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times before finally being elected in 1986. After one short year in office,a recall effort was under way. An archconservative with megalomaniacal tendencies, he had canceled Martin Luther King Day, defended the use of the word pickaninny, along with other racist slurs, and had declared the editor of the Phoenix Gazette, John Kolbe, a nonperson.
    Mecham’s whacko, loose-cannon style had cost the state of Arizona plenty of money, which was a matter that even those who could have forgiven those other little missteps couldn’t ignore. Some estimates claim that his behavior cost the state as much as five hundred million dollars, including two hundred million in revenues when the NFL decided to pull the Super Bowl out of Phoenix. A recall petition was circulated garnering twice the necessary number of signatures. An election was scheduled, but before it could be held, impeachment proceedings were begun. Mecham was accused of concealing $350,000 in campaign contributions, and misusing state funds with an $80,000 state loan to Mecham Pontiac, a dealership owned by you know who. It was a made-for–Hunter Thompson kind of story.
    When Hunter arrived in Phoenix he immediately called Maria, and she refused to see him. There was nothing left for him to do but invite me and a couple of other Aspen guys to join him for a few rounds of golf. When I got to his room at a Scottsdale resort, he had rearranged it, tearing off some wainscoting in an effort to find a receptacle that would accept the plug of his IBM Selectric typewriter. He had just ordered $160 worth of shrimp cocktails and two bottles of champagne, two bottles of Chivas, and two cases of beer. The place looked like a landfill. In one corner of the mess was his golf bag. He didn’t have a traveling case for the bag, so he’d wrapped the top with two blankets and used about a roll of duct tape to keep the clubs in the bag. His rental car—a convertible, of course—had been delivered butnot released to him because his driver’s license had expired.
    While Maria boycotted his visit to Arizona, her brother, Bobby, who didn’t share the Khan loathing for Hunter, responded to an invitation. When he came into the hotel room, Bobby said hello as Hunter was untaping his golf bag. Hunter opened a zippered pouch, pulled out a nine-millimeter semiautomatic pistol, and flipped it across the room to Bobby. Bobby fielded it, and Hunter said, “Nice catch,” adding, “That’s the best way to get a gun on an airplane.”
    When the phone rang, Hunter asked me to answer. It was Willie Hearst, Hunter’s editor at the Examiner . I had often run interference for Hunter with Hearst, especially in reference to deadlines. This time he was questioning the room service charges, the still-parked rental car, and the lack of reports on the impeachment. I told Hearst that Hunter had taken a cab to the hearings venue and that I would tell him to call the Examiner on his return. I lied.
    Hunter eventually submitted his coverage of one of the juiciest political scandals in recent memory without ever leaving the hotel. Another in a long list of hotel rooms was utterly destroyed. Maria didn’t visit, and we never got Hunter to the golf course.
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    A few months later, Hunter used his wiles to convince Maria to come back to Colorado for a long weekend to attend his son Juan’s graduation, summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa, from the University of Colorado. This was the only sort of bait that could work on Maria. Juan was a huge source of pride for Hunter, his ex-wife Sandy, Juan’s mother, and everyone in their orbit. People were willing to accept the smallest scrap of credit for how well he had turned out, and did their best to conceal their amazement at his achievements. Juan hadn’t grown up in a normal household.
    Despite the unimaginable strangeness of being a child at Owl Farm, Juan was an excellent student from the get-go. He attended The