Kingdom of Fear (16 page)

News of Thompson’s arrest spread rapidly and generated a huge voter turnout that swamped the new airport proposal by a 2-1 margin. The SkiCo was humiliated and never entirely recovered from the defeat. The Aspen ski business remained stagnant.

The following three (3) documents tell the story of that merciless 2-year legal struggle that eventually resulted in an unprecedented solution called the
Sharp Necklace Agreement
that broke the power of the local police forever—or at least until the Attorney General overrules it for antiterrorism reasons.

As always, Dr. Thompson’s legally aggressive courtroom behavior is cited as a
matter of record
& not necessarily as recommended behavior for others. There are always risks in challenging excessive police power—but the risks of
not
challenging it are more dangerous, even fatal. Never do it impulsively. The Law can be cruel and unforgiving, especially of careless stupidity. The rule of thumb is BEWARE, and be quiet. You are Innocent until
proven
guilty, so act that way. And remember the Felony Murder Law. You may have been in Chicago when that poor woman got butchered by some runaway slave on speed; it won’t matter. Get ready for prison. Abandon all hope, even if you are innocent. . . . It is a weird and brutal law, created
by
prosecutors
for
prosecutors, because it eliminates the need for Proof or even Evidence.

THOMPSON, COPS COME TO
SHARP NECKLACE AGREEMENT

I did not ask for this fight. It came to me on a lonely road at the end of a wild night of politics, and it’s been a shame and a travesty ever since. From its horrible beginnings, this case has been less about one person charged with a misdemeanor and more about the soul of the Aspen Police Department.

I despise drunk drivers just as much as I hate crooked cops. I fear anybody on the road who is out of control for any reason—and that would have to include, by universal agreement, public servants who use their badge and authority to settle personal grudges or enforce their political beliefs.

This agreement we’re executing today will serve as a Sharp Necklace to crooked cops as well as dangerous drunkards and brings an end to the cheap, low-rent, back-alley pile of scum that this case has been.

H.S. Thompson, April 1997

December 12, 1995
LAWSON WILLS
Dep. District Atty.
Pitkin Cty. Courthouse

Dear Mr. Wills,

I am given to understand that you want me to come into the courthouse and officially surrender to you, in front of witnesses, so that you can formally re-arrest me on some kind of vague, chickenshit charge cooked up by Officer Short on the night of Nov.
7-8,
’95, in the course of our bizarre encounter on Cemetery Lane as I was very skillfully driving home (on an utterly deserted road) after delivering the keynote address at a major political rally full of people who planned to wake up the next morning (Election Day) and kick the shit out of the Aspen Ski Co.

Is my information correct? Did that vengeful dingbat actually fail to serve me with a valid, legal summons? Did he botch
everything
that night? Was he so crazy that he couldn’t even
arrest
me properly? And is
that
why you want me to drive at top speed into town so you can get yr. picture in the papers while you slap handcuffs on me and swell up like a toad for the cameras?

Ah, Lawson, have you
no
shame? Are you a Nazi? Are you nuts with lust for yr. upcoming 15 minutes of fame? Has it come to
this
—that you have to beg, bitch & cajole yr. victims to turn themselves in & abandon all hope for anything except humiliation and jail?

How long, O Lord, how long? You should be deeply ashamed of yourself. I talked with a journalist who said you reminded him of William Jennings Bryan at the Scopes “Monkey Trial” in 1925. It was a horrible thing to hear. (Bryan, as you recall, was whipsawed by Darrow & wound up testifying, under oath, that a whale is not a mammal & therefore, neither was he.)

Ah, but don’t get me wrong, Lawson: I’m on Your side—or at least I was until that bungling dunce harassed me for 3 ½ hours on Election Day and made an ass of himself in the Jail. It was ugly. He went haywire when he finally understood that I was
not
Drunk and none of his high-tech Drunk-Buster machines were
going to give him the numbers he wanted. He was like an ape trapped in chains. His fellow Officers were mortified, and so was I. It is shocking to see Aspen’s long and honorable tradition of quality law enforcement being sullied by these charges about “rogue cops” and “stalkers” and “dumb Watersuckers with six-guns” who strut like John Wayne and think like Mark Fuhrman. There ain’t many, as we know, but we also know in our bones that one rotten apple ruins the whole bushel, and that is why I feel real sympathy for you, because I know the people you work for, and I know how sick they are.

But don’t worry, Lawson: The pigs will soon be out of the poke. Yessir. The fat is in the fire. Today’s pig is tomorrow’s bacon.

Whoops. Sorry. But rest easy. I
will
come in (probably today) and surrender again—and a whole legion of falsely accused drunkards will come with me. And they
all
hate Mark Fuhrman. But not me, Lawson. I don’t hate anybody. I am a child of god of the new-age Buddhist persuasion, and I love to go to court. Because that is where Justice lives, and you know how I feel about Justice.

Indeed. Yr. time is coming, Whore-face. When I get yr. lame ass in court, you’ll wish you’d been run over and killed by a Buick when you were six years old. We will skewer those swine on worldwide TV and put them in prison for Perjury. Nobody in this valley will ever see them again.

You filthy stinking animal. Do you know what
Misprison of a Felony
means? Or
Aggravated Conspiracy to Obstruct Justice?
Are you aware of the
terrible punishment that awaits
a Main Pig like you?

