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The Rum Diary: A Novel
The Rum Diary: A Novel
The Rum Diary: A Novel
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The Rum Diary: A Novel

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Made into a major motion picture starring Johnny Depp, The Rum Diary—a national bestseller and New York Times Notable Book—is Hunter S. Thompson’s brilliant love story of jealousy, treachery, and violent lust in the Caribbean.

Begun in 1959 by a twenty-two-year-old Hunter S. Thompson, The Rum Diary is a brilliantly tangled love story of jealousy, treachery, and violent alcoholic lust in the Caribbean boomtown that was San Juan, Puerto Rico, in the late 1950s. The narrator, freelance journalist Paul Kemp, irresistibly drawn to a sexy, mysterious woman, is soon thrust into a world where corruption and get-rich-quick schemes rule, and anything (including murder) is permissible. Exuberant and mad, youthful and energetic, this dazzling comedic romp provides a fictional excursion as riveting and outrageous as Thompson’s Fear and Loathing books.
LanguageEnglish
Release dateSep 20, 2011
ISBN9781451669275
Author

Hunter S. Thompson

Hunter S. Thompson (1937-2005) nació en Kentucky. Empezó como periodista deportivo, se consagró como una de las grandes estrellas de la célebre revista Rolling Stone e inventó el llamado «periodismo gonzo», en el que el autor se convierte en protagonista y catalizador de la acción. En Anagrama se han publicado sus obras más célebres y desmadradas, Miedo y asco en Las Vegas y Los Ángeles del Infierno. Una extraña y terrible saga, así como los reportajes reunidos en La gran caza del tiburón. Empezó su única novela, El diario del ron, en 1959, pero no fue publicada hasta 1998.

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Rating: 3.849462365591398 out of 5 stars
4/5

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  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    I enjoyed the book, but it wasn't as fantastic or polished as his later works.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    Now a major motion picture starring Johnny Depp. Well, "major" may be a bit overreaching, since it stayed in the theaters maybe two weeks.

    This book is exactly what it says it is" day in and day out of a man who moves to Puerto Rico in the 1950s and lives the hedonistic life. No cares, no ties, no responsibilities. Just booze, sex, a job when he feels like it, and life on the cheap. However, mixing with the locals prove to be a bit of a challenge, but not as much as the other ex-pats in the area.

    It was entertaining, but any longer than 204 pages would have been too much. The fact that he is supposed to have influenced a number of contemporary writers, but I can't really see anything extraordinary about his characters (really, just caricatures of personality traits in the typical man: violent, unstable, drunk, sex-crazed, a little psychotic) or his prose (first person told in straight chronology) or the setting (typical 1950s Puerto Rico). One review I read called it "rambling source material" for a movie. I thought this to be quite perfect.

    I probably won't read more by this author.

