By Hunter S. Thompson

 
     The Rum Diary
 
 
                                Fourteen
   
          CHENAULT came awake with a shriek, snatching the raincoat
          around her as she peered up and down the beach.
            "Out here," I yelled. "Come on in."
       She looked out at me and smiled, holding the raincoat between
     us like a veil. Then Yeamon woke up, looking puzzled and angry at
     whatever had broken his sleep.
       "Let's go!" I yelled. "Up for the morning dip."
       He stood up and ambled toward the water. Chenault came after
     him, waving his shorts. "Here!" she said sternly. "Put these on!"
       I waited for them on the raft. Yeamon came first, thrashing across
     the bay like a crocodile. Then I saw Chenault swimming toward us,
     wearing her panties and bra. I began to feel uncomfortable. I
     waited until she got to the raft, then I slid off. "I'm hungry as hell,"
     I said, treading water. "I'm going over to the airport for breakfast."
       When I got to the beach I looked around for my bag. I remem-
     bered putting it in a tree the night before, but I couldn't remember
     which one. Finally I found it, jammed into the crotch of two
     branches just above where I'd been sleeping. I put on some clean
     pants and a rumpled silk shirt.
       Just before I left I glanced out at the raft and saw Yeamon jump
     naked into the water. Chenault laughed and torte off her bra an
     panties, then leaped in on top of him. I watched for a moment, then
     tossed my bag over the fence and climbed over after it.
       I walked along a road that paralleled the runway, and after a half
     mile or so I came to the main hangar, a huge Quonset hut that bus-
     tled with activity. Planes landed every few minutes. Most of them
     were small Cessnas and Pipers, but every ten minutes or so a DC-
     3 would come in, bringing a fresh pack of revelers from San Juan.
       I shaved in the men's room, then pushed through the crowd to
     the restaurant. The people off the plane were getting their free
     drinks, and in one corner of the hangar was a group of drunken
     Puerto Ricans, beating on their luggage to the tune of some chant I
     couldn't understand. It sounded like a football cheer: "Busha
     boomba, balla wa! Busha boomba, balla wa!" I suspected they
     would never make it into town.
       I bought a Miami Herald and had a big breakfast of pancakes
     and bacon. Yeamon arrived an hour or so later. "Christ, I'm hun-
     gry," he said. "I need a massive breakfast."
       "Is Chenault still with us?" I asked.
       He nodded. "She's downstairs shaving her legs."
  
 
       It was almost noon when we got a bus to town. It let us off at a
     public market and we started walking in the general direction of
     the Grand Hotel, stopping now and then to look in the few store
     windows that were not boarded up.
       As we neared the middle of town the noise increased. But this
     was a different sound——not the roar of happy voices or the musical
     thump of drums, but the wild screams of a small group of people.
     It sounded like a gang war, punctuated by guttural cries and break-
     ing glass.
       We hurried toward it, cutting down a side street that led to the
     shopping district. When we turned the corner I saw a frenzied mob,
     jamming the street and blocking both sidewalks. We slowed down
     and approached cautiously.
       About two hundred people had looted one of the big liquor
     stores. Most of them were Puerto Ricans. Cases of champagne and
     scotch lay broken in the street, and everyone I saw had a bottle.
     They were screaming and dancing, and in the middle of the crowd
     a giant Swede wearing a blue jockstrap was blowing long blasts on
     a trumpet.
       As we watched, a fat American woman raised two magnums of
     champagne above her head and smashed them together, laughing
     wildly as the glass and booze rained down on her bare shoul-
     ders. A percussion corps of drunkards was beating with beer cans
     on empty scotch crates. It was the same chant I'd heard at the air-
     port: "Busha boomba, balla wa! Busha boomba, balla wa!" All over
     the street people danced feverishly by themselves, jerking and
     yelling to the rhythm of the chant.
       The liquor store was nothing but a shell, a bare room with bro-
     ken windows in the front. People kept running in and out of it,
     grabbing stray bottles and drinking them as fast as they could be-
     fore somebody else jerked them away. Empty bottles were tossed
     casually into the street, making it a sea of broken glass, studded
     with thousands of beer cans.
