Then I turned around to smile as she came on. 'Another passenger!' I watched until she reached the bottom of the steps. They were starting the engines when I looked out and saw her coming across the runway, waving at the stewardess who was about to close the door. I fell into one on the aisle and put my typewriter on the one next to the window. But she wasn't on the plane and by this time there were only two double seats left. I hurried up to the front, thinking that she might be so small that her head wouldn't show over the back seat. I showed my ticket to the grumbling stewardess and stepped inside to scan the seats on both sides of the aisle. When I got to the plane I had to shove past five or six people waiting to board. I told him, got my ticket, and bolted for the gate. The clerk looked up, disregarding the shouts of the little man in front of me. 'What the hell is this? I have to get on that plane!' I gritted my teeth as they argued.įinally I broke in. Two of them did their business and passed on, but the third was stymied by the clerk's refusal to let him carry a huge cardboard box on the plane as hand baggage. There were still three Puerto Ricans in front of me. She got her ticket and walked away toward the plane. I watched her intently, smiling, feeling the ale in my veins, waiting for her to turn around for a swift contact with the eyes. She had a fine little body and an impatient way of standing that indicated a mass of stored-up energy. I pegged her for a tourist, a wild young secretary going down to the Caribbean for a two week romp.

I fell in behind fifteen or so Puerto Ricans and one small blonde girl a few places ahead of me. I was late and there was a line at the reservations desk. Then I got in Millick's cab and slept all the way to the airport. The last thing I remember is standing on the dirty bricks of Hudson Street, shaking hands with Rollins and cursing the freezing wind that blew in off the river. Everyone else had on heavy jackets and flannel suits. It was a rotten night in the middle of January, but I wore a light cord coat. Thomas, but I lost the list and never met any of them. I recall Peterson giving me a list of people to look up when I got to St. So was Duke Peterson, who had just come back from the Virgin Islands. Art Millick, the most vicious cab driver in New York, was there.

Phil Rollins, who'd worked with me, was paying for the ale, and I was swilling it down, trying to get drunk enough to sleep on the plane. I did some drinking there on the night I left for San Juan.

I often drank there, but I was never accepted because I wore a tie. My apartment in New York was on Perry Street, a five minute walk from the White Horse.

The Rum Diary by Hunter S. Thompson