    Not recommended.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    A far more accessible piece of writing than "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas;" I'm not sure which I prefer - Thompson as he is here, human and frail and in love in a foreign and exotic country, or Thompson when he's so far gone on drugs that it feels like I'm trapped with his characters in some sci-fi alternate reality.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    It's a gentler and kinder Hunter S. Thompson in The Rum Diary, his previously unreleased first novel. His trademark hallucinations and other drug-induced bizarreness are missing because this 1950's novel seems to be pre-heavy drug use for the young Mr. Thompson. The novel wildly spins around a heavy-drinking newspaper reporter and the small circle of his fellow thrill-seeking, globe-trotting reporters in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Thompson's world is still very strange, be it using alcohol or drugs.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Written before Dr. Gonzo became totally Gonzoized. Nicely developed characters. Great story in and around old San Juan.Good read.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Fiction by the master of gonzo. Thompson paints a vivid picture of Puerto Rico in the late 50s/early 60s that I can relate to the Dominican Republic. Although the DR was in political turmoil at the time the story takes place.I associate the book more with 'Las Vegas' than in the 'campaign trail'. It's hard to tell apart what could actually have happened to him from what he made-up.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    The Rum Diary is my favourite of all of Thompson’s writings; it also stands at the top as one of my favourite fiction titles ever. What I find so likable about this book is its realism. It tells the very simple story of Paul Kemp, a completely regular guy who wades his way through the problems of a regular life, as he interacts with other regular people, in a tediously regular town--1950s San Juan, Puerto Rico. Now, of course I use the word “regular” in the Hunter S. Thompson sense--which is usually a far cry from “normal.” There are still plenty of interesting aspects to the setting, and to all of the characters in this book.This book is very different from Thompson’s most famous work, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. While I am sure there are some autobiographical elements to the character of Paul Kemp, Thompson has created a very likable fictitious character who struggles his way through a mundane job at a San Juan newspaper, The Daily News.While some may find it a fault, what I love most about this book is the simple straightforward story of its simple straightforward characters. If only Thompson had written more books like this--and to think, this one came close to never being published! That would have been a shame.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    late 50's puerto rico depicted by an american journalist/drunk. the story is decadent in a no-future kind of way. a sort of first world angst adopting the feeling of the tropics, the insanity of the tropics, the decadence of the tropics. there is a lot of drinking, the characters are a bit cartoonish, the narrative is great. although the subject might sound not that interesting the narrative carries you through the story. fun read.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    This work transcends all the negative comments and criticisms of his other works.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    A bit less drunken and a lot more misogynistic than I thought it would be, but still an amazingly enjoyable and feverish read.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    The life of Hunter S. Thompson largely plays out "on the wild side". Still, while classified as belonging to 1960s counter-culture, his work is not affiliated to the Beat Generation. Thompson's life is quite remarkable, and from its earliest days showed a fascination with the underground, not just literary, but gearing towards the criminal and rough underbelly of society. Still, Thompson was apparently able to channel his energy into a literary production, which has unique features, sparking a genre of itself, and producing very readable works of fiction. Perhaps most well-known for Hell's Angels, Thompson lived and rode with the Hells Angels for a year, as a kind of "participating observation" before publishing his book on the notorious motor club. Disappointingly, Hell's Angels reads more like a journalistic compilation of newspaper clippings than a semi-autobiographical work, possibly to avoid conflict