down on the finish line, color TV and a free bar in the pressroom, and a selection of passes that would take us anywhere from theclubhouse roof to the jockey room. The only thing we lacked wasunlimited access to the clubhouse inner sanctum in sections"F&G"...and I felt we needed that, to see the whiskey gentry inaction. The governor, a swinish neo-Nazi hack named Louis Nunn, wouldbe in "G," along with Barry Goldwater and Colonel Sanders. I felt we'dbe legal in a box in "G" where we could rest and sip juleps, soak up abit of atmosphere and the Derby's special vibrations.The bars and dining rooms are also in "F&G," and theclubhouse bars on Derby Day are a very special kind of scene. Alongwith the politicians, society belles and local captains of commerce,every half-mad dingbat who ever had any pretensions to anything at allwithin five hundred miles of Louisville will show up there to getstrutting drunk and slap a lot of backs and generally make himselfobvious. The Paddock bar is probably the best place in the track to sitand watch faces. Nobody minds being stared at; that's what they're inthere for. Some people spend most of their time in the Paddock; theycan hunker down at one of the many wooden tables, lean back in acomfortable chair and watch the ever-changing odds flash up and down onthe big tote board outside the window. Black waiters in white servingjackets move through the crowd with trays of drinks, while the expertsponder their racing forms and the hunch bettors pick lucky numbers orscan the lineup for right-sounding names. There is a constant flow oftraffic to and from the pari-mutuel windows outside in the woodencorridors. Then, as post time nears, the crowd thins out as people goback to their boxes.Clearly, we were going to have to figure out some way to spendmore time in the clubhouse tomorrow. But the "walkaround" press passesto F&G were only good for thirty minutes at a time, presumably toallow the newspaper types to rush in and out for photos or quickinterviews, but to prevent drifters like Steadman and me from spendingall day in the clubhouse, harassing the gentry and rifling the oddhandbag or two while cruising around the boxes. Or Macing the governor.The time limit was no problem on Friday, but on Derby Day thewalkaround passes would be in heavy demand. And since it took about tenminutes to get from the press box to the Paddock, and ten more minutesto get back, that didn't leave much time for serious people-watching.And unlike most of the others in the press box, we didn't give a hootin hell what was happening on the track. We had come there to watch thereal beasts perform.**********Later Friday afternoon, we went out on the balcony of the pressbox and I tried to describe the difference between what we were seeingtoday and what would be happening tomorrow. This was the first time I'dbeen to a Derby in ten years, but before that, when I lived inLouisville, I used to go every year. Now, looking down from the pressbox, I pointed to the huge grassy meadow enclosed by the track. "Thatwhole thing," I said, "will be jammed with people; fifty thousand orso, and most of them staggering drunk. It's a fantasticscene--thousands of people fainting, crying, copulating, trampling eachother and fighting with broken whiskey bottles. We'll have to spendsome time out there, but it's hard to move around, too many bodies.""Is it safe out there?" Will we ever come back?""Sure," I said. "We'll just have to be careful not to step onanybody's stomach and start a fight." I shrugged. "Hell, this clubhousescene right below us will be almost as bad as the infield. Thousands ofraving, stumbling drunks, getting angrier and angrier as they lose moreand more money. By midafternoon they'll be guzzling mint juleps withboth hands and vomitting on each other between races. The whole placewill be jammed with bodies, shoulder to shoulder. It's hard to movearound. The aisles will be slick with vomit; people falling down andgrabbing at your legs to keep from being stomped. Drunks pissing onthemselves in the betting lines. Dropping handfuls of money andfighting to stoop over and pick it up."He looked so nervous that I laughed. "I'm just kidding," Isaid. "Don't worry. At the first hint of trouble I'll start pumpingthis 'Chemical Billy' into the crowd."He had done a few good sketches, but so far we hadn't seen thatspecial kind of face that I felt we would need for a lead drawing. Itwas a face I'd seen a thousand times at every Derby I'd ever been to. Isaw it, in my head, as the mask of the whiskey gentry--a pretentiousmix of booze, failed dreams and a terminal identity crisis; theinevitable result of too much inbreeding in a closed and ignorantculture. One of the key genetic rules in breeding dogs, horses or anyother kind of thoroughbred is that close inbreeding tends to magnifythe weak points in a bloodline as well as the strong points. In horsebreeding, for instance, there is a definite risk