Read No Beast So Fierce for Free Online

become pregnant by Willy, married him, and escaped from one pit of misery to another. Willy became a junky, as had his brother, and Gino, and Joe Gambesi, and myself for a while.
    One other Pavan child, Georgie, was a shadow in the background. He still lived at home. He was severely retarded and nobody knew what went through his vacant mind. He’d been arrested just once—for being a peeping torn.
    A year before I went to prison the old man had bought a modern, ranch-style house on a large lot in El Monte, complete with orange trees in the back yard. Now, according to Selma, it was in the same condition as the house on Court Avenue. I wondered what the neighbors thought.
    And the house on Court Avenue was the only place I’d known to call. I wondered if it said something about me.
    â€œWant to stop and see Mary?” Willy asked as we neared El Monte.
    â€œTake us home first,” Selma said. “The boys haven’t eaten and I have a headache.”
    I silently approved. I wanted to talk to Willy alone, get loaded, and possibly find a woman.
    The Darin home was a tiny, cheap bungalow with a dirt driveway. It was on a semi-rural, semi-industrial road where the few ramshackle houses were separated by gravel pits and construction yards.
    We waited in the automobile until Selma and the boys were inside.
    â€œMary?” Willy asked, backing out.
    â€œI’d rather smoke some pot and rip off some cunt.”
    â€œPot is a cinch and I know a couple hustlin’ broads we can call. But that’ll take some bread.”
    â€œMy bankroll’s too light for buying pussy. Can I get some credit?”
    Willy laughed. “Man you know how dope fiend hookers are … 100 percent business.”
    â€œFuck it. How about you. Are you using stuff?”
    â€œI fix once a week, the day after nalline. They can’t test you two days in a row.”
    â€œYou’re working, too. Never thought I’d see it.”
    â€œIt’s a bitch, riveting aluminum walls on trailers eight fuckin’ hours a day.” Grinding monotony was hard on Willy, yet he had no ability to offer for other employment.
    â€œCan you get me a spot there?”
    â€œYou’re jiving. Man, I know you. You’re gonna rip off everything in town.”
    â€œNo, I’m hanging up the gloves. I’m going to get a job and settle down.” I wanted to explain more fully—and then saw how burlesque the situation was: a man explaining why he wasn’t going to be a criminal. Willy’s respect for me, however, was based on my being a criminal, on my ability to steal money, some of which trickled to him. He respected me as the jackal respects the Hon, and profited in the same way.
    In East Los Angeles he parked outside a cantina on a dark street of frame houses and machine shops. The rhythm of a mariachi issued from an unseen jukebox. He told me to wait in the car and was gone less than five minutes, returning to throw a small matchbox of marijuana in my lap. “It’s free,” he said. “The dude wants me to deal heroin for him. There’s a lot of dope fiends in El Monte.”
    â€œYeah, you’ll make a ten-dollar sale and get a ten-year sentence.”
    â€œYeah, the jivin’ motherfuckers give you more time for a cap of heroin than murder.”
    We stopped to buy two cans of beer and a package of cigarette papers; then parked under a street light and rolled the dark green flakes into half a dozen skinny cigarettes. We shared one, sucking the fumes deep, occasionally sipping beer. I’d smoked marijuana since my early teens—every day for a long time—but it came into prison so infrequently that this was like the first time, and I’ve always gotten higher than most persons from marijuana. It was always as if a partially opaque veil—the one of everyday reality—was lifted so I could see things more clearly: the same thing, but as it really was. Color