What is the Investigative Process?

As Recounted by Hunter S. Thompson

There we were jettisoned between a black staircase and a winding tawny brown bookshelf. Our minds twisting and turning in poetic form about some hooligan’s comments spoken to us a moment before as we waded through the turnstiles and boarded the subway train.

At first, I was drawn to his insatiable hunger for finding just the right tenor and frequency with which to construct his writerly voice. It was a very fashionable thing for Chet to write. He was a frenzied madman, hunting-and-pecking away at the keys at all hours of the night, thirsting for something stronger than unicorn blood, and sharper than the very needle that wove the fabric of the patchwork quilt of the American Dream--he was unlike other men of my ilk, writers who wanted fame, fortune, and most of all a fat paycheck in exchange for a byline.

Chet wanted to write for the pure sport of it, even forgoing credit, so that he could continue doing what he did best and still pay the rent, the taxman, and the mob--or, so it was rumored by derelicts that my bloodshot eyes couldn’t quite make out from across the hotel lobby. Know this: Chet was a purist, whose hunt for the right word was Safari all it’s own. It was like some bright magical, blinking Christmas bulb ornament, his words could illuminate even the most commercial and traditional of genres, and transcend what it meant to be a businessman or woman. He can move even the most routine, formulaic of writing into unknown echelons of fantasy and fun, like cards tucked up his shirt sleeve, just waiting for the right moment to bust out a pair of Aces and take the whole house pot for his own.