with the Angel's chapter he had been part of. Hell's Angels: The Strange and Terrible Saga of the Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs was Thompson's first book to be published, but it was preceded by two novels, Prince Jellyfish, as yet unpublished, and The rum diary, which was begun in 1958, and finished around 1960, but remained unpublished until 1998.The novel is a fairly joyful story on a sunny island, of a young journalist who discovers how to make a living off writing for a small, local newspaper. The story is set in Puerto Rico, and American colony, which, in the 1950s appears as a relatively lawless, freehaven for adventurous expats. The rum diary is a racy novel, and a very quick read. It tells the story of Paul Kemp, a young journalist, who arrives on the island, lands himself a job as a journalist and starts hanging out with the other editors. Not much happens, but Kemp is quickly able to make some money and earn some respectability, renting a better place, and buying a car. However, hanging out with the clique of editors, and their boozing habits does land them into trouble over a small thing that spins incredibly out of control. Towards the end of the novel, Kemp' relatively simple existence on the island end up in an imbroglio of violence, adultery and alcoholism, from which he can barely escape, getting off the island.The rum diary is an interesting novel about the struggling early years of a writer, in a somewhat seedy expat environment. The novel has little pretense, and is not much connected with any literary movement of the time. It can be read as a light entertainment.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    A must-read for anyone who's sees the boring underbelly of the glamorous expat lifestyle. Having discovered not so long ago that living overseas is no guarantee of a stimulating life, I related to a lot of things in this book -- the seductive ease of believing that you've "done enough" just in moving abroad, living in a foreign country and spending all your time with expats, the initially heady but ultimately dull pleasure of a high income and all the alcohol you can afford to drink, working in a place that seems to attract an equal number of dull and creepy people...I could go on and on. Most importantly, it articulated the thing I've realized only in the last few months: taking on the "adventure" of living in another place is no better guarantee of fulfilling life than full-time office jobs and white picket fences. If you're not thinking carefully about what you want from life and actively seeking it, if you're not constantly working to improve yourself rather than changing your surroundings, you're doomed to a lifetime of dissatisfaction.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Very fun and interesting read.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    More accessible and less removed than Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. The Rum Diary is a portrait of the Gonzo as a young man. before the mescalin and the desert, but you can see the emptiness, the desperation, the fire in the world that would explode ten years later.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Very good book, reminiscent of "The Sun Also Rises". The only fault of 'The Rum Diary' is that it's too Hemingwayan, which is normal considering Thompson's age at the time of writing (22! At that age most of us are still in college, or barely out). I agree with the reviewers who regret Thompson didn't write other such novels.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Quite a culture shock reading this book and very difficult to review and tag it as it doesn't really fit into any particular category. Not as funny as the later seminal "Fear and Loathing" but you do get some occasional low-life laughs along the way as a newspaper writer has various experiences during his time on a Puerto Rico newspaper. A book that makes you want to take a shower after reading it and then drink a glass of rum.