Capturing the essence of Hunter S. Thompsons Gonzo style, short story Mescalito details his dark and miserably comic first mescaline drug trip. First published in Songs of the Doomed, Mescalito suggests the nascent ideas and energy of Thompsons seminal work on the 60s experience, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. "We live in a jungle of pending disasters, " the author warns. Alone in a hotel room in Los Angeles in February, 1969, Thompsons alter-ego Duke sustains a fever-pitched bout of paranoia so dark and depraved, it would make most mortals run fastand farfrom this kind of suicidal experimentation.