Big Man Read online

  LA was lousy with celebrities, and they all belonged to the celebrity club. Members who greeted other members with the secret handshake. They seemed compelled to sniff around each other like dogs.

  I was just thinking about how much my life had changed since meeting Bruce. That was how I thought of my life now: before Bruce and after Bruce. I was thinking how I was in the club now and was congratulating myself on not really being overly impressed by anybody, when the front door opened and Muhammad Ali stepped into the room.

  He was with his wife, Lonnie, and some other guy watching out for them. He was smiling at people. He was shaking, yes, but shit, he was still the greatest.

  My heartbeat increased as Ali turned and looked around the room. His eyes came to rest on me. Ali smiled and pointed. I returned the smile and bowed, my hands clasped in prayer mode.

  Lonnie said something to the host and they turned and headed into the room. They were going to pass right by the table. Should I say something? If so, what? I’m a big fan, or one of those equally bland things people were always saying to me?

  Was it possible that Ali knew who I was? Could he conceivably be a Bruce fan?

  As he got closer, Ali looked at me and smiled again. I realized it was one of those moments where I was aware of everything. I knew the girl was talking to me. I was aware of every sound in the room. All the voices and all the restaurant sounds. I was aware of the music playing under all the other sounds. Improbably, it was War singing, “Cisco Kid was a friend of mine.”

  I was about to speak when Ali reached out and put his hand on my shoulder. He leaned down and whispered into my ear.

  “We two bad niggers, ain’t we?” he said.

  The Legend of Havana

  I actually did play pool with Fidel in Cuba, and this is a reimagining of that night. It features a guest appearance by Dr. Gonzo himself. It is set on a piece of surreal estate. —C.C.

  The dates here are difficult to pin down due to excessive consumption of drugs and alcohol by the participants, but we are somewhere between late 1979 into the first part of 1980. —D.R.

  Hunter Thompson had been quietly refilling his glass for over an hour, and now Fidel Castro was drunk. Clarence knew this was an excellent time to challenge El Presidente to a game of nine ball.

  Castro loved nine ball and was in fact an excellent player. He actually hustled many visitors over the years and had kept every penny he’d won. He especially liked bilking Americans. He’d always look over at his bodyguard, Fernando Dinardo, with a sly smile as he pocketed the cash. He had a box on his nightstand filled with thousands of U.S. dollars, which he would give to the whores he liked the best. The ones who made the most noise.

  “Wanna shoot a little pool?” asked Clarence from the big leather chair by the window that opened onto the veranda. The veranda itself was deep and elegant, and it wrapped all the way around the beautiful wood-framed house Castro called his “real” home. The house could’ve been anywhere in America where people had money and taste, but it was actually located on a private street in a suburb of Havana.

  “Yes, of course,” said Castro in English. “Are you a betting man?”

  “Oh, yes,” said Clarence. “Yes indeed.”

  “Then by all means, let’s play,” said Castro. “But you’ll have to spot me a ball or two as I’m not very good, but I am very drunk.”

  He stood, swaying and smiling.

  “Let’s play the first game straight up and then we’ll adjust,” said Clarence.

  Fidel made a slight bow. “As you wish,” he said.

  “A hundred a game?” Clarence suggested.

  Castro laughed. “You are a famous rock and roller. I was thinking more like a hundred a ball.”

  Clarence looked over at Hunter, who was puffing on the cigarette in his holder. He kept it between his teeth and it bounced up and down when he spoke.

  “You can take him,” said Hunter.

  “Rack ’em up,” said Clarence.

  While this was going on, Fernando was having a problem.

  He didn’t realize that Hunter had slipped some very potent liquid LSD into the glass of water he had drunk earlier, and now the pool table was melting.

  Hunter had considered dosing Castro, too, but he had only so much acid left, so he opted to debilitate the person most likely to be armed.

  Fernando was staring at the pool table and beginning to drool.

  Hunter sidled up to him. “Anybody ever tell you that you look like Handsome Dick Manitoba?” he asked.

