The day Uncle Hunter died...

2/21/05

The day Uncle Hunter died…

I awoke late, as usual, but had enough time to make breakfast and a huge pot of coffee, of which I only drank a trough full, before descending into the early morning cold of the Tidewater area. My live-shot was scheduled at a Vo-Tech school where high school kids were learning the corrupt art of television production in an old maintenance vehicle garage studio across from the Virginia Beach Courthouse Complex, where many of them would likely spend a great deal of their time.

The air compressor in my live-truck died as soon as I started setting up so my shot was toast. My feature reporter, Joe, and producer known at this time only as Bucket both decided to break down the “news” live-shot which was luckily right across the street at the courthouse. My reporter from the midnight shifts of last summer, Carl, and his new sidekick, Karen arrived within the hour and we got both them and our shots up without a hitch and headed back to the ranch to regroup from just another typical Monday at the office.

When I logged in to a station terminal back at the ranch, the headline popped up on the internet immediately.

“Writer Hunter S Thompson, 67, kills himself…”

I could not believe it. Gonzo was dead. After a lifetime of fear and loathing on the campaign trail, my single most influential writer on the planet had finally gone and done it. I wasn’t surprised that he had shot himself. I had always figured he would get himself before they got him. But, alas, a true king had perished and what he had written was all he would ever write.

Truly sad.

My day continued to wither into nothing. I escaped home to take a lunch break and console myself how Uncle Hunter would have wanted when the call came that I would have to take one of our “shit hot “ reporters to a breaking scene where there was a small kitchen fire at a daycare center which reportedly had no fire extinguisher on the premises. Oh wonderful, I thought, another chance for our news organization to overplay yet another insignificant community incident into a 6 o’clock lead, and me in the middle droning Bob Marley songs through my already clouded head.

The reporter had pasted on her war paint and I tried to make my condition less than too apparent on the drive to Virginia Beach. The conversation rambled nowhere until we finally arrived at the strip mall, where a fire marshall was parked out front fumbling through paperwork.

It was nothing…a nothing story. She dug, and dug, and after a while gave up in defeat. She will become one of the bad ones if she isn’t already. I loaded up, dropped her ass off, and went to the gym where I successfully wiped the day’s events clean.

It was later that I got the call from Missouri. A number I had for apparently years of an old girlfriend Tracy and called a week or so before when I was still a heavy cigar smoker. We left on rather cowardice terms. I couldn’t bring myself to just out and out breaking it off and she didn’t get the hints, but all in all, it was probably a bda move on my part. She was a good girl, did right by me, and loved my kids…there was just something.

Like the other thing, another of my ex-girlfriends since the kids’ mother that got too close to my kids and seemingly slid theirselves into the Mom2 role. That is a thing I just couldn’t bear to go through again.

So when the call came I again in cowardice let the message service answer it. My bed was calling and another day of terror with my ABC affiliate was coming.

Our morning shot on Tuesday was at a soul food joint in the heart of the downtown projects of Norfolk. While setting my truck up in the parking lot I noticed some thuggery types congregating around the not quite open temporary labor office across the way. I relocated my butterfly knife from my jacket to my jeans pocket in case someone decided they wanted a camera that cost more than I made in a year. We got through unharmed and had a pretty nasty breakfast compliments of our host before starting the long drive to Elizabeth City, North Carolina where a helicopter crew from the base was receiving medals from an admiral for bravery and valor during the rescue of the Bow Mariner, a Filipino oil tanker that caught fire and sank off the coast of Chincoteague Island. The rescue diver was receiving the Coast Guard Medal, the highest they give, and was a cool local surfer from the Outer Banks, who to my dismay, had gone surfing the day before.

“It wasn’t great but it was fun,” he said. A motto I’ve echoed on cold winter days when I’ve spent hours alone in freezing waters just to grab a few knee capers just because I could. But it had been since December since I was in the water and I was more jealous this guy had gotten in a session more than the fact that he was the hero of the day.

I returned home from this southern adventure, hit the gym lightly, and took a nap. When I awoke, I got my head on straight and got the courage to call Tracy in Missouri.

It turns out Tracy is married and now has a seven month old son named Hunter.

I wanted to hang the phone up right there.

But I listened. “That’s great. Good for you. God, I think I’m on fire I have to go…”

“So, what have you been up to? Are you married?”

My teeth almost fell out of my head. Tell her you’re a monk, tell her you’re am monk. “Oh, hell no. No, I just…umm…work a lot and get the kids, go on adventures…” like this conversation had become and my stoning ramblings weaved nowhere until they came back to the uncomfortable place of where does this go now.

Cowardice, cowardice…it works every time. “Well that’s great. Good luck to you and I hope everything goes well.”

“Thanks, and keep in touch with us.” Who? You, some guy I don’t know that surely doesn’t want me calling the house ever again, and little Hunter. I hung up and erased the number immediately.

Like my contact with old high school sweetheart Tonja after some 16 years had passed, another one married and part of the American Dream that I was fortunate enough to not fallen victim to, and at this point in life, a club I never had a chance of joining.