in breeding two fasthorses who are both a little crazy. The offspring will likely be veryfast and also very crazy. So the trick in breeding thoroughbreds is toretain the good traits and filter out the bad. But the breeding ofhumans is not so wisely supervised, particularly in a narrow Southernsociety where the closest kind of inbreeding is not only stylish andacceptable, but far more convenient--to the parents--than setting theiroffspring free to find their own mates, for their own reasons and intheir own ways. ("Goddam, did you hear about Smitty's daughter? Shewent crazy in Boston last week and married a nigger!")So the face I was trying to find in Churchill Downs thatweekend was a symbol, in my own mind, of the whole doomed atavisticculture that makes the Kentucky Derby what it is.On our way back to the motel after Friday's races I warnedSteadman about some of the other problems we'd have to cope with.Neither of us had brought any strange illegal drugs, so we would haveto get by on booze. "You should keep in mind," I said, "that almosteverybody you talk to from now on will be drunk. People who seem verypleasant at first might suddenly swing at you for no reason at all." Henodded, staring straight ahead. He seemed to be getting a little numband I tried to cheer him up by inviting to dinner that night, with mybrother.Back at the motel we talked for awhile about America, theSouth, England--just relaxing a bit before dinner. There was no wayeither of us could have known, at the time, that it would be the lastnormal conversation we would have. From that point on, the weekendbecame a vicious, drunken nightmare. We both went completely to pieces.The main problem was my prior attachment to Louisville, which naturallyled to meetings with old friends, relatives, etc., many of whom were inthe process of falling apart, going mad, plotting divorces, cracking upunder the strain of terrible debts or recovering from bad accidents.Right in the middle of the whole frenzied Derby action, a member of myown family had to be institutionalized. This added a certain amount ofstrain to the situation, and since poor Steadman had no choice but totake whatever came his way, he was subjected to shock after shock.Another problem was his habit of sketching people he met in thevarious social situations I dragged him into--then giving them thesketches. The results were always unfortunate. I warned him severaltimes about letting the subjects see his foul renderings, but for someperverse reason he kept doing it. Consequently, he was regarded withfear and loathing by nearly everyone who'd seen or even heard about hiswork. Ho couldn't understand it. "It's sort of a joke," he kept saying."Why, in England it's quite normal. People don't take offense. Theyunderstand that I'm just putting them on a bit.""Fuck England," I said. "This is Middle America. These peopleregard what you're doing to them as a brutal, bilious insult. Look whathappened last night. I thought my brother was going to tear your headoff."Steadman shook his head sadly. "But I liked him. He struck me as a very decent, straightforward sort.""Look, Ralph," I said. "Let's not kid ourselves. That was avery horrible drawing you gave him. It was the face of a monster. Itgot on his nerves very badly." I shrugged. "Why in hell do you think weleft the restaurant so fast?""I thought it was because of the Mace," he said."What Mace?"He grinned. "When you shot it at the headwaiter, don't you remember?""Hell, that was nothing," I said. "I missed him...and we were leaving, anyway.""But it got all over us," he said. "The room was full of thatdamn gas. Your brother was sneezing was and his wife was crying. Myeyes hurt for two hours. I couldn't see to draw when we got back to themotel.""That's right," I said. "The stuff got on her leg, didn't it?""She was angry," he said."Yeah...well, okay...Let's just figure we fucked up aboutequally on that one," I said. "But from now on let's try to be carefulwhen we're around people I know. You won't sketch them and I won't Macethem. We'll just try to relax and get drunk.""Right," he said. "We'll go native."**********It was Saturday morning, the day of the Big Race, and we werehaving breakfast in a plastic hamburger palace called the Fish-MeatVillage. Our rooms were just across the road in the Brown SuburbanHotel. They had a dining room, but the food was so bad that we couldn'thandle it anymore. The waitresses seemed to be suffering from shinsplints; they moved around very slowly, moaning and cursing the"darkies" in the kitchen.Steadman liked the Fish-Meat place because it had fish andchips. I preferred the "French toast," which was really pancake batter,fried to the proper thickness and then chopped out with a sort ofcookie cutter to resemble pieces of toast.Beyond drink and lack of sleep, our only real problem at thatpoint was the question of access to the clubhouse. Finally, we decidedto go ahead and steal two passes, if