  “¿Que?” said Fernando.

  “Do you speak English?”

  “Si,” said Fernando.

  “Good answer,” said Hunter. “We should go for a stroll and check out the local talent, as it were.”

  “What?” said Fernando, who seemed to be alarmed that he was being spoken to as if he were still human.

  “Your skull is glowing,” said Hunter.

  “What?” said Fernando.

  Castro beckoned Fernando, who crossed to him, and whispered to him.

  “Go,” said Castro in Spanish. “Take the tall one away while I steal the big Negro’s money.”

  Clarence, who had heard the words big Negro in many different languages, some of them nonverbal, said nothing. But he did resolve to take this fuck’s money. Nine ball was the one thing Clarence played as well as the saxophone.

  It’s impossible to say if Fernando understood anything being said to him, but he nodded and turned back to Hunter, who was drinking a mojito.

  Hunter was very, very twisted at this point in time. He didn’t care what happened to him. What set him apart was that he was actually used to feeling that way. This made him one of the most dangerous men in the world.

  “He’s hiding something from you,” he said to the bodyguard. “There is something deadly going on here that he doesn’t want anybody to know about. Do you know what it is?”

  “No,” said Fernando.

  “Do you have family here?” asked Hunter. “Loved ones?”

  “Yes, my mother and my sisters,” said Fernando. “And Camilla.”

  “Yes, Camilla,” said Hunter. “We may have to deal with her later.”

  “What do you mean?” asked Fernando in one of his final lucid moments.

  “Have you ever heard of rat lungworm disease?” asked Hunter.

  “¿Que?” said Fernando again.

  “Let’s go find a bar,” said Hunter. “I have much to tell you.”

  After they left, Clarence and Castro began to play pool. There were still other people around, servants and some uniformed soldiers outside, but the dictator and the sax player were alone in the game room.

  Castro won the lag and broke first.

  Clarence noticed immediately that Fidel was no longer drunk. He was still acting drunk, slurring and swaying, but not when he was playing pool. He was stone-cold sober when he lined up a shot. He must’ve been dumping the drinks into a plant or something, because he had clearly clocked onto Hunter’s game early and played along. You don’t get to steal an entire country by being stupid, Clarence thought to himself. This was one clever motherfucker.

  Castro ran the table.

  Clarence had expected him to blow a shot on purpose to sucker him in, but the guy didn’t do that. In fact, he made every shot look easy. The cue ball ended up in a perfect position every single time.

  “Shall we continue?” said Castro.

  “As long as we keep playing until I get a shot,” said Clarence.

  “I can’t guarantee that,” said Fidel. “Let’s just play until you run out of either time or money.”

  “Works for me,” said Clarence.

  Clarence lit a Cohiba, sat back, and watched Fidel Castro play pool.

  This trip had been in the offing for some time. Clarence had met Hunter when the writer was staying at Jimmy Buffett’s place in Key West. Clarence liked the guy. They spent many nights drinking and talking sports and politics with Jimmy and Tom Corcoran, who was wr
iting some movie with Hunter. What Hunter was writing was always unclear to Clarence, but somebody was paying him to do something even though all he seemed to do was party.

  He was very good at that.

  The idea for the Cuban trip had come up when Hunter was staying out on Sugarloaf Key. He had called Clarence and invited him down to have some fun. Having “fun” with Hunter could be exhausting, so Clarence put it off until Hunter called back with the promise of “cocaine, whiskey, and bitches.” Plus everybody enjoyed trying to beat Clarence at pool in one of the local taverns. Nobody ever did.

  They had a fine time. At least the parts of it Clarence could remember had been fine. Hunter had a thing where he would hit on every woman in proximity just to prove to you or himself that he was the top dog. Clarence was with a beautiful French model named Chloe, and Hunter followed her around as if he were in heat. Clarence was amused.

