Read Online No Beast So Fierce by Edward Bunker - Free Book Online Page B

safe.”
    â€œIt means you want permission to be a pimp.”
    â€œNo! No! I just want you to understand that you can’t reduce persons to formulas.” I stopped to gather breath and select intelligible words from the bewildering thoughts rotating through my mind. “In essence, I’m asking you not to make this parole a leash that chokes me.”
    â€œIn essence, you want to do what you want to do, right?”
    My stomach sank. Rosenthal was unmoved. I’d tried. Rivulets of sweat trickled down my torso. An awful thought geysered up. What if Rosenthal was right? What if blindly following the rules was the path to happiness and inner peace? Could a person alone, even if certain, be right? Maybe Rosenthal had sight of me while I was blinding myself with words. To think thus was placing a foot over the abyss. I drew back to the firm ground of hidden indignation. I’d tried to be honest and the motherfucker wasn’t to be trusted. Now I’d use deceit.
    Rosenthal watched me, a Giaconda smile on his fat lips, eyes gleaming, jaws working the gum. “Let’s quit the bullshit and get down to cases,” he said. “I’m going to tell you what I expect of you.”
    I nodded acceptance.
    â€œI’m not putting you in a halfway house,” he said, “simply because they’re full. I think it’d be best, but I can’t do anything. You’ve got a narcotic history so I’m putting you on nalline testing. Here’s a form for you to sign.” He reached toward a drawer.
    â€œI haven’t taken a shot of heroin since I was nineteen.”
    â€œIf there is any history of narcotics of any kind—marijuana, pills, whatever, the subject goes on nalline testing.” He slid the form and a ballpoint pen across the table. The form declared that I volunteered to participate in the nalline antinarcotic testing program. I signed the form, but I seethed. He told me that I was to report to the nalline center between noon and six-thirty on Friday, and gave me a slip of paper with the address.
    â€œNow,” he said, “what about a job?”
    â€œI’m looking,” I said.
    â€œSomeone in authority where you work must be informed that you’re on parole.”
    The words make me sick to my stomach. I’d counted on being able to hide my past, be different by having others think me different. The enormity of the order stunned me. “How can I get a decent job under those circumstances?”
    â€œIt’s the rules. This is the day you start doing your parole.” He glanced at his wristwatch. “We have to break this off. I’m due in court this afternoon. When you find a place to live, leave the address with the girl outside.” Rosenthal reached for his coat and ushered me outside. On the way he told me why he was going to court. He’d gone to pick up a parolee who’d missed nalline testing. On the way to the nalline center the parolee had reached into his pocket and surrendered a ten-dollar balloon of heroin. It was sad, Rosenthal said, because the man had two prior narcotic convictions and would mandatorily not be eligible for parole for fifteen years. The man was forty-six years old now.
    I said nothing. I felt no sorrow for the man who’d played the fool so grossly. Nor was I angry at Rosenthal, who’d done precisely what I’d expected of him. He was more blind than me. I could see me through his eyes, but the empathy was unreciprocated. If I succeeded it would be in spite of him.
    On the sidewalk, I felt pressed down by the heat. I had to find a room and sleep. The pills were wearing off and the delayed exhaustion was doubly intense. And the weight of the parole was growing into an albatross around my neck. And I had to comply with it or go back to prison. “Bastard,” I muttered, “cocksuckin’, motherfuckin’, bastard.”

5
    I RENTED a room in a third-rate resident hotel