Hunter S. Thompson spent some time with the Hells Angels motorcycle club. He wrote a book about it in the sixties. He was beat down and then he wrote about it. It’s what Thompson would do before football season was over. Confronted directly by a member of the infamous club during a television interview, Thompson stood his ground. Maintained his position that what he wrote about was honest and written about to the best of his abilities.
Balls of steel. Giant steel balls. EPCOT-sized balls.
I reread Hells Angels, Thompson’s book about his year with the HAMC, very recently. It made me want to buy guns for some reason. I did not buy guns, but I did acquire a .380 handgun with an extra six-shell clip for which I’ve yet to secure actual shells. I point it at myself in the mirror, see the size of the barrel in the reflection and it reminds me that although the .380 is compact, the hole it will leave would be about the size of a quarter. That would hurt, folks. I think we all could agree.
Balls. Thompson’s confrontation with Skip from the Angels on live television, rereading his book, getting my hands on some weaponry. It all makes sense where I’m from.
Less than two weeks ago while I sat smoking on my front porch two individuals on the street where I live broke out into a decent fight. I mean they mostly just twitched around, knocking each other in the top of the head and busting up their own knuckles. But it wasn’t the fight itself that woke me up. It was the argument that started the pitiful show. One was accusing the other of being in my hometown for no other reason than to get his hands on some cocaine.
I don’t know why this bothered the accuser, but it did. Could have been a father-in-law teaching a son-in-law a lesson. Where I’m from there are a dozen scenarios I could choose from. But the general idea is that, until that moment, I thought dealers of pills (Xanax, Lorcet, Percocet, etc.) was the only thing to worry about in my town, the town where I grew up, the town I had my first kiss, the town I in which I lost my first fist-fight, the town that was a tattoo on my heart. People were dealing coke. In my fucking home town.
I got my hands on the gun soon after. A quick attempt to trade it to a .38 revolver a county over from me failed. I wanted that .38. I don’t prefer a clip. Things jam. Things go wrong. In the county where I live, in the last dozen or so gunfights that’s went down, the guy with the revolver came out shining every time. No jamming up.
Thompson didn’t grow up in my neck of Kentucky. He was a Louisville boy who got out quick and didn’t look back except to write a great and scathing and truthful bit about the Derby. But he knew what all of us know in Appalachia – get familiar with a gun. Addtionally, learn to spot a problem three steps before it gets in range, and if it gets in range…stand your goddamn ground.
I now have the urge to shoot something and then write about it.
You should, Cynthia. It’s fun.
I often write about things I shoot.