  One night the whole group traveled north to the Moorings Village, where Clarence had taken a beautiful house on that perfect white sand beach. There was a full moon over the water. After a dinner of spaghetti and meatballs made by the Big Man, he took everybody out on the deck and he played the horn. He played soft, slow jazz and filled the night with soul. When he was done, Chloe turned to Hunter.

  “Do you still think there’s a chance I would leave him for you?” she asked.

  “No,” said Hunter.

  It might have been the highest compliment he ever paid to anyone in his life.

  “A friend of mine in the State Department has cleared the way for me to go interview Castro,” said Hunter the next afternoon when they all awakened.

  “Really?” said Clarence. “That would be interesting.”

  Hunter opened his third beer of the day and took a long drink.

  “Wanna come with me?” asked Hunter. “We’d fly to Puerto Rico on Monday then take a boat to Havana. Some kind of a launch.”

  “Sure,” said Clarence. He doubted that this would ever actually happen.

  “Good,” said Hunter. “I understand Castro plays pool.”

  Now Hunter and Fernando were in a bar on a side street near the National Hotel. The bar was actually called El Hole, and Hunter liked it. It was dark and filled with cheap-looking women.

  There was a jukebox in the corner that kept playing “The Piña Colada Song,” which was actually titled “Escape,” although nobody called it that. It seemed to be the only song the jukebox played, and they were listening to it for the third time since they’d come in and sat on adjacent stools at the circular bar. Fernando was studying the steady stream of spiders that were crawling out from under his fingernails. Hunter had put on lipstick and was drinking rum.

  “Do you have a weapon?” asked Hunter.

  “Yes, of course,” said Fernando.

  He just wasn’t sure why he was saying “Yes, of course,” because he couldn’t recall the question the tall American with the lipstick had asked him so long ago.

  “I think you should shoot the bartender,” said Hunter.

  This was a very good idea because the bartender’s face had split open, and a lizard had popped out and was flicking a forked tongue at Fernando as it approached him with something in its claw that was smoking.

  “Yes,” said Fernando, as he took out his gun and pointed it at the lizard.

  The lizard stopped and its mouth opened and it started to scream. Fernando was just about to pull the trigger when he realized the lizard was holding a cocktail in its claw. A smoking cocktail called the Volcano, which Fernando had ordered. Well, he didn’t actually order it, but he did point to a picture of it on the bar menu.

  He lowered the gun; the lizard stopped screaming, put the drink down on the bar, and scuttled away.

  “You showed him,” said Hunter. He took the gun from Fernando, turned, and shot the jukebox.

  The noise was deafening. There was a shattering of glass and plastic and then screaming as everybody ran out of the place.

  “I hate that fucking song,” said Hunter, who then yelled at the fleeing patrons, “This man is with the secret police. This is official business.”

  Just then the jukebox miraculously came back to life and “The Piña Colada Song” started up again.

  Hunter shot the thing three more times. The music stopped for good.

  “How are you feeling?” he asked Fernando.

  “Not well,” said the bodyguard.

  “There’s been an outbreak of this hideous disease and nobody knows about it. We’ve got to take care of you and then we’ve got to get the word out. This thing is vicious.”

  “What is it?”

  “It’s called rat lungworm disease,” said Hunter, turning toward him. “It’s a nematode that hatches in the lungs of rats. From there the larvae pass through rat feces to slugs and snails, who then crawl all over contaminated backyard vegetables. The effects are horrifying. Excruciating pain, uncontrollable itching… you see, it affects the nerve endings. In twenty-four hours you go into a coma. Meningitis is common. There are people who had it twenty years ago whose skin is still so sensitive that they can’t wear long pants.”

  Fernando began to scratch his arm. “So what do I do?” he asked.

  Hunter took out a small plastic bag filled with pills.

  “Fortunately for you I’m a doctor,” he said. “I’ll give you some medicine.”

  “Why don’t we stop this dance now?” said Castro. “Why not play for fifty thousand dollars, one game, winner take all?”

  He smiled at Clarence. He had dropped all pretense of drunkenness.

  They had been trading games for over an hour and were even.