necessary, rather than miss thatpart of the action. This was the last coherent decision we were able tomake for the next forty-eight hours. From that point on--almost fromthe very moment we started out to the track--we lost all control ofevents and spent the rest of the weekend churning around in a sea ofdrunken horrors. My notes and recollections from Derby Day are somewhatscrambled.But now, looking at the big red notebook I carried all throughthat scene, I see more or less what happened. The book itself issomewhat mangled and bent; some of the pages are torn, others areshriveled and stained by what appears to be whiskey, but taken as awhole, with sporadic memory flashes, the notes seem to tell the story.To wit:**********Rain all nite until dawn. No sleep. Christ, here we go, anightmare of mud and madness...But no. By noon the sun burnsthrough--perfect day, not even humid.Steadman is now worried about fire. Somebody told him about theclubhouse catching on fire two years ago. Could it happen again?Horrible. Trapped in the press box. Holocaust. A hundred thousandpeople fighting to get out. Drunks screaming in the flames and the mud,crazed horses running wild. Blind in the smoke. Grandstand collapsinginto the flames with us on the roof. Poor Ralph is about to crack.Drinking heavily, into the Haig & Haig.Out to the track in a cab, avoid that terrible parking inpeople's front yards, $25 each, toothless old men on the street withbig signs: PARK HERE, flagging cars in the yard. "That's fine, boy,never mind the tulips." Wild hair on his head, straight up like a clumpof reeds.Sidewalks full of people all moving in the same direction,towards Churchill Downs. Kids hauling coolers and blankets,teenyboppers in tight pink shorts, many blacks...black dudes in whitefelt hats with leopard-skin bands, cops waving traffic along.The mob was thick for many blocks around the track; very slowgoing in the crowd, very hot. On the way to the press box elevator,just inside the clubhouse, we came on a row of soldiers all carryinglong white riot sticks. About two platoons, with helmets. A man walkingnext to us said they were waiting for the governor and his party.Steadman eyed them nervously. "Why do they have those clubs?""Black Panthers," I said. Then I remembered good old "Jimbo" atthe airport and I wondered what he was thinking right now. Probablyvery nervous; the place was teeming with cops and soldiers. We pressedon through the crowd, through many gates, past the paddock where thejockeys bring the horses out and parade around for a while before eachrace so the bettors can get a good look. Five million dollars will bebet today. Many winners, more losers. What the hell. The press gate wasjammed up with people trying to get in, shouting at the guards, wavingstrange press badges: Chicago Sporting Times, Pittsburgh PoliceAthletic League...they were all turned away. "Move on, fella, make wayfor the working press." We shoved through the crowd and into theelevator, then quickly up to the free bar. Why not? Get it on. Very hottoday, not feeling well, must be this rotten climate. The press box wascool and airy, plenty of room to walk around and balcony seats forwatching the race or looking down at the crowd. We got a betting sheetand went outside.**********Pink faces with a stylish Southern sag, old Ivy styles,seersucker coats and buttondown collars. "Mayblossom Senility"(Steadman's phrase)...burnt out early or maybe just not much to burn inthe first place. Not much energy in the faces, not much curiosity.Suffering in silence, nowhere to go after thirty in this life, justhang on and humor the children. Let the young enjoy themselves whilethey can. Why not?The grim reaper comes early in this league...banshees on thelawn at night, screaming out there beside that little iron nigger injockey clothes. Maybe he's the one who's screaming. Bad DT's and toomany snarls at the bridge club. Going down with the stock market. OhJesus, the kid has wrecked the new car, wrapped it around the big stonepillar at the bottom of the driveway. Broken leg? Twisted eye? Send himoff to Yale, they can cure anything up there.Yale? Did you see today's paper? New Haven is under siege. Yaleis swarming with Black Panthers...I tell you, Colonel, the world hasgone mad, stone mad. Why, they tell me a goddam woman jockey might ridein the Derby today.I left Steadman sketching in the Paddock bar and went off toplace our bets on the fourth race. When I came back he was staringintently at a group of young men around a table not far away. "Jesus,look at the corruption in that face!" he whispered. "Look at themadness, the fear, the greed!" I looked, then quickly turned my back onthe table he was sketching. The face he'd picked out to draw was theface of an old friend of mine, a prep school football star in the goodold days with a sleek red Chevy convertible and a very quick hand, itwas said, with the snaps of a 32 B brassiere. They called