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    These journalists don’t seem to do much reporting except to each other about the beach, drinking and women. But they aren’t getting paid so I guess that explains why they aren’t really working. This reads like a day in the life but it is called a diary so I guess it sets out to tell the story that way. Once you realize this then you can just go with it and enjoy the storytelling.This book really doesn’t ever get around to telling you what it’s really about other than as I said a day in the life it’s just kind of a romp through the underbelly of a town and people with corruption and murder and drinking and cheating. Of course this was written by a very young Thompson and was only published as I understand it at the urging of Johnny Depp who I wish had done the narration for this audiobook.I am not sure how I feel about Campbell Scott’s narration of this book there were times it sounded like he needed a drink of water a lot of popping and clicking mouth noises between words. I also don’t understand the track length on this production some tracks were up to 17 minutes long and others were 1-4 minutes there seemed to be no rhyme or reason to the length of the tracks. However there were times I liked his narration then he’d do a different voice and it wasn’t that great again.I received this book from the publisher via the Audiojukebox Solid Gold reviewer program.3 stars-Good Book but some things didn't connect with me
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    my favourite of all thomson's work. If only he did more work like this. What a waste.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This is the Thompson that few people know. He's basically trying out his wings here, writing what could be a lost novel by Hemingway. In a lot of ways, comparable to the band Rush's early career, when they were basically a Led Zeppelin sound-alike.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    It's an entertaining book, and it's well written enough, but in the end I don't think I'll take anything away from it. The content feels somewhere between Hemingway (who I like) and Bukowski (who I don't.)
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    ok. jetzt erst mal bestandsaufnahme.der autor:hunter s. thompson - verfasser von werken wie „fear and loathing in las vegas“ oder „hells angels“, ikone der amerikanischen gegenkultur, begründer des gonzo-journalismus. hat für den rolling stone geschrieben, als er noch jung und cool war (der rolling stone). wurde ende der 30er jahre geboren und hat 2005 seinem leben selbstbestimmt ein ende gesetzt. weirdo, genie und mittlerweile teil des amerikanischen literaturkanons.das buch:the rum diary - gewissermaßen thompsons autobiographisch eingefärbte aufarbeitung seiner zeit als journalist in puerto rico zu beginn der 60er jahre. im gegensatz dazu nehmen die ereignisse in the rum diary im jahre 1958 ihren anfang. journalist paul kemp reist nach san juan [puerto rico] um dort eine stelle bei der zeitung the daily news anzunehmen. dort angekommen muss er feststellen, dass sich die redaktion der zeitung zu großen teilen aus psychopathen und perversen zusammensetzt und sich noch dazu (finanziell und allgemein) in einem desaströsen zustand befindet. nichtsdestotrotz findet er dort freunde - etwa den fotoreporter sala und den journalisten yeamon. charakteristisch für das buch ist der ständige und uferlose alkoholkonsum - mit vorliebe (siehe titel) rum; es ist immer heiß in san juan und mangels alternativen betrinkt man sich jeden abend rituell in al’s backyard. im laufe der geschichte eskalieren die ereignisse dann immer mehr, die gesamte bandbreite reicht von einem kurzzeitigen gefängnisaufenthalt bis zur planung eines mordanschlags. schlussendlich verlässt paul kemp san juan - ebenso wie einst thompson selbst. "the rum diary" war jahrzehntelang verschollen und wurde erst 1998 veröffentlicht - in meinen augen eine wirkliche bereicherung für die literarische welt. auch wenn hier einige elemente, die man gemeinhin mit hunter s. thompson verbindet, noch nicht wirklich präsent sind, so zeigt sich bereits sein großes schriftstellerisches talent.der mann war immer mehr als „drogen (die hier im übrigen noch überhaupt keine rolle spielen), gonzo und formvollendetes freaksein“. nämlich: im großen und ganzen ein begnadeter literat und erzähler. leider wird dies oftmals vergessen, beziehungsweise in anbetracht seiner schillernden persönlichkeit in den hintergrund gerückt. "it never got weird enough for me."
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This was a great read. I've always been partial to books that have the main character going through a downward spiral. Being 31 years myself, I could relate to the inner conflicts the main character was facing. I'm glad I read this now instead of earlier or I wouldn't have been able to relate as much to the struggle. I'm interested to see how the movie portrays the book now.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    'Here I was, living in a luxury hotel, ,racing around a half-Latin city in a toy car that looked like a cockroach and sounded like a jet fighter, sneaking down alleys and humping on the beach, scavenging for food in shark-infested waters, hounded by mobs yelling in a foreign tongue - and the whole thing was taking place in quaint old Spanish Puerto Rico...'