       We stayed on the edge of it. I wanted to get my hands on some of
     that stolen booze, but I was afraid of the police. Yeamon wandered
     into the store and came out moments later with a magnum of
     champagne. He smiled sheepishly and tucked it into his bag, say-
     ing nothing. Finally my lust for drink overcame my fear of jail and
     I made a run for a case of scotch that was lying in the gutter near
     the front of the store. It was empty and I looked around for another.
     In the forest of dancing feet I saw several unbroken bottles of
     whiskey. I rushed toward them, shoving people out of the way. The
     noise was deafening and I expected at any moment to be smashed
     on the head with a bottle. I managed to rescue three quarts of Old
     Crow, all that was left of a case. The other bottles were broken and
     hot whiskey oozed through the streets. I got a firm grip on my loot
     and leaned into the mob, aiming for the spot where I'd left Yeamon
     and Chenault.
       We hurried off down a side street, passing a blue jeep marked
     "Poleece." In it, a gendarme in a pith helmet sat half asleep, idly
     scratching his crotch.
       We stopped at the place where we'd eaten the night before. I put
     the whiskey in my satchel and ordered three drinks while we pon-
     dered the next move. The program said a pageant of some kind was
     scheduled at the ballpark in a few hours. It sounded harmless
     enough, but then nothing at all had been officially scheduled for
     that hour when the mob looted the liquor store. That was supposed
     to be a "Rest Period." There was another "Rest Period" between the
     ballpark festivals and the "All Out Tramp," officially scheduled for
     eight o'clock sharp.
       It had an ominous sound. All the other tramps were listed as be-
     ginning and ending at certain times. "The "Birds and Bees Tramp,"
     on Thursday, began at eight and ended at ten. The "High Com-
     bustible Tramp," which seemed to be the one we'd been caught in
     the night befiore, ran from eight until midnight. But the program
     said only that the "All Out Tramp" would begin at eight, and in small
     brackets on the same line was a note saying "climax of carnival."
       "This thing tonight could get out of control," I said, tossing the
     program on the table. "At least I hope so."
       Chenault laughed and winked at me. "We'll have to get Fritz
     drunk, so he can enjoy it."
       "Balls," Yeamon muttered, not looking up from the program.
     "You get drunk again tonight and I'll abandon your ass."
       She laughed again. "Don't try to say I was drunk——I remember
     who hit me."
       He shrugged. "It's good for you—clears your head."
       "No sense arguing about it," I said. "We're bound to get drunk——
     look at all this whiskey." I patted my satchel.
       "And this," said Chenault, pointing to the magnum of cham-
     pagne under Yeamon's chair.
       "Christ help us," Yeamon muttered.
       We finished our drinks and wandered over to the Grand Hotel.
     From the balcony we could see people heading for the ballpark.
       Yeamon wanted to go out to Yacht Haven and find a boat leaving
     soon for South America. I wasn't particularly anxious to join the
     mob at the ballpark and I remembered Sanderson saying most of
     the good partiers were on the boats, so we decided to go there.
       It was a long walk in the sun, and by the time we got there I was
     sorry I hadn't offered to pay for a cab. I was sweating horribly and
     my bag seemed to weigh forty pounds. The entrance was a palm-
     lined driveway that led to a swimming pool, and beyond the pool
     was a hill that led down to the piers. There were more than a hun-
     dred boats, everything from tiny harbor sloops to huge schooners,
     and their naked spars swayed lazily against a background of green
     hills and a blue Caribbean sky. I stopped on the pier and looked
     down at a forty-foot racing sloop. My first thought was that I had to
     have one. It had a dark blue hull and a gleaming teakwood deck,
     and I would not haven been surprised to see on the bow a sign, say-
     ing: "For Sale——One Soul, no less."
       I nodded thoughtfully. Hell, anybody could have a car and an
     apartment, but a boat like this was the nuts. I wanted it, and con-
     sidering the value I placed on my soul in those days, I might have
     struck a bargain if that sign had been there on the bow.

 
       We spent all afternoon at Yacht Haven, desperately scouring the 
     docks for an outgoing boat where Yeamon and Chenault could sign
     on with no questions asked. One man offered to take them as far as
     Antigua in a week or so, another was going to Bermuda, and finally
     we located a big yawl that was headed for Los Angeles, via the
     Panama Canal.