Okay. That’s it. I’ll surrender at noon on Wednesday.

THE SHARP NECKLACE AGREEMENT

The parties to this case agree to the following:

1. That driving while one’s ability is impaired by alcohol is dangerous to the health and safety of the public and must be avoided at all costs.

2. That statements by police officers which are inaccurate or untruthful are dangerous to the administration of justice and must be avoided at all costs.

3. That it is an important function of police officers to enforce Colorado law prohibiting alcohol-impaired driving and that failure to enforce those laws vigorously would comprise a serious breach of duty and violation of public trust on the part of police.

4. That it is an essential quality of police officers to be free of enmity or bias against any individual or group of individuals in the community they serve and that for any officer to act or even appear to act out of any such enmity or bias would constitute an abuse of power and a violation of public trust.

5. That although Colorado law does not prohibit driving after drinking anything, clearly the wisest choice is not to drive after having anything alcoholic to drink, including after drinking a sufficient amount to obtain a blood alcohol concentration of .08.

6. That decency, security, and liberty alike demand that government officials shall be subjected to the same rules of conduct that are commands to the citizen. In a government of laws, existence of the government will be imperiled if it fails to observe the law scrupulously. Our government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher. For good or ill, it teaches the whole people by its example. Crime is contagious. If the government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for the law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy. To declare that in the administration of the criminal law the end justifies the means—to declare that the government may commit crimes in order to secure the conviction of a private criminal—would bring terrible retribution.

7. The parties agree mistakes and/or errors in judgment have been made by all parties, that each party will strive to avoid any such errors in the future, and that it is in the best interest of justice to go forward with the tendered agreement.

(Signed) Hunter S. Thompson and
H. Lawson Wills,
Chief Deputy District Attorney

Forging the landmark Sharp Necklace Agreement at home with noted criminal lawyer (Deborah Fuller)

Saturday night in Aspen and the road out of town is empty in both directions. The only things moving on Main Street are me and one slow-rolling cop car. No people on the street, no local traffic. I wave to him, as I normally do, but he ignores me & picks up his radio squealer, probably to run my plate and maybe get some action. . . . I can see him back there, in my mirror, and I instinctively make a right turn & speed up, gripping the wheel with both hands and hearing a sudden roar of music all around me. It is “Walk on the Wild Side.” Ah yes:

Candy came from out on the Island
In the back room she was everybody’s darlin’,
But she never lost her head
Even when she was givin’ head.
She says, Hey babe, take a walk on the wild side
Said, Hey babe, take a walk on the wild side,
And the colored girls go—
Doo, do doo, do doo, do do do . . .

Right. And thank you, Lou Reed, for that one. You bet. Every once in a while, but not often, you can sit down and write a thing that you know is going to stand people’s hair on end for the rest of their lives—a perfect memory of some kind, like a vision, and you can see the words rolling out of your fingers and bouncing around for a while like wild little jewels before they finally roll into place & line up just exactly like you wanted them to. . . . Wow! Look at that shit! Who wrote that stuff?

What? Me? Hot damn! Let us rumble, keep going, and don’t slow down—whatever it is, keep doing it. Let’s have a little Fun.

Even writing feels like fun when you catch a moment like this. You feel Pure and natural—Yes sir, I am a Natural Man tonight. Bring it on. Fuck those people. Tonight we walk with the King. . . . That is My kind of fun, and I like to spread it around. You can’t Hoard fun. It has no shelf life.

And so much for that, eh? I started off writing about Aspen, but I wandered off into the definition of Fun, which is always dangerous. So, to hell with Fun. I shit on the chest of Fun. Look what it did to Charles Manson. He had Too much fun—no doubt about that—so they put him away for life. He was a Monster, and he still is. Put him Down. Shove him off the Bridge with a wire around his neck and bowling balls chained to his feet. Drown the bastard. What if it was your daughter he got hold of?

What indeed? I have no daughters, thank God, so I don’t have to worry about it. I have always loved women of all ages, but they have always been Other people’s daughters. If I had a daughter and she came home with a creature like Manson, my heart would fill with Hate. I would not kill him instantly, but my brain would start moving that way—Okay, how do we do this, without being busted for Murder?

First, get rid of the Witness. Send her upstairs to her room and make sure nobody else is around. That is a basic Rule in this business. . . . The next step is to grab a loaded shotgun off the wall and lure him into the kitchen by stomping heavily on the floor & screaming crazily while you dial up 911. That will put your situation on the Record.

Keep screaming, “Get away from me, Charley! Don’t come any closer!” until he comes running into the room with wild eyes & you can blast him straight in the chest with both barrels. . . . Do not miss, or things will turn queer in a hurry. Make sure he’s stone dead when he drops, because you will not get another chance. He will be on you with a butcher knife. . . . But if you do it Right, you will be hailed as a Hero, and yr. daughter will think long & hard before she comes home with another creep like Manson.

Death Bomb, Thanksgiving, 1992 (Deborah Fuller)

Woody Creek, August 2002

I am not a religious man in any formal sense, but in truth I am far more
theologically conscious
than anyone I know—except perhaps my monkish brute of a neighbor, Ed Bastian, who conducts big-time Spirituality seminars on Aspen mountain and rides a huge black BMW motorcycle that was once blessed by the Dalai Lama, who also gave me the diaphanous white silk scarf that hangs across the room on my storyboard.