    I would guess that in the time that lapsed in this story, a couple tons of rum was consumed. I suppose that explains the title. But serious, these people had to be staggering around drunk all the time. It's amazing they actually got anything done. Oh wait. That's right. They didn't. But considering this story is set in the late 1950's I suppose that would explain their behavior as well.

    "We're all going to the same damn places, doing the same damn things people have been doing for fifty years, and we keep waiting for something to happen. You know - I'm a rebel, I took off - now where's my reward?"
    "You fool," I said." There is no reward and there never was."


    Gritty and raw with a tinge of desperation. Paul Kemp in addition to everyone else he's become acquainted with since his arrival on the island of Puerto Rico have only ended up there in hopes of escaping to something better. After quickly realizing that Puerto Rico (at the time) is far from their original vision of paradise, the spiteful and bitter attitudes begin making an appearance. It doesn't take Kemp long to become just as bitter after the realization that a person can work so hard to have a better life, have more money, and to accomplish your dreams and never actually get anything done except wasting time and getting older.

    "We keep getting drunk and these terrible things keep happening and each one is worse than the last... Hell, it's no fun anymore - our luck's all running out at the same time."

    The Rum Diary is simply that, a diary. There isn't even that much of a plot, really. It's almost like a pilot episode, a small glimpse of what's to come but unfortunately there isn't any full episode to look forward to. Despite that, I find myself extremely fascinated and I now have an incredibly strong desire to read anything I can get my hands on of Hunter S. Thompson's. The Rum Diary is his second novel which he wrote at the age of 22 is semi-autobiographical because Hunter himself flew down to Puerto Rico as a journalist to write for a newspaper. Despite writing The Rum Diary in the early 1960's, it was never actually published until 1998 because no one was interested and he was constantly rejected. Fortunately, he revisited the idea of publishing it several decades later and he finally succeeding in releasing it to the world.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    A ripping little rum-drenched story you will whizz through leaving you feeling cutely hungover. You can see his later writing style being born & nutured.
  • Rating: 1 out of 5 stars
    1/5
    Dull. Meandering. Misogynistic. I didn’t finish this.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    If you love Hunter S. Thompson, this is a must read. But if you don't know him or didn't read anything written by him, don't start with this. Also some chapters feels weak among others. I think Rum Diary is great but HST could make it better.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    The frantic narration in this book reminded me a little of pulp fiction; the salacious content reminded me of fanfiction written for straight males approaching middle age, and the dialogue's reach and ultimate lack of precision for the concepts the characters wished to communicate was slightly reminiscent of Waiting for Godot but not entirely.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I was mesmerized .. the imagery is compelling and frightening, a pin drop would jolt me.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Loved it. Leaves a very melancholic yet complete taste. I've not yet read Hunter's other novels, but I really enjoyed this one. Paul Kemp does a good job keeping you hooked to the different events and his time in Puerto Rico.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    Thats su perb...

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The Rum Diary - Hunter S. Thompson

Cover: The Rum Diary, by Hunter S. Thompson

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To Heidi Opheim, Marysue Rucci and Dana Kennedy

My rider of the bright eyes,

What happened you yesterday?

I thought you in my heart,

When I bought you your fine clothes,

A man the world could not slay.

Dark Eileen O’Connell, 1773

San Juan, Winter of 1958

IN the early Fifties, when San Juan first became a tourist town, an ex-jockey named Al Arbonito built a bar in the patio behind his house on Calle O’Leary. He called it Al’s Backyard and hung a sign above his doorway on the street, with an arrow pointing between two ramshackle buildings to the patio in back. At first he served nothing but beer, at twenty cents a bottle, and rum, at a dime a shot or fifteen cents with ice. After several months he began serving hamburgers, which he made himself.

It was a pleasant place to drink, especially in the mornings when the sun was still cool and the salt mist came up from the ocean to give the air a crisp, healthy smell that for a few early hours would hold its own against the steaming, sweaty heat that clamps San Juan at noon and remains until long after sundown.

It was good in the evenings, too, but not so cool. Sometimes there would be a breeze and Al’s would usually catch it because of the fine locationat the very top of Calle O’Leary hill, so high that if the patio had windows you could look down on the whole city. But there is a thick wall around the patio, and all you can see is the sky and a few plantain trees.

As time passed, Al bought a new cash register, then he bought wood umbrella-tables for the patio; and finally moved his family out of the house on Calle O’Leary, out in the suburbs to a new urbanización near the airport. He hired a large negro named Sweep, who washed the dishes and carried hamburgers and eventually learned to cook.

He turned his old living room into a small piano bar, and got a pianist from Miami, a thin, sad-faced man called Nelson Otto. The piano was midway between the cocktail lounge and the patio. It was an old baby-grand, painted light grey and covered with special shellac to keep the salt air from ruining the finishand seven nights a week, through all twelve months of the endless Caribbean summer, Nelson Otto sat down at the keyboard to mingle his sweat with the weary chords of his music.

At the Tourist Bureau they talk about the cooling trade winds that caress the shores of Puerto Rico every day and night of the yearbut Nelson Otto was a man the trade winds never seemed to touch. Hour after muggy hour, through a tired repertoire of blues and sentimental ballads, the sweat dripped from his chin and soaked the armpits of his flowered cotton sportshirts. He cursed the goddamn shitting heat with such violence and such hatred that it sometimes ruined the atmosphere of the place, and people would get up and walk down the street to the Flamboyan Lounge, where a bottle of beer cost sixty cents and a sirloin steak was three-fifty.

