No Beast So Fierce Read Online Free PDF Page A

hurried by me with destinations born of choice and linked with past choice. Everyone had somewhere to go, and they were happier in their invisible fetters than if confronted by freedom. I was dizzy and overawed and somewhat frightened.
    A neon forest was coming alive. The aureole of brilliance around each tube grew as it ate the night. Colors flashed spasms, bubbled illustrations, whorled and exploded, gleamed on the waxed metal of automobiles. I began walking toward the west simply because the brighter lights were there. I had to make some choice, some movement.
    â€œNow what the fuck should I do?” The question should have been absurd, for I’d been born less than two miles from where I stood, had lived my whole life (when free) in Los Angeles. Yet among the city’s millions I could think of nobody to telephone. Among the multitude were hundreds of criminals and ex-convicts whom I knew, who were more or less friends. They’d be in cocktail lounges on the Sunset Strip, or in dingy bars downtown, or beer joints and cantinas on the east side. They lived furtively, deliberately made themselves hard to find. A tour of the hangouts would put me in contact with a few. Through them I would find the others. In a few days I could be returned to the underworld milieu. It would be easy—and it was precisely what I wanted to avoid. Suddenly the neon burned my eyes; it was like the sensation on the bus except more intense. The crowd scurrying by might as well have been insects, so alien to them did I feel. I struggled for mental equilibrium.
    The odor of food and awareness of hunger brought me back to reality. A greasy hamburger in a crowded coffee shop tasted delicious after so many years in a place where Velveeta cheese was a delicacy. I was finishing a cup of coffee and studying people (men wore their hair longer now) when I flashed on who to telephone. Willy Darin, the dope fiend. He’d been on parole from the Narcotic Rehabilitation Center for two months, according to the grapevine. His father-in-law’s telephone number was in the directory, and someone there would know how to contact Willy.
    My hand sweated on the receiver. I knew the entire family and anticipated knowing whoever answered; but the man’s voice on the other end was unfamiliar.
    â€œIs this the Pavan residence?” I asked.
    â€œYeah. Who do you want?”
    â€œWho’s speaking?”
    â€œMan, you called here.”
    The game of mutual suspicions was ridiculous. “My name’s Max Dembo,” I said, “and …”
    â€œYou re jivin’!”
    â€œI’m not jiving.”
    â€œGoddamn, man! This is Willy. When did you raise?”
    â€œThis morning. Damn, brother, I didn’t recognize your voice. Say, I’m stranded out here in Hollywood. Have you got some wheels?”
    â€œYeah, sort of. It might get there. But it’ll be a while, say an hour. You’re lucky you caught me here. I just stopped on my way home from work. I’ve gotta go home and shower.”
    â€œHow’s Selma?”
    â€œSame old shit. We’ll cut it up when I get there. We’ll get loaded.”
    â€œNot on junk.”
    â€œSome pot or something.”
    â€œDon’t hang me up. You know how fuckin’ undependable you are.”
    â€œDon’t sweat it. Where’ll you be?”
    â€œHollywood and Vine. Where else, motherfucker?”
    â€œI’ll be there in an hour.”
    When I went outside to kill an hour wandering, the tumultuous uncertainties were gone. The ache of being alone was also gone. Prison atrophies many emotional needs, but it increases others, among them the need for companionship. The twenty-four-hour crowding grates the nerves, but insidiously it addicts.
    I walked the boulevard, window-shopped—and saw that my dressout suit, with cuffed and pleated trousers, was an anachronism. I loved clothes—perhaps through some insecurity—but forced