Read Online The Kitchen Readings by Michael Cleverly - Free Book Online Page B

went on to vent hisspleen at large, expressing political leanings somewhat to the left of Fidel and Mao. The young soldiers felt pretty sure that people without guns probably should be civil to people with guns. They put Loren facedown on the ground and cuffed his hands behind his back. This was too much. Missie was the next to snap. She yanked off her sandal and proceeded to use it to beat one of the soldiers on the helmet, all the while Loren keeping up his rant from the dirt.
    Hunter’s pain over the loss of the hand was instantly replaced with the bliss of chaos. This is what he lived for. The scene continued for some minutes, with Hunter cheering everyone on just to keep the action going. An officer finally showed up and witnessed, with mouth agape, his boys bullying the very press corps that they had spent so much time sucking up to. The officer had Loren released immediately, and no one was sorry to see the group head up the road toward the restaurant. The conch soup was just as good as they had been told.
    Grenada was our first war with Cuba, and our first military victory since long before Vietnam. It was also the first time since before World War II that a communist government had been replaced with a pro-Western one. Being the fierce patriot, Hunter must have been very proud.

Hunter’s Friend Dabbles in the Business and Pays the Price
    Ed Hoban—University of Notre Dame, class of 1972, Lompoc Federal Prison, class of 1984—was a close friend of Hunter’s for years, and they shared many adventures…only some of which can be recounted here.
    Ed was a large figure in the Aspen scene in the seventies and eighties. He knew the right people and traveled in the best circles. By “the best,” I mean the most fun. Celebrities would come to town to visit him .
    The legend began while Ed was an undergraduate at Notre Dame. Dick Kienast, who would later become sheriff of Pitkin County, was also a student there at the time. Both attended lectures by the philosopher Mortimer Adler. When they ended upin Aspen they had a lot in common. Ed was introduced to many people through his classmate, and it snowballed from there. Kienast became sheriff, but he wasn’t a regular cop. He was in the vanguard of progressive law enforcement in the Roaring Fork Valley, with his policies earning him the nickname “Dick Dove” and garnering him the attention of the national media. Tim Charles, a mutual friend, introduced Ed to Dr. Hunter S. Thompson. Ed and Hunter became close friends and remained so until Hunter’s death. They shared many of the same hobbies, some of which Ed turned into a profession. Hence, the tour in Lompoc.
    Ed became a solid citizen upon graduation from the federal penal system. He left the valley to pursue an honest living and he would occasionally use his famous friends as references.
    Hunter was a fiercely loyal friend. Was he a good job reference? That remains an open question.
    Here…you decide:

    Doc and Ed having prettied themselves up with lipstick. Ed with Deborah and Cleverly, who are pretty enough without lipstick.

    Be careful when you ask Hunter for a favor.
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    In the late seventies and early eighties there were entrepreneurial types in the Roaring Fork Valley, people who had a little land and a little privacy and took up subsistence farming. Ed was one of them. He owned an old farmhouse in Emma, a half-hour drive from Woody Creek. At some point there actually had been a town of Emma, but that was long ago. By the time Ed purchased his house there, Emma was pretty close to the middle of nowhere. So he became involved with agribusiness, though what he was growing couldn’t be purchased at the local farmers’ market. Ed had inside plants flourishing in a greenhouse next to the garage and outside plants in a patch behind the barn. He was a good entrepreneur. A good farmer.
    Late one summer, as harvest time was growing near, Ed’s girlfriend decided