Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
Meanwhile, DUKE picks up a grapefruit from the sink — a good two-pounder, he gets a grip on it… and when “WHITE RABBIT” peaks… HE HURLS IT INTO THE TUB LIKE A CANNONBALL.
GONZO SCREAMS CRAZILY, THRASHING AND CHURNING — CAUSING A TIDAL WAVE.
DUKE JERKS THE RADIO CABLE OUT OF THE SOCKET — SLAMS OUT OF THE BATHROOM.
INT. MINT HOTEL SUITE – NIGHT
DUKE slumps onto the sofa.
SILENCE.
GONZO RIPS OPEN THE BATHROOM DOOR, his eyes unfocused. HE WAVES THE RAZOR SHARP BLADE out in front of him — LUNGES at DUKE. DUKE WHIPS OUT A CAN OF MACE.
DUKE MACE! YOU WANT THIS?
GONZO stops — hisses.
GONZO You bastard! You’d do that, wouldn’t you?
48.
DUKE (laughs) Why worry? You’ll like it. Nothing in the world like a Mace high. Forty-five minutes on your knees with the dry heaves…
GONZO You cheap honky sonofabitch…
DUKE Why not? Hell, just a minute ago, you were asking me to kill you! And now you want to kill me! What I should do, goddamnit, is call the police!
GONZO The cops?
DUKE There’s no choice. I wouldn’t dare go to sleep with you wandering around with a head full of acid and wanting to slice me up with that goddamn knife!
GONZO (mumbles) Who said anything about slicing you up? I just wanted to carve a little Z on your forehead. Nothing serious.
GONZO shrugs and reaches for a cigarette on top of the TV set.
DUKE (menaces him with the MACE) Get back in that tub. Eat some reds and try to calm down. Smoke some grass, shoot some smack — shit, do whatever you have to do, but let me get some rest.
GONZO turns toward the bathroom — suddenly sad.
GONZO Hell, yes. You really need some sleep. You have to work. Goddamn. What a bummer. Try to rest. Don’t let me keep you up. 49.
GONZO shuffles back into the bathroom. DUKE wedges a chair up against the bathroom doorknob and puts the mace can next to the clock.
DUKE turns on the TV. WHITE NOISE FILLS THE ROOM. He collapses onto the sofa and lights up his lightbulb as pipe.
DUKE (V/O) Ignore the nightmare in the bathroom. Just another ugly refugee from the Love Generation.
The WHITE NOISE snow storm on the TV is reflected in his face. The camera pulls back revealing THE ENTIRE WALL BEHIND HIM TO BE SWIRLING WITH THE FIZZING SNOWSTORM PATTERN.
DUKE (V/O) My attorney had never been able to accept the notion — often espoused by former drug abusers — that you can get a lot higher without drugs than with them. And neither have I, for that matter.
The pattern on the wall changes to A 60’S VISCOUS OIL LIGHTSHOW PATTERN. With DUKE still sitting in the foreground, the projected image widens to reveal the interior of A HAIGHT ASHBURY DANCE HALL full of DANCING PROTO-HIPPIES.
INT. MATRIX CLUB – NIGHT
A slightly YOUNGER DUKE moves through the throng. All the action is in a DREAMLIKE SLOW-MOTION.
DUKE (V/O) I recall one night in the Matrix. There I was — a victim of the Drug Explosion. A natural street freak, just eating whatever came by.
A ROAD-PERSON with a big pack on his back is shouting. The sound of his voice, like his movements, is in slow-motion.
ROAD-PERSON Anybody want some L…S…D…? I got all the makin’s right here. All I need is a place to cook.
The camera pushes right into the ROAD-PERSON’s mouth.
INT. MATRIX MEN’S ROOM – NIGHT
Still in slow motion, the YOUNGER DUKE is trying to eat a HUGE SPANSULE OF ACID. With difficulty. 50.
DUKE (V/O) I decided to eat only half at first. Good thinking. But I spilled the rest on the sleeve of my red Pendleton shirt.
DUKE stares at his sleeve, uncertain what to do. C/U of the door to the men’s room as a MUSICIAN enters speaking in slow-motion.
MUSICIAN What’s the trouble?
DUKE (also in slow-motion) Well, all this white stuff on my sleeve is LSD.
The MUSICIAN approaches and looks down at DUKE’S arm. A long pause.
Cut back to tight shot of door as it opens and a very clean-
cut, PREPPY, STOCKBROKER TYPE enters. He freezes in horror. We cut to his POV. DUKE is standing in the middle of the men’s room with the MUSICIAN hunkered down at his side… sucking on his sleeve. A very gross tableau. The STOCKBROKER slowly eases out of the room.
DUKE (V/O) With a bit of luck his life was ruined — forever thinking that just behind some narrow door in all his favorite bars, men in red Pendleton shirts are getting incredible kicks from things he’ll never know.
INT. A BAR – YEARS LATER – NIGHT
The STOCKBROKER LOOKING CONSIDERABLY OLDER sits looking lost, confused, a nervous wreck. The image flares out in a TV white noise snowstorm.