him "Cat Man."But now, a dozen years later, I wouldn't have recognized himanywhere but here, where I should have expected to find him, in thePaddock bar on Derby Day...fat slanted eyes and a pimp's smile, bluesilk suit and his friends looking like crooked bank tellers on abinge...Steadman wanted to see some Kentucky Colonels, but he wasn'tsure what they looked like. I told him to go back to the clubhousemen's rooms and look for men in white linen suits vomitting in theurinals. "They'll usually have large brown whiskey stains on the frontof their suits," I said. "But watch the shoes, that's the tip-off. Mostof them manage to avoid vomitting on their own clothes, but they nevermiss their shoes."In a box not far from ours was Colonel Anna Friedman Goldman, Chairman and Keeper of the Great Seal of the Honorable Order of Kentucky Colonels.Not all the 76 million or so Kentucky Colonels could make it to theDerby this year, but many had kept the faith, and several days prior tothe Derby they gathered for their annual dinner at the Seelbach Hotel.The Derby, the actual race, was scheduled for late afternoon,and as the magic hour approached I suggested to Steadman that we shouldprobably spend some time in the infield, that boiling sea of peopleacross the track from the clubhouse. He seemed a little nervous aboutit, but since none of the awful things I'd warned him about hadhappened so far--no race riots, firestorms or savage drunkenattacks--he shrugged and said, "Right, let's do it."To get there we had to pass through many gates, each one a stepdown in status, then through a tunnel under the track. Emerging fromthe tunnel was such a culture shock that it took us a while to adjust."God almighty!" Steadman muttered. "This is a...Jesus!" He plungedahead with his tiny camera, stepping over bodies, and I followed,trying to take notes.**********Total chaos, no way to see the race, not even thetrack...nobody cares. Big lines at the outdoor betting windows, thenstand back to watch winning numbers flash on the big board, like agiant bingo game.Old blacks arguing about bets; "Hold on there, I'll handlethis" (waving pint of whiskey, fistful of dollar bills); girl ridingpiggyback, T-shirt says, "Stolen from Fort Lauderdale Jail." Thousandsof teen-agers, group singing "Let the Sun Shine In," ten soldiresguarding the American flag and a huge fat drunk wearing a blue footballjersey (No. 80) reeling around with quart of beer in hand.No booze sold out here, too dangerous...no bathrooms either.Muscle Beach...Woodstock...many cops with riot sticks, but no sign of ariot. Far across the track the clubhouse looks like a postcard from theKentucky Derby.**********We went back to the clubhouse to watch the big race. When thecrowd stood to face the flag and sing "My Old Kentucky Home," Steadmanfaced the crowd and sketched frantically. Somewhere up in the boxes avoice screeched, "Turn around, you hairy freak!" The race itself wasonly two minutes long, and even from our super-status seats and using12-power glasses, there was no way to see what really happened to ourhorses. Holy Land, Ralph's choice, stumbled and lost his jockey in thefinal turn. Mine, Silent Screen, had the lead coming into the stretchbut faded to fifth at the finish. The winner was a 16-1 shot named DustCommander.Moments after the race was over, the crowd surged wildly for the exits, rushing for cabs and busses. The next day's Couriertold of violence in the parking lot; people were punched and trampled,pockets were picked, children lost, bottles hurled. But we missed allthis, having retired to the press box for a bit of post-race drinking.By this time we were both half-crazy from too much whiskey, sunfatigue, culture shock, lack of sleep and general dissolution. We hungaround the press box long enough to watch a mass interview with thewinning owner, a dapper little man named Lehmann who said he had justflown into Louisville that morning from Nepal, where he'd "bagged arecord tiger." The sportswriters murmured their admiration and a waiterfilled Lehmann's glass with Chivas Regal. He had just won $127,000 witha horse that cost him $6,500 two years ago. His occupation, he said,was "retired contractor." And then he added, with a big grin, "I justretired."The rest of the day blurs into madness. The rest of that nighttoo. And all the next day and night. Such horrible things occurred thatI can't bring myself even to think about them now, much less put themdown in print. I was lucky to get out at all. One of my clearestmemories of that vicious time is Ralph being attacked by one of my oldfriends in the billiard room of the Pendennis Club in downtownLouisville on Saturday night. The man had ripped his own shirt open tothe waist before deciding that Ralph was after his wife. No blows werestruck, but the emotional effects were massive. Then, as a sort offinal horror, Steadman put his fiendish pen to work and tried to patchthings up by doing a little sketch of the girl he'd been accused ofhustling. That finished us in the Pedennis.