When an ex-communist named Lotterman came down from Florida to start the San Juan Daily News, Al’s Backyard became the English-language press club, because none of the drifters and the dreamers who came to work for Lotterman’s new paper could afford the high-price New York bars that were springing up all over the city like a rash of neon toadstools. The day-shift reporters and deskmen straggled in about seven, and the night-shift typessports people, proofreaders and make-up menusually arrived en masse around midnight. Once in a while someone had a date, but on any normal night a girl in Al’s Backyard was a rare and erotic sight. White girls were not plentiful in San Juan, and most of them were either tourists, hustlers or airline stewardesses. It was not surprising that they preferred the casinos or the terrace bar at the Hilton.

All manner of men came to work for the News: everything from wild young Turks who wanted to rip the world in half and start all over againto tired, beer-bellied old hacks who wanted nothing more than to live out their days in peace before a bunch of lunatics ripped the world in half.

They ran the whole gamut from genuine talents and honest men, to degenerates and hopeless losers who could barely write a postcardloons and fugitives and dangerous drunks, a shoplifting Cuban who carried a gun in his armpit, a half-wit Mexican who molested small children, pimps and pederasts and human chancres of every description, most of them working just long enough to make the price of a few drinks and a plane ticket.

On the other hand, there were people like Tom Vanderwitz, who later worked for the Washington Post and won a Pulitzer Prize. And a man named Tyrrell, now an editor of the London Times, who worked fifteen hours a day just to keep the paper from going under.

When I arrived the News was three years old and Ed Lotterman was on the verge of a breakdown. To hear him talk you would think he’d been sitting at the very cross-corners of the earth, seeing himself as a combination of God, Pulitzer and the Salvation Army. He often swore that if all the people who had worked for the paper in those years could appear at one time before the throne of The Almightyif they all stood there and recited their histories and their quirks and their crimes and their deviationsthere was no doubt in his mind that God himself would fall down in a swoon and tear his hair.

Of course Lotterman exaggerated; in his tirade he forgot about the good men and talked only about what he called the wineheads. But there were more than a few of these, and the best that can be said of that staff is that they were a strange and unruly lot. At best they were unreliable, and at worst they were drunk, dirty and no more dependable than goats. But they managed to put out a paper, and when they were not working a good many of them passed the time drinking in Al’s Backyard.

They bitched and groaned whenin what some of them called a fit of greedAl jacked the price of beer up to a quarter; and they kept on bitching until he tacked up a sign listing beer and drink prices at the Caribé Hilton. It was scrawled in black crayon and hung in plain sight behind the bar.

Since the newspaper functioned as a clearing-house for every writer, photographer and neo-literate con man who happened to find himself in Puerto Rico, Al got the dubious benefit of this trade too. The drawer beneath the cash register was full of unpaid tabs and letters from all over the world, promising to get that bill squared away in the near future. Vagrant journalists are notorious welshers, and to those who travel in that rootless world, a large unpaid bar tab can be a fashionable burden.

There was no shortage of people to drink with in those days. They never lasted very long, but they kept coming. I call them vagrant journalists because no other term would be quite as valid. No two were alike. They were professionally deviant, but they had a few things in common. They depended, mostly from habit, on newspapers and magazines for the bulk of their income; their lives were geared to long chances and sudden movement; and they claimed no allegiance to any flag and valued no currency but luck and good contacts.

Some of them were more journalists than vagrants, and others were more vagrants than journalistsbut with a few exceptions they were part-time, freelance, would-be foreign correspondents who, for one reason or another, lived at several removes from the journalistic establishment. Not the slick strivers and jingo parrots who staffed the mossback papers and news magazines of the Luce empire. Those were a different breed.

Puerto Rico was a backwater and the Daily News was staffed mainly by ill-tempered wandering rabble. They moved erratically, on the winds of rumor and opportunity, all over Europe, Latin America and the Far Eastwherever there were English-language newspapers, jumping from one to another, looking always for the big break, the crucial assignment, the rich heiress or the fat job at the far end of the next plane ticket.

