Thompson, Hunter S Read Free Page A

of identical pink and blue houses. There
     was a billboard at the entrance, announcing to all travelers that they were passing the El
     Jippo Urbanization. A few yards from the billboard was a tiny shack made of palm fronds
     and tin scraps, and beside it was a hand-painted sign saying “Coco Frio.” Inside, a boy of
     about thirteen leaned on his counter and stared out at the passing cars.
    Arriving half-drunk in a foreign place is hard on the nerves. You have a feeling that
     something is wrong, that you can't get a grip. I had this feeling, and when I got to the
     hotel I went straight to bed. It was four-thirty when I woke up, hungry and dirty and not
     at all sure where I was. I walked out on my balcony and stared down at the beach. Below
     me, a crowd of women, children and potbellied men were splashing around in the surf. To
     my right was another hotel, and then another, each with its own crowded beach.
    I took a shower, then went downstairs to the open-air lobby. The restaurant was closed,
     so I tried the bar. It showed every sign of having been flown down intact from a Catskill
     mountain resort I sat there for two hours, drinking, eating peanuts and staring out at the
     ocean. There were roughly a dozen people in the place. The men looked like sick Mexicans,
     with thin little mustaches and silk suits that glistened like plastic. Most of the women
     were Americans, a brittle-looking lot, none of them young, all wearing sleeveless
     cocktail dresses that fit like rubber sacks.
    I felt like something that had washed up on the beach. My wrinkled cord coat was five
     years old and frayed at the neck, my pants had no creases and, although it had never
     occurred to me to wear a tie, I was obviously out of place without one. Rather than seem
     like a pretender, I gave up on rum and ordered a beer. The bartender eyed me sullenly and
     I knew the reason why -- I was wearing nothing that glistened. No doubt it was the mark
     of a bad apple. In order to make a go of it here, I would have to get some dazzling
     clothes.
    At six-thirty I left the bar and walked outside. It was getting dark and the big Avenida
     looked cool and graceful. On the other side were homes that once looked out on the beach.
     Now they looked out on hotels and most of them had retreated behind tall hedges and walls
     that cut them off from the street. Here and there I could see a patio or a screen porch
     where people sat beneath fans and drank rum. Somewhere up the street I heard bells, the
     sleepy tinkling of Brahms' Lullaby.
    I walked a block or so, trying to get the feel of the place, and the bells kept coming
     closer. Soon an ice-cream truck appeared, moving slowly down the middle of the street. On
     its roof was a giant popsicle, flashing on and off with red neon explosions that lit up
     the whole area. From somewhere in its bowels came the clanging of Mr. Brahms' tune. As it
     passed me, the driver grinned happily and blew his horn.
    I immediately hailed a cab, telling the man to take me to the middle of town. Old San
     Juan is an island, connected to the mainland by several causeways. We crossed on the one
     that comes in from Condado. Dozens of Puerto Ricans stood along the rails, fishing in the
     shallow lagoon, and off to my right was a huge white shape beneath a neon sign that said
     Caribe Hilton. This, I knew, was the cornerstone of The Boom. Conrad had come in like
     Jesus and all the fish had followed. Before Hilton there was nothing; now the sky was the
     limit. We passed a deserted stadium and soon we were on a boulevard that ran along a
     cliff. On one side was the dark Atlantic, and, on the other, across the narrow city, were
     thousands of colored lights on cruise ships tied up at the waterfront. We turned off the
     boulevard and stopped at a place the driver said was Plaza Colon. The fare was a
     dollar-thirty and I gave him two bills.
    He looked at the money and shook his