**********Sometime around ten-thirty Monday morning I was awakened by ascratching sound at my door. I leaned out of bed and pulled the curtainback just far enough to see Steadman outside. "What the fuck do youwant?" I shouted."What about having breakfast?" he said.I lunged out of bed and tried to open the door, but it caughton the night-chain and banged shut again. I couldn't cope with thechain! The thing wouldn't come out of the track--so I ripped it out ofthe wall with a vicious jerk on the door. Ralph didn't blink. "Badluck," he muttered.I could barely see him. My eyes were swollen almost shut andthe sudden burst of sunlight through the door left me stunned andhelpless like a sick mole. Steadman was mumbling about sickness andterrible heat; I fell back on the bed and tried to focus on him as hemoved around the room in a very distracted way for a few moments, thensuddenly darted over to the beer bucket and seized a Colt .45."Christ," I said. "You're getting out of control."He nodded and ripped the cap off, taking a long drink. "You know, this is really awful," he said finally. "I must get out of this place..." he shook his head nervously. "The plane leaves at three-thirty, but I don't know if I'll make it."I barely heard him. My eyes had finally opened enough for me tofoucs on the mirror across the room and I was stunned at the shock ofrecognition. For a confused instant I thought that Ralph had broughtsomebody with him--a model for that one special face we'd been lookingfor. There he was, by God--a puffy, drink-ravaged, disease-riddencaricature...like an awful cartoon version of an old snapshot in someonce-proud mother's family photo album. It was the face we'd beenlooking for--and it was, of course, my own. Horrible, horrible..."Maybe I should sleep a while longer," I said. "Why don't yougo on over to the Fish-Meat place and eat some of those rotten fish andchips? Then come back and get me around noon. I feel too near death tohit the streets at this hour."He shook his head. "No...no...I think I'll go back upstairs andwork on those drawings for a while." He leaned down to fetch two morecans out of the beer bucket. "I tried to work earlier," he said, "butmy hands kept trembling...It's teddible, teddible.""You've got to stop this drinking," I said.He nodded. "I know. This is no good, no good at all. But for some reason it makes me feel better...""Not for long," I said. "You'll probably collapse into somekind of hysterical DT's tonight--probably just about the time you getoff the plane at Kennedy. They'll zip you up in a straightjacket anddrag you down to the Tombs, then beat you on the kidneys with bigsticks until you straighten out."He shrugged and wandered out, pulling the door shut behind him.I went back to bed for another hour or so, and later--after the dailygrapefruit juice run to the Nite Owl Food Mart--we had our last meal atFish-Meat Village: a fine lunch of dough and butcher's offal, fried inheavy grease.By this time Ralph wouldn't order coffee; he kept asking formore water. "It's the only thing they have that's fit for humanconsumption," he explained. Then, with an hour or so to kill before hehad to catch the plane, we spread his drawings out on the table andpondered them for a while, wondering if he'd caught the proper spiritof the thing...but we couldn't make up our minds. His hands wereshaking so badly that he had trouble holding the paper, and my visionwas so blurred that I could barely see what he'd drawn. "Shit," I said."We both look worse than anything you've drawn here."He smiled. "You know--I've been thinking about that," he said."We came down here to see this teddible scene: people all pissed out oftheir minds and vomitting on themselves and all that...and now, youknow what? It's us..."**********Huge Pontiac Ballbuster blowing through traffic on the expressway.A radio news bulletin says the National Guard is massacringstudents at Kent State and Nixon is still bombing Cambodia. Thejournalist is driving, ignoring his passenger who is now nearly nakedafter taking off most of his clothing, which he holds out the window,trying to wind-wash the Mace out of it. His eyes are bright red and hisface and chest are soaked with beer he's been using to rinse the awfulchemical off his flesh. The front of his woolen trousers is soaked withvomit; his body is racked with fits of coughing and wild chocking sobs.The journalist rams the big car through traffic and into a spot infront of the terminal, then he reaches over to open the door on thepassenger's side and shoves the Englishman out, snarling: "Bug off, youworthless faggot! You twisted pigfucker! [Crazed laughter.] If Iweren't sick I'd kick your ass all the way to Bowling Green--youscumsucking foreign geek. Mace is too good for you...We can do withoutyour kind in Kentucky."

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