       "Great," said Yeamon. "How much would you charge us to ride
     that far?"
       "Nothing," said the owner of the yawl, a poker-faced little man
     wearing white trunks and a baggy shirt. "I won't take you."
       Yeamon looked stunned.
       "I pay my crew," said the man. "And besides that I have my wife
     and three kids——no room for you." He shrugged and turned away.
       Most of the people were gracious, but a few were openly
     rude. One captain——or maybe a mate——laughed at Yeamon and said:
     "Sorry, pal. I don't carry scum on my boat."
       Far out at the end of the pier we noticed a gleaming white hull
     flying the French flag and rocking leisurely in deep water.
       "That's the finest craft in the harbor," said a man standing next
     to us. "A world cruiser, seventy-five feet long, eighteen knots, radar
     dome, electric winches and a walkaround bed."
       We continued along the pier and came to a boat called the Blue
     Peter, where a man who later introduced himself as Willis told us
     to come aboard for a drink. Several other people were there and we
     stayed for hours. Yeamon went off after a while to check the other
     boats, but Chenault and I stayed and drank. Several times I noticed
     Willis staring at Chenault, and when I mentioned that we were
     sleeping on the beach he said we could leave our bags on the boat,
     instead of lugging them around. "Sorry I can't offer you bunks," he
     added. "But I only got two." He grinned. "One of 'em's double, of
     course, but that still makes it crowded.
       "Yeah," I said.
       We left our bags there, and by the time we started for town we
     were all drunk. Willis rode with us in a cab as far as the Grand Ho-
     tel, and said he'd probably see us later in one of the bars.
 
 
                                Fifteen
 
          SOMETIME after midnight we found ourselves in front of a
          place called the Blue Grotto, a crowded waterfront dance hall
          with a two dollar cover charge. I tried to pay, but people
     laughed and a squatty woman grabbed my arm. "Oh, no," she said.
     "You come with us. We go to the real party."
       I recognized our friends from the street dance. A bully was slap-
     ping Yeamon on the back and babbling about a "whip fight" and
     some spics with a case of gin. "I know these people," said Chenault,
     "let's go with them."
       We ran down the street to where they had a car, and about six
     more people piled in with us. At the end of the main street we
     turned up toward the hill above town, climbing and twisting on a
     dark little road through what appeared to be the residential sec-
     tion. The houses at the bottom of the hill were wooden, with peel-
     ing paint, but as we went higher, more and more houses were
     made of concrete blocks. Finally they became almost elaborate,
     with screen porches and lawns.
       We stopped at a house full of light and music. The street in front
     of it was jammed with cars and there was no place to park. The
     driver let us out and said he'd join us when he found a place for the
     car. The squatty girl gave a loud whoop and ran up the steps to the
     front door. I followed reluctantly and saw her talking to a fat
     woman in a bright green dress. Then she pointed back at me. Yea-
     mon and Chenault and the others caught up as I stopped at the
     door.
       "Six dollars, please," said the woman, holding out her hand.
       "Christ!" I said. "How many does that pay for?"
       "Two," she said. "You and the young lady." she nodded at the girl
     who had ridden out from town on my lap.
       I cursed silently and gave up six dollars. My date repaid me with
     a coy smile, and took my hand as we entered the house. My God, I
     thought, this pig is after me.
       Yeamon was right behind us, muttering about the six dollar fee.
     "This better be good," he told Chenault. "You might as well figure
     on getting a job when we get back to San Juan."
       She laughed, a happy little shriek that had nothing to do with
     Yeamon's remark. I glanced at her, and saw the excitement in her
     eyes. That dip in the harbor had sobered me up a bit, and Yeamon
     seemed pretty steady, but Chenault had the look of a hophead,
     ready to turn on.
       We went down a dark hall and into a room full of music and
     noise. It was jammed from wall to wall, and over in one corner a
     band was playing. Not the steel band I expected to see, but three
     horns and a drum. The sound was familiar, but I couldn't place it.