  “This is why you’ve come, no? There’s no interview. Your friend is a world-famous drunk and drug addict. This is about nine ball, isn’t it?”

  “It is for me,” said Clarence. “You’re on.”

  They lagged again for the right to break, and this time Clarence won.

  “I’m going to enjoy this,” he said, as he chalked the cue he’d brought along. The cue had been made for him by a man named Nick Arnold in a trailer in Palmdale, California. Nick made the best cues in the world but was reluctant to make them. It had taken Clarence five years to convince him to build this one.

  “That’s a Nick Arnold cue, isn’t it?” asked Fidel.

  “It is,” said Clarence.

  “Would you consider selling it?”

  “No,” said Clarence, “but maybe I could get him to build you one in exchange for a few cases of this wonderful cigar.”

  “Anything is possible,” said Castro.

  “Yes,” said Clarence, as he hit the cue ball mightily into the diamond. The balls flew around the table at warp speed. Not one of them dropped.

  “Well,” said Castro finally. “It looks like it’s my shot.”

  He sunk the first seven balls in under a minute. But after pocketing the eight the cue ball just grazed the nine, which then rolled to within a Gwyneth of the side rail.

  [According to Clarence a “Gwyneth” is the smallest unit of measurement, equal to the presumed width of one Gwyneth Paltrow pubic hair.—D.R.]

  “You have an interesting dilemma,” said Castro.

  And he was right. There was no apparent shot. The correct move would be to play safe back and forth until somebody made a mistake or an incredible shot.

  “True,” said Clarence, as he picked up his cue and approached the table.

  Then he smiled. He smiled because he could see the shot. It was the same thing as hearing the music in his head when he was writing. He could see and feel the shot and he would not miss.

  “Something amusing?” said Castro, leaning on his cue.

  Clarence took a puff on the cigar and rested it in the big stand-up ashtray a few feet from the table.

  “I think so,” said Clarence. “Nine ball, three cushions, side pocket.”

  Castro actually laughed.

  Clarence made the shot as easy and true as any in his past. The nine bounced off the
rail, then to the end cushion, back across the table under him, and straight into the side pocket.

  “Game,” said Clarence.

  Castro had stopped laughing.

  “I have become interested in the scansion of language,” said Hunter, as he popped open another beer. They were on the flying bridge of the sport fishing boat they had chartered that morning in Havana.

  It hadn’t been difficult to find someone with a boat to take them to Key West. They were offering a thousand dollars for the trip, and there were many takers. The cash came from the box that had once sat on Castro’s nightstand. They finally went with an old leather-skinned Cuban hand called Martin aboard his forty-two-foot Grand Banks named Tempo. The deal was that Martin would get them into the harbor and they would find another boat there to take them to shore, thereby avoiding the authorities.

  “The what?” said Clarence.

  “The rules of poetry, basically,” said Hunter. “Stuff like spondees and dactyls, but mostly anapests. I’m fascinated by the anapest.”

  “What the fuck are you talking about?” said Clarence.

  They could see a boat on the horizon. Most likely somebody fishing off the Florida coast.

  “I’m talking about prosody and feet and meter,” said Hunter. “About rhythm, stress, and intonation. An anapest is two unstressed syllables followed by one stressed one. Kind of like you and me and Fidel.”

  “Pass me a beer,” said Clarence.

  “Next year we should attend the mahu parade on Molokai,” he said, handing Clarence the beer. “It’s a hoot. Last year Kyu Sakamoto was there. He sang ‘Sukiyaki,’ of course, but also his follow-up song, which was called ‘China Nights.’ ”

  “The real name of that first song was ‘Ue O Muite Aruko,’ ” said Clarence. “They only called it ‘Sukiyaki’ so Americans would buy it. Sukiyaki is actually a kind of steamboat dish. That would be like calling “Born to Run” “Cheese on Toast.”

  “Sweet Jesus on a stick,” said Hunter, as he stood. “Slow down, Martin. We have something unusual here.”