In a sense I was one of themmore competent than some and more stable than othersand in the years that I carried that ragged banner I was seldom unemployed. Sometimes I worked for three newspapers at once. I wrote ad copy for new casinos and bowling alleys. I was a consultant for the cockfighting syndicate, an utterly corrupt high-end restaurant critic, a yachting photographer and a routine victim of police brutality. It was a greedy life and I was good at it. I made some interesting friends, had enough money to get around, and learned a lot about the world that I could never have learned in any other way.

Like most of the others, I was a seeker, a mover, a malcontent, and at times a stupid hell-raiser. I was never idle long enough to do much thinking, but I felt somehow that my instincts were right. I shared a vagrant optimism that some of us were making real progress, that we had taken an honest road, and that the best of us would inevitably make it over the top.

At the same time, I shared a dark suspicion that the life we were leading was a lost cause, that we were all actors, kidding ourselves along on a senseless odyssey. It was the tension between these two polesa restless idealism on one hand and a sense of impending doom on the otherthat kept me going.

One

MY apartment in New York was on Perry Street, a five minute walk from the White Horse. I often drank there, but I was never accepted because I wore a tie. The real people wanted no part of me.

I did some drinking there on the night I left for San Juan. Phil Rollins, who’d worked with me, was paying for the ale, and I was swilling it down, trying to get drunk enough to sleep on the plane. Art Millick, the most vicious cab driver in New York, was there. So was Duke Peterson, who had just come back from the Virgin Islands. I recall Peterson giving me a list of people to look up when I got to St. Thomas, but I lost the list and never met any of them.

It was a rotten night in the middle of January, but I wore a light cord coat. Everyone else had on heavy jackets and flannel suits. The last thing I remember is standing on the dirty bricks of Hudson Street, shaking hands with Rollins and cursing the freezing wind that blew in off the river. Then I got in Millick’s cab and slept all the way to the airport.

I was late and there was a line at the reservations desk. I fell in behind fifteen or so Puerto Ricans and one small blonde girl a few places ahead of me. I pegged her for a tourist, a wild young secretary going down to the Caribbean for a two week romp. She had a fine little body and an impatient way of standing that indicated a mass of stored-up energy. I watched her intently, smiling, feeling the ale in my veins, waiting for her to turn around for a swift contact with the eyes.

She got her ticket and walked away toward the plane. There were still three Puerto Ricans in front of me. Two of them did their business and passed on, but the third was stymied by the clerk’s refusal to let him carry a huge cardboard box on the plane as hand baggage. I gritted my teeth as they argued.

Finally I broke in. Hey! I shouted. What the hell is this? I have to get on that plane!

The clerk looked up, disregarding the shouts of the little man in front of me. What’s your name?

I told him, got my ticket, and bolted for the gate. When I got to the plane I had to shove past five or six people waiting to board. I showed my ticket to the grumbling stewardess and stepped inside to scan the seats on both sides of the aisle.

Not a blonde head anywhere. I hurried up to the front, thinking that she might be so small that her head wouldn’t show over the back seat. But she wasn’t on the plane and by this time there were only two double seats left. I fell into one on the aisle and put my typewriter on the one next to the window. They were starting the engines when I looked out and saw her coming across the runway, waving at the stewardess who was about to close the door.

Wait a minute! I shouted. Another passenger! I watched until she reached the bottom of the steps. Then I turned around to smile as she came on. I was reaching for my typewriter, thinking to put it on the floor, when an old man shoved in front of me and sat down in the seat I was saving.

This seat’s taken, I said quickly, grabbing him by the arm.

He jerked away and snarled something in Spanish, turning his head toward the window.

I grabbed him again. Get up, I said angrily.

He started to yell just as the girl went by and stopped a few feet up the aisle, looking around for a seat. Here’s one, I said, giving the old man a savage jerk. Before she could turn around the stewardess was on me, pulling at my arm.

He sat on my typewriter, I explained, helplessly watching the girl find a seat far up at the front of the plane.

The stewardess patted the old man’s shoulder and eased him back to the seat. What kind of a bully are you? she asked me. I should put you off!