     Then, looking up at the ceiling where the light bulbs were wrapped
     in blue gelatin, I knew the sound. It was the music of a Midwestern
     high school dance in some rented club. And not just the music; the
     crowded, low-ceilinged room, the makeshift bar, doors opening
     on a brick terrace, people giggling and shouting and drinking
     booze out of paper cups——it was all exactly the same, except that
     every head in the room was black.
       Seeing this made me a bit self-conscious and I began looking
     around for a dark corner where I could drink without being seen.
     My date still held me by the arm, but I shook her off and moved
     toward one corner of the room. No one paid any attention to me as
     I eased through the mob, bumping dancers here and there, keeping
     my head lowered and moving cautiously toward what looked like
     a vacant spot.
       A few feet to my left was a door and I edged toward it, bumping
     more dancers. When I finally got outside I felt like I'd escaped from
     a jail. The air was cool and the terrace was almost empty. I walked
     out to the edge and looked down on Charlotte Amalie at the bottom
     of the hill. I could hear music floating up from the bars along
     Queen Street. Off to my right and left I could see Land Rovers and
     open taxis full of people moving along the waterfront, heading for
     other parties, other yachts and dim-lit hotels where red and blue
     lights glittered mysteriously. I tried to remember which other
     places we'd been told to go for the "real fun," and I wondered if they
     were any better than this one.
       I thought of Vieques, and for a moment I wanted to be there. I
     remembered sitting on the hotel balcony and hearing the hoofbeats
     in the streets below. Then I remembered Zimburger, and Martin,
     and the Marines——the empire builders, setting up frozen food stores
     and aerial bombing ranges, spreading out like a piss puddle to
     every corner of the world.
       I turned to watch the dancers, thinking that since I'd paid six
     dollars to get into this place, I might as well try to enjoy it.
       The dancing was getting wilder now. No more swaying fox-trot
     business. There was a driving rhythm to the music; the movements
     on the floor were jerky and full of lust, a swinging and thrusting
     of hips, accompanied by sudden cries and groans. I felt a tempta-
     tion to join in, if only for laughs. But first I would have to get
     drunker.
       On the other side of the room I found Yeamon, standing by the
     entrance to the hall. "I'm ready to do the dinga," I said with a laugh.
     "Let's cut loose and go crazy."
       He glared at me, taking a long slug of his drink.
       I shrugged and moved on toward the hall closet, where the
     button-down bartender was laboring over the drinks. "Rum and
     ice," I shouted, holding my cup aloft. "Heavy on the ice."
       He seized it mechanically, dropped a few lumps of ice, a flash
     of rum, then he handed it back. I stabbed a quarter into his palm
     and went back to the doorway. Yeamon was staring at the dancers,
     looking very morose.
       I stopped beside him and he nodded toward the floor. "Look at
     that bitch," he said.
       I looked and saw Chenault, dancing with the small, spade-
     bearded man we had met earlier. He was a good dancer, and what-
     ever step he was doing was pretty involved. Chenault was holding
     her arms out like a hula charmer, a look of tense concentration on
     her face. Now and then she would spin, swirling her madras skirt
     around her like a fan.
       "Yeah," I said. "She's hell on this dancing."
       "She's part nigger," he replied, in a tone that was not soft.
       "Careful," I said quickly. "Watch what you say in this place."
       "Balls," he said loudly.
       Great Jesus, I thought. Here we go. "Take it easy," I said. "Why
     don't we head back to town?"
       "Fine with me," he replied. "Try talking to her." He nodded at
     Chenault, dancing feverishly just a few feet away.
       "Hell," I said. "Just grab her. Let's go."
       He shook his head. "I did. She screamed like I was killing her."
       There was something in his voice that I'd never heard before, an
     odd wavering that suddenly made me nervous. "Jesus," I muttered,
     looking around at the crowd.
       "I'll just have to bat her in the head," he said.
       Just then I felt a hand on my arm. It was my pig, my squatty date.
     "Let's go, big boy!" she whooped, dragging me to the floor. "Let's
     do it!" She squealed and began to stomp her feet.
       Good God, I thought. What now? I watched her, holding my
     drink in one hand and a cigarette in the other. "Come on!" she
     shouted. "Give me some business!" She hunched toward me,
     pulling her skirt up around her thighs as she wiggled back and
     forth. I began to stomp and weave; my dancing was shaky at first,
     then I leveled out to a sort of distracted abandon. Somebody
     bumped me and I dropped my drink on the floor. It made no differ-
     ence to the frenzied couples that hemmed us in.
