(Note: If you are not familiar with the article from which this piece draws inspiration, Hunter S. Thompson’s “The Kentucky Derby is Decadent and Depraved,” you absolutely should be. Also, this piece, umm...contains language.)

F. O. B.

I got off the S. S. Anne already weary and exhausted, entirely ill-prepared to begin my journey. The air in Vermillion stank of ozone and animal feces -- I had been told that the gym leader and de facto mayor of this frighteningly manic settlement was a bit of a barmy fellow. Apparently he couldn’t be bothered to find someone to shovel Raichu shit off the sidewalks.

I didn't exactly relish the thought of meeting with him the next morning. But I had a story to write -- my job was to find the mysterious Pokémon trainer Red and find out what he’d been up to since slipping into obscurity after his defeat of the Elite Four.

My quarry.

There didn’t appear to be much to this seaside town other than the obligatory Hospital and Gym, so it took me a mile or two of weary trudging before I found an inn. I was exhausted -- I refused to let the Machokes from that rusty oil barrel of a ship carry my bags. They were too human -- they just plain creeped me out. Fortuitously enough, this inn prohibited the battling of Pokémon, so it seemed that for the first time in a little under a week I might get my full eight hours.

As I was a child of the metropolis, the creatures the demented inhabitants of this faraway land call “Pokémon” were not unknown to me, at least in the intellectual sense. And so it was that along with my boarding pass for the ship I was handed a shiny red and white sphere. I was not exactly excited to be in close proximity to one of these beings -- I tried to imagine what being trapped in some sort of trans-dimensional ball for indefinite periods of time might do to my psyche, and I found myself too terrified to release him from his prison.

I clipped the ball to my belt and didn’t think much of it for the first few days of my cruise. Thoughts of a looming deadline dominated my mind -- my fat editor’s brow furrowing, beads of sweat hitting the polished mahogany of his desk as he railed at me about my penchant for submitting material just in time to get printed but not early enough to be edited, and how my receipts from Kanto had better not come back with exorbitant bar tabs or rental car insurance claims. I hated him.

Would you let this thing carry your luggage?

All of this ran through my mind as I tried to fall asleep, but the bugger in the room next to mine evidently couldn’t get his small turtle-slave back into its ball. As much as I wanted to sleep, I found myself rooting for the little blue bastard. The sun was already coming up before that misbegotten creation stopped repeating its own name, ad nauseum. I thought about trudging over there, kicking the door in, and seeing just what the creature in my charge was capable of, but I decided against it. This was going to be a long assignment.

Tracking down my quarry

Getting into the gym was absolute hell. Just inside the door I noticed some hippie wearing a kimono and sunglasses. He was leaning against a statue of some unrecognizable creature, and judging by his slow back-and-forth sway, I had pegged him as someone nursing a massive whiskey hangover. That was, at least, until he saw me. The speed and psychosis with which he honed in on my presence and closed the distance between us made everything clear: He was clearly tweaking on something.

Get that hippie freak away from me!

“Hey! You! Champ in the making! What are you doing in here?” I knew that I had to handle this delicately. There was no telling if some improper breach of etiquette might set this man off on a bloody rampage.

“I’m, uhh…here to see the gym leader.”

“Are you a trainer?”

“No, I’m a journalist.” The man’s brow rose impossibly high at my admission. Clearly he wasn’t buying it. This was unfortunate for me, as I was anything but a liar.

“Journalist? Then what’s that ball on your belt, huh?”

“My editor gave it to me. Said I might need it.”

“Well, he was right!” He looked me up and down disapprovingly. “What sort of rag do you work for?”

I fixed him with my worst look of disapproval. “Pokémon Playmates.”

“Hah! Very funny.”

“Look. My editor is a personal friend of Lt. Surge. They fought in the war together. I’ve got an 8:00 appointment with the old bastard, and I’m not going to be late!”

“Fine. But no funny business. Follow me.”

(continued on page 2)