I grumbled and slumped back in the seat. The old man stared straight ahead until we got off the ground. You rotten old bastard, I mumbled at him.

He didn’t even blink, and finally I shut my eyes and tried to sleep. Now and then I would glance up at the blonde head at the front of the plane. Then they turned out the lights and I couldn’t see anything.

It was dawn when I woke up. The old man was still asleep and I leaned across him to look out the window. Several thousand feet below us the ocean was dark blue and calm as a lake. Up ahead I saw an island, bright green in the early morning sun. There were beaches along the edge of it, and brown swamps further inland. The plane started down and the stewardess announced that we should all buckle our safety belts.

Moments later we swept in over acres of palm trees and taxied to a halt in front of the big terminal. I decided to stay in my seat until the girl came past, then get up and walk with her across the runway. Since we were the only white people on the plane, it would seem quite natural.

The others were standing now, laughing and jabbering as they waited for the stewardess to open the door. Suddenly the old man jumped up and tried to scramble over me like a dog. Without thinking, I slammed him back against the window, causing a thump that silenced the crowd. The man appeared to be sick and tried to scramble past me again, shouting hysterically in Spanish.

You crazy old bastard! I yelled, shoving him back with one hand and reaching for my typewriter with the other. The door was open now and they were filing out. The girl came past me and I tried to smile at her, keeping the old man pinned against the window until I could back into the aisle. He was raising so much hell, shouting and waving his arms, that I was tempted to belt him in the throat to calm him down.

Then the stewardess arrived, followed by the co-pilot, who demanded to know what I thought I was doing.

He’s been beating that old man ever since we left New York, said the stewardess. He must be a sadist.

They kept me there for ten minutes and at first I thought they meant to have me arrested. I tried to explain, but I was so tired and confused that I couldn’t think what I was saying. When they finally let me go I slunk off the plane like a criminal, squinting and sweating in the sun as I crossed the runway to the baggage room.

It was crowded with Puerto Ricans and the girl was nowhere in sight. There was not much hope of finding her now and I was not optimistic about what might happen if I did. Few girls look with favor on a man of my stripe, a brutalizer of old people. I remembered the expression on her face when she saw me with the old man pinned against the window. It was almost too much to overcome. I decided to get some breakfast and pick up my baggage later on.

The airport in San Juan is a fine, modern thing, full of bright colors and suntanned people and Latin rhythms blaring from speakers hung on naked girders above the lobby. I walked up a long ramp, carrying my topcoat and my typewriter in one hand, and a small leather bag in the other. The signs led me up another ramp and finally to the coffee shop. As I went in I saw myself in a mirror, looking dirty and disreputable, a pale vagrant with red eyes.

On top of my slovenly appearance, I stank of ale. It hung in my stomach like a lump of rancid milk. I tried not to breathe on anyone as I sat down at the counter and ordered sliced pineapple.

Outside, the runway glistened in the early sun. Beyond it a thick palm jungle stood between me and the ocean. Several miles out at sea a sailboat moved slowly across the horizon. I stared for several moments and fell into a trance. It looked peaceful out there, peaceful and hot. I wanted to go into the palms and sleep, take a few chunks of pineapple and wander into the jungle to pass out.

Instead, I ordered more coffee and looked again at the cable that had come with my plane ticket. It said I had reservations at the Condado Beach Hotel.

It was not yet seven o’clock, but the coffee shop was crowded. Groups of men sat at tables beside the long window, sipping a milky brew and talking energetically. A few wore suits, but most of them had on what appeared to be the uniform of the day—thick-rimmed sunglasses, shiny dark pants and white shirts with short sleeves and ties.

I caught snatches of conversation here and there: . . . no such thing as cheap beach-front anymore… yeah, but this ain’t Montego, gentlemen… don’t worry, he has plenty, and all we need is… sewed up, but we gotta move quick before Castro and that crowd jumps in with…

After ten minutes of half-hearted listening I suspected I was in a

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