Oldcastle Books. - No Beast So Fierce

No Beast So Fierce

Edward Bunker

A MysteriousPress.com

Open Road Integrated Media ebook

To Louise Fazenda Wallis,

who gave an eighteen-year-old convict,

a typewriter and friendship

No beast so fierce but knows some touch of pity

Richard III, Act 1, Scene 2

Part One

In every cry of every man

In every infants cry of fear,

In every voice, in every ban,

The mind forgd manacles I hear.

William Blake

I SAT on the lidless toilet at the rear of the cell, shining the hideous, bulb-toed shoes that were issued to those being released. Through my mind ran an exultant chant, Ill be a free man in the morning. But for all the exultation, the joy of leaving after eight calendars in prison was not unalloyed. My goal in buffing the ugly shoes was not so much to improve their appearance as to relieve tension. I was more nervous in facing release on parole than I had been on entering so long ago. It helped slightly to know that such apprehensiveness was common, though often denied, by men to whom the world outside was increasingly vague as the years passed away. Enough years in prison and a man would be as ill-equipped to handle the demands of freedom as a Trappist monk thrown into the maelstrom of New York City. At least the monk would have his faith to sustain him, while the former prisoner would possess memory of previous failure, of prisonand the incandescent awareness of being an ex-convict, a social outcast.

I finished with the shoes, set them beneath the bunk and stood up. The cell was small, less than five feet wide. The bunk occupied so much space that my shoulder brushed against the wall as I passed by the bunk toward the front. How many hours had I spent in this cell? From four in the afternoon until seven in the morning, for eight long years. It was beyond computing in my mind. Now the cell was especially barren. Id given away my small collection of books, the braided throw rug, the soap, shaving cream and toothpasteeverything. Aw fuck it, I muttered meaninglessly, without object in mind. I looked out through the barsthirteen of them, set so close together that only a hand and wrist would pass through. Around this cell were five hundred others, most of them containing two prisoners (Id angled a single cell after five years) locked down for the night. A typewriter clattered nearby: a letter home or a petition for habeas corpus. Live steam in a pipe thunked and clanked. But the loudest sound was several convicts entertaining themselves with a game of the dozens. It had been going on for half an hour but only now caught my attention.

Say, motherfucker! one called.

What the fuck do you want, asshole?

Theres a flick of your mama in todays Chronicle.

I didnt know you read the society page.

Its in the sports section. Shes wearin boxin gloves and a headguard, gonna fight Liston for the title. She wrote a poem, too. Wanna dig it?

Fuck your mother, punk!

Man, cough up the poem, someone else yelled.

Here we go, the poet said. Im the Lady White Hope / My pussys so long I use it for a jump rope / Ill beat that spook into a fit / Ive got dynamite in my dukes and muscles in my shit / Ill wipe that chimp like a chump / When I finish with him, his face is gonna be one big bump / Im the Lady White Hope / Im so bad I wipe my ass on pictures of the pope. Hows that sound, brother? the poet finishedamid laughter.

Look, dick breath motherfucker. Get off my mamas back or Im gonna put your pedigree on the tier.

Im your daddy, punk.

My ass. Youre the result of a few drops of syphilis from a bulldogs dick rammed in your transvestite fathers ass. You shot shit out and hatched on a hot rock.

A Negro voice full of anger interrupted. You honkies better ease up on them spooks an things.

Id been expecting this response, and my stomach went tight though I was uninvolved and leaving in the morning.

Fuck you, nigger! someone else yelled.

Where you live an well see in the mawnin?

Yeah, honky redneck motherfucker! another Negro yelled. Whats your cell number?

The cell block was silent. Murders had come from less than this.

Its my room, for your information. And if youre inquiring about my address, my dear mother warned me against having anything to do with ghetto riff-raff.

The reply, so unusual for prison, brought a blast of laughterbut afterward there was silence except for the typewriters. The thoughtless, vulgar repartee could have ignited another prison race war. Thered been several during my stay, each resulting in several deaths and dozens of wounded. And there were no uninvolved inmates. Those who tried to stay uninvolved were the most likely to be ambushed; they made the best targets because they were unprepared. Itd be a bitch, I thought wryly, to have some dumb nigger run a shiv in me the morning Im blowing this jail.

Attention went out through the cell houses barred windows to where the prison property fell into San Francisco Bay. The banked floodlights illuminated everything except the black water. The massive concrete and steel buildings gleamed; so did the gun towers set in shallow water on stilts. Two miles away, across the black pond, were rolling hillsides. Only their lights, cast like handfuls of jewels on black velvet, suggested their outline. A highway curved along the base of the hillsides. Headlights and ruby taillights streamed endlessly. Further marking the highway was red, silver, green, blue neon. I didnt know what signs the neons represented, for Id only seen them in the distance. And when Id come to this cell the highway had been dark except for a handful of automobiles, and the hillsides had been empty. The landscape had changed. The question was, had the world changed too much for me? Had the mental and emotional tools necessary for life outsidedifferent tools than those necessary for life in prisongone rusty in eight years? Again I was back into my anxieties. The churning caused me to grab the cell bars and shake with all my strength. They gave not a millionth of an inch.

Leroy Robinson appeared on the tier outside, carrying a water bucket with a long spout that would go through the bars. The cells had only cold water. The inside of the bucket gave off steam. He caught me wrestling with the unyielding bars. Say, motherfucker, whatre you doin? Dynamic tension?

Im breakin out, damn fool. Cant you see! Leroy made me smile; he always made me smile, both through friendship and because he transmitted, perhaps by osmosis, his outlook of absurd humor. Leroy would make jokes on the way to the gas chamber. He used wit both to diminish confrontation with his own failures (he was a four-time loser) and to put the world in perspective.

I know what youre tryin break out from, he said. Youre up tight as a Thanksgiving turkey the second week in November. I brought you something for your nerves. He put the water bucket down and put his palm through the bars. Wrapped in the cellophane from a cigarette package were two yellow nembutals. They were worth a carton of cigarettes, a considerable sum when ten cartons could get someone stabbed, and twenty cartons would buy a killing.

I unwrapped the capsules and put them on the bunk while he poured hot water into a peanut butter jar and I mixed my last dab of instant coffee into it. The coffee washed down the pills.

Dont forget to call my sister and tell her Im okay.

Man, you ought to write yourself. She wants to hear from you.

Look, shes married; theyve got kids growing up in suburbia. They live in a different world.

I shook my head. Leroy pulled the walls around him like a cloak.