Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: Part 2, Chapter 13 Summary & Analysis

Duke tries to play baccarat at Circus-Circus, but the bouncers kick him out. “You don’t belong here,” they say. “Where’s your friend?” Duke plays dumb. “The big spic,” the bouncer clarifies. “Look,” says Duke. “I’m a Doctor of Journalism. You’d never catch me hanging around this place with a goddamn spic.” The bouncers produce a photograph of Duke and Gonzo in the casino. “That’s not me,” Duke says. He tells the bouncers that the man is a writer for Rolling Stone named Thompson, “a really vicious, crazy kind of person,” and his companion is a “hit-man for the Mafia in Hollywood.” Duke quickly flashes a PBA badge. “Act natural,” he says quietly as he drives away.

Duke drives the White Whale back to the Flamingo to get his luggage, and then he heads to the airport. The convertible top on the car is stuck halfway up and there is “something wrong with the motor.” All of the dashboard lights have been lit up since Duke drove it “into Lake Mead on a water test,” and now it seems “that every circuit in the car is totally fucked.” He decides to try driving it anyway; if it won’t run, he’ll just “abandon it and call a cab.”

Duke arrives at the airport VIP parking lot and turns the White Whale over to a shocked parking attendant. “Don’t worry,” Duke says. “I’m insured.” He walks into the airport where he can hear the song “One Toke Over the Line” playing on a jukebox. The song begins to fry Duke’s nerves. The only song Duke can possibly “relate to” at this point is “Mister Tambourine Man” or “Memphis Blues Again.”

Duke checks all his bags except for his bag of drugs and the .357 Magnum. He looks around for metal detectors and doesn’t see any, so he decides to risk flying with the gun. Duke suddenly realizes that the entire airport is crawling with “pigs.” The police officers from the Drug Conference are heading back home to the Midwest. “Well, why not?” Duke says. “Every now and then you run up on one of those days” that are “a stone bummer from start to finish.”

Duke finds a morning newspaper and begins to read. He finds a story in which a Navy Captain had “fucked up very badly” and was “diced up like pineapple meat” along with five crewmen after a confrontation with the “Heroin Police” of Hong See. The Navy had no official comment pending the “top-level investigation” into the incident by “former New Orleans district attorney James Garrison.”

Duke throws down the paper. He doesn’t even want to read the news anymore if this is what it has to offer. “Agnew was right,” Duke says. “Journalism is not a profession or a trade. It is a cheap catch-all for fuckoffs and misfits—a false doorway to the backside of life, a filthy piss-ridden little hole nailed off by the building inspector […].”