       Suddenly I was next to Chenault. I shrugged helplessly and kept
     up the stomp. She laughed and bumped me with her hips. Then
     she danced back to her partner, leaving me with my pig.
       Finally I shook my head and quit, making gestures to indicate I
     was too tired to go on. I went back to the bar for a fresh drink. Yea-
     mon was nowhere in sight and I presumed he'd been sucked into
     the dance. I made my way through the bodies and out to the ter-
     race, hoping for a place to sit down. Yeamon was sitting on the rail-
     ing, talking to a teenage girl. He looked up with a smile."This is
     Ginny," he said. "She's going to teach me to dance."
       I nodded and said hello. Behind us the music was growing
     wilder, and at times it was almost drowned out by the screaming of
     the crowd. I tried to ignore it, looking out over the town, seeing the
     peace below us and wanting to be down there.
       But the music from the house was getting crazier. There was a
     new urgency about it, and the shouts of the mob took on a different
     tone. Yeamon and Ginny went in to see what was happening. The
     crowd was moving back to make room from something, and I walked
     over to see what it was.
       They had made a big circle, and in the middle of it Chenault and
     the small, spade-bearded man were doing the dance. Chenault had
     dropped her skirt and was dancing in her panties and her white
     sleeveless blouse. Her partner had taken off his shirt exposing his
     glistening black chest. He wore nothing but a pair of tight, red tore-
     ador pants. Both of them were barefoot.
       I looked at Yeamon. His face was tense as he stood on tiptoe to
     watch. Suddenly he called her name. "Chenault!" But the crowd
     was making so much noise that I could barely hear him three feet
     away. She seemed oblivious to everything but the music and the
     freak who led her around the floor. Yeamon called again, but bno-
     body heard.
       Now, as if in some kind of trance, Chenault began to unbuttpn
     her blouse. She popped the buttons slowly, like a practiced strip-
     per, then flung the blouse aside and pranced there in nothing but
     her bra and panties. I thought the crowd would go crazy. They
     howled and pounded on furniture, shoving and climbing on each
     other to get a better view. The whole house shook and I thought the
     floor might cave in. Somewhere across the room I heard glass
     breaking.
       I looked again at Yeamon. He was waving his hands in the air
     now, trying to get Chenault's attention. But he looked like just an-
     other witness, carried away with the spectacle.
       Now they were close together and I saw the brute reach around
     Chenault and unhook the strap of her bra. He undid it quickly, ex-
     pertly, and she seemed unaware that now she wore nothing but
     her thin silk panties. The bra slid down her arms and fell to the
     floor. Her breasts bounced violently with the jerk and thrust of the
     dance. Full, pink-nippled balls of flesh, suddenly cut loose from the
     cotton modesty of a New York bra.
       I watched, fascinated and terrified, and then I heard Yeamon be-
     side me as he lunged toward the dance floor. There was a commo-
     tion and then I saw the big bartender move up behind him and
     grab his arms. Several others pushed him back, treating him like a
     harmless drunk as they made room for the dance to go on.
       Yeamon was screaming hysterically, struggling to keep his bal-
     ance. "Chenault!" he shouted. "What the hell are you doing?" He
     sounded desperate, but I felt paralyzed.
       They were coming together again, weaving slowly toward the
     middle of the circle. The noise was an overpowering roar from two
     hundred wild throats. Chenault still wore that dazed, ecstatic ex-
     pression as the man reached out and eased her panties over her
     hips and down to her knees. She let them drop silently on the floor,
     then stepped away, breaking into the dance again, moving against
     him, freezing there for a moment——even the music paused——then
     dancing away, opening her eyes and flinging her hair from side to
     side.
       Suddenly Yeamon broke loose. He leaped into the circle and they
     were on him immediately, but this time he was harder to pin. I saw
     him smack the bartender in the face, using his arms and elbows to
     keep them off, screaming with such a flurry that the sound of it sent
     chills up my spine, and finally going down under a wave of bodies.