INT. MINT HOTEL SUITE – NIGHT
DUKE sits staring at the TV. 51.
DUKE (V/O) Strange memories on this nervous night in Las Vegas. (he gets up, pours himself a drink) Has it been five years? Six? It seems like a lifetime — the kind of peak that never comes again. San Francisco in the middle sixties was a very special time and place to be a part of. But no explanation, no mix of words or music or memories can touch that sense of knowing that you were there and alive in that corner of time and the world. Whatever it meant.
DUKE throws open the curtains. Light streams in.
EXT. 1965 STOCK FOOTAGE
We are in SAN FRANCISCO. IMAGES OF THE TIME FLOOD IN.
DUKE (V/O) THERE WAS MADNESS IN ANY DIRECTION, AT ANY HOUR… YOU COULD STRIKE SPARKS ANYWHERE. THERE WAS A FANTASTIC UNIVERSAL SENSE THAT WHATEVER WE WERE DOING WAS RIGHT, THAT WE WERE WINNING. AND THAT, I THINK, WAS THE HANDLE — THAT SENSE OF INEVITABLE VICTORY OVER THE FORCES OF OLD AND EVIL. NOT IN ANY MEAN OR MILITARY SENSE; WE DIDN’T NEED THAT. OUR ENERGY WOULD SIMPLY prevail. We had all the momentum; we were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave…
DUKE’S FACE IS SUFFUSED WITH A SADNESS AND SERENITY WE HAVE NEVER SEEN BEFORE.
DUKE (V/O) So now, less than five years later, you can go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look west, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high water mark — that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back. 52.
The memories dissolve into the night skyline of Vegas. Suddenly towering over the casinos is a 200 foot high Nazi shouting “WOODSTOCK ÜBER ALLES!”
INT. MINT HOTEL SUITE – NIGHT
DUKE closes the curtain. The room is in darkness again.
INT. MINT HOTEL SUITE – DAWN
A harsh door buzzer. DUKE jerks awake. Alone. Looking like shit. Around him is the wreckage of their stay.
DUKE (V/O) The decision to flee came suddenly. Or maybe not.
DUKE opens the door to a BELL BOY with a trolley load of fruit, drinks and flowers… and a smile.
BELL BOY Room service!
The BELL BOY wheels the trolley across the room — already stacked with EVEN MORE BOXES OF GOODIES.
DUKE (V/O) Maybe I’d planned it all along — subconsciously waiting for the right moment. The bill was a factor, I think. Because I had no money to pay for it.
DUKE slams the door — starts FRANTICALLY PACKING.
DUKE (V/O) Our room service tabs had been running somewhere between $29 and $36 per hour, for forty-eight consecutive hours. Incredible. How could it happen?
DUKE sees the DISCARDED WRAPPINGS OF EXPENSIVE, HAND TOOLED LUGGAGE. A sudden thought. He rushes to GONZO’s room — empty. His plastic briefcase remains on the bed…
DUKE (V/O) But by the time I asked this question, there was no one around to answer.
DUKE opens the briefcase — finds the .357 MAGNUM inside. 53.
DUKE (V/O) My attorney was gone. He must have sensed trouble.
QUICK CUT TO:
EXT. LAS VEGAS AIRPORT – DAY
GONZO WAVES GOODBYE as he boards an airplane with a set of brand-new fine cowhide luggage.
DUKE (V/O) Panic.
INT. CORRIDOR OUTSIDE HOTEL SUITE – DAY
DUKE emerges with his bag and Gonzo’s plastic briefcase — leaves the DO NOT DISTURB sign on the door — checks both ways, then hurries away down the corridor.
DUKE (V/O) It crept up my spine like first rising vibes of an acid frenzy. All these horrible realities began to dawn on me.
INT. MINT HOTEL ELEVATOR – DAY
An anxiety ridden DUKE watches the floor numbers as the elevator descends. He searches his pockets…
DUKE (V/O) Here I was, alone in Las Vegas, with this goddamned incredibly expensive car, completely twisted on drugs, no cash, no story for the magazine. And on top of everything else I had a gigantic goddamn hotel bill to deal with.
DUKE finds a last crumpled $5 bill.
The door opens. A SECURITY GUARD enters with an OLD LADY IN HANDCUFFS.
DUKE hides the bill — crams back into the corner. Doors close.
DUKE (V/O) I didn’t even know who had won the race. Maybe nobody. 54.
INT. MINT HOTEL LOBBY – DAY
DUKE hurries out of the elevator — eyes on a hovering MANAGER. Past the curious look of the reception CLERK.
DUKE (muttering to himself) How would Horatio Alger have handled this situation?
EXT. MINT HOTEL – DAY
Motoring, DUKE gives his $5 bill to the HOTEL FRONT DOORMAN with a smile. The DOORMAN blows a frantic whistle and waves at the CAR BOY.
DUKE (V/O) Stay calm. Stay calm. I’m a relatively respectable citizen — a multiple felon, perhaps, but certainly not dangerous.
