Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: Part 1, Chapter 1 Summary & Analysis

Journalist Raoul Duke and his attorney, Dr. Gonzo, are near Barstow on their way to Las Vegas “when the drugs begin to take hold.” Bats “swoop” and “screech” above Duke’s head but Gonzo doesn’t appear to notice. “It’s your turn to drive,” Duke says as he pulls the Great Red Shark, a large red Chevy convertible, to the side of the road. They are still over a hundred miles from Vegas, but they must get there by four o’clock for press registration to cover the “fabulous Mint 400.” As a “professional journalist,” Duke has an “obligation to cover the story, for good or ill.”

A “fashionable sporting magazine in New York” has already reserved Duke a hotel room in Vegas and rented him the Great Red Shark. They have also advanced him $300, most which he has spent on a bag of “extremely dangerous drugs,” including “two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a salt shaker half full of cocaine, and a whole galaxy of multi-colored uppers, downers, screamers, [and] laughers.” Duke and Gonzo also have beer and liquor, in addition to a “pint of raw ether and two dozen amyls.”

“Not that we needed all that for the trip,” Duke says, “but once you get locked into a serious drug collection, the tendency is to push it as far as you can.” Duke is only “really worried” about the ether. “There is nothing in the world more helpless and irresponsible and depraved than a man in the depths of an ether binge,” he claims. They have taken a little bit of all the drugs so far, except the ether, and now it is time to get into that too. The next one hundred miles will be “a horrible, slobbering sort of spastic stupor.”

Dr. Gonzo notices a hitchhiker. “Let’s give this boy a lift,” he says as he pulls over. The hitchhiker, a “poor Okie kid,” runs to the Great Red Shark smiling—he’s never been in a convertible before. The kid jumps in and they take off down the road. “How long can we maintain?” Duke wonders in a panic. The hitchhiker is sure to realize that they are high on drugs. “This same lonely desert was the last known home of the Manson family,” Duke thinks. “Will he make that grim connection when my attorney starts screaming about bats and huge manta rays coming down on the car?”

“If so—well, we’ll just have to cut [the hitchhiker’s] head off and bury him somewhere,” Duke says. “Jesus! Did I say that?” he wonders. “Or just think it? Was I talking? Did they hear me?” Duke quickly decides to “explain things” so the hitchhiker will “rest easy.” Duke smiles at him. “There’s one thing you should probably understand,” Duke says. He tells the hitchhiker that they are on their way to Las Vegas to find the American Dream. “That’s why we rented this car,” Duke says of the Great Red Shark. “It is the only way to do it. Can you grasp that?”

Duke explains to the hitchhiker that Dr. Gonzo is his attorney. “He’s not just some dingbat I found on the Strip,” Duke says, noting that Gonzo doesn’t look anything like him. “That’s because he’s a foreigner,” Duke confirms, describing Gonzo as Samoan. “In spite of his race, this man is extremely valuable to me,” he claims. Just the day before, Duke and Gonzo were sitting in the Polo Lounge at the Beverly Hills Hotel when the magazine called and assigned Duke the story in Las Vegas. He was told to go to Vegas immediately and meet Lacerda, a Portuguese photographer, for the Mint 400, “the richest off-the-road race for motorcycles and dune-buggies in the history of organized sport.” After the phone call, Gonzo informed Duke that he would be going with him. “You’re going to need plenty of legal advice before this thing is over,” he said.