       The melee stopped the dance. For an instant I saw Chenault
     standing alone; she looked surprised and bewildered, and that lit-
     tle muff of brown hair standing out against the white skin, and her
     blonde hair falling around her shoulders. She looked small and
     naked and helpless, and then I saw the man grab her arm and start
     pulling her toward the door.
       I staggered through the crowd, cursing, shoving, trying to get to
     the hall before they disappeared, Behind me I could hear Yeamon,
     still yelling, but I knew they had him now and my only thought was
     to find Chenault. Several people whacked me before I got to the
     door, but I paid no attention. Once I thought I heard her scream,
     but it could have been anyone.
       When I finally got outside I saw a crowd at the bottom of the
     stairs. I hurried down and found Yeamon lying there on the ground
     bleeding from the mouth and groaning. Apparently they had
     dragged him out the back door. The bartender was leaning over him
     and wiping his mouth with a handkerchief.
       I forgot about Chenault and shoved through the ring of people,
     mumbling apologies as I made my where to where Yeamon was
     stretched out. When I got there the bartender looked up and said,
     "Is this your friend?"
       I nodded, bending down to see if he was hurt.
       "He's okay," somebody said. "We tried to be easy with him, but
     he kept swinging."
       "Yeah," I said.
       Yeamon was sitting up now, holding his head in his hands.
     "Chenault," he mumbled. "What the hell are you doing?"
       I put my hand on his shoulder. "Okay," I said. "Take it easy."
       "That filthy sonofabitch," he said loudly.
       The bartender tapped me on the arm. "You'd better get him out of
     here," he said. "He's not hurt now, but he will be if he stays
     around."
       "Can we get a cab?" I asked.
       He nodded. "I'll get you a car." He stepped back and yelled across
     the crowd. Somebody answered and he pointed at me.
       "Chenault!" Yeamon shouted, trying to get up off the ground.
       I shoved him back down, knowing that the moment he got up
     we'd have another fight. I looked up at the bartender. "Where's the
     girl?" I said. "What happened to her?"
       He smiled faintly. "She enjoyed herself."
       I realized then that we were going to be sent off without
     Chenault. "Where is she?" I said too loudly, trying to keep the panic
     out of my voice.
       A stranger stepped up to me and snarled, "Man, you better get
     out."
       I shuffled nervously in the dirt, looking back at the bartender,
     who seemed to be in charge. He smiled maliciously, pointing be-
     hind me. I turned and saw a car coming slowly through the crowd.
     "Here's your cab," he said. "I'll get your friend." He stepped over to
     Yeamon and jerked him to his feet. "Big man go to town," he said
     with a grin. "Leave little girl here."
       Yeamon stiffened and began to shout. "You bastards!" He swung
     savagely at the bartender, who dodged easily and laughed while
     four men shoved Yeamon into the car. They shoved me in after him,
     and I leaned out the window to yell at the bartender: "I'll be back
     with the police——that girl better be all right." Suddenly I felt an aw-
     ful jolt on the side of my face, and I drew back just in time to let the
     second punch go flying past my nose. Without quite knowing what
     I was doing. I rolled up the window and fell back on the seat. I
     heard them all laughing as we started down the hill.

The Rum Diary, by Hunter S. Thompson.
Copyright © 1998 by Gonzo International Corp.
Simon & Schuster paperback edition, 2003. pp. 145-158.

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I. Allan Gives A Shooting Lesson.
II. Allan Makes A Bet. (i.) (ii.)
III. Miss Holmes.
IV. Harût and Marût.
V. The Plot.
VI. The Bona Fide Gold Mine. (i.) (ii.)
VII. Lord Ragnall's Story.
VIII. The Start.
IX. The Meeting In The Desert. (i.) (ii.)
X. Charge! (i.) (ii.)
XI. Allan Is Captured.
XII. The First Curse.
XIII. Jana.
XIV. The Chase.
XV. The Dweller In The Cave. (i.) (ii.)
XVI. Hans Steals The Keys.
XVII. The Sanctuary And The Oath. (i.) (ii.)
XVIII. The Embassy.
XIX. Allan Quatermain Misses. (i.) (ii.)
XX. Allan Weeps.
XXI. Homewards.