No Beast So Fierce by Edward Bunker

day.
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    As Willy drove toward El Monte my mood vacillated between exhilaration and depression. It was a joy to ride through the night and look up at stars thrown like powder across black velvet. Yet I was enmeshed with the same kinds of persons, the same sordidness, that accompanied all the wasted years. Willy and Red were friends—but their lives were so circumscribed, so hopeless. Entwined, such people trap each other. I wanted to break clear, find other kinds of persons and another life. Yet I’d called Willy. It had been my free choice against the alternatives of the halfway house or wandering alone my first night of freedom. I felt no wrong in making the choice under the circumstances—what was wrong was the circumstances. I hoped I’d meet other kinds of persons I could like where I worked—wherever that was going to be.
    â€œAre we going to your pad?” I asked.
    â€œWe could, but Selma’s gonna be in my ass for being gone so long. I’ve gotta go to work in about three or four hours. I missed two days last week she doesn’t know about. They’re gonna fire me if I miss another one.”
    â€œWhat kind of parole officer have you got?”
    â€œA hope-to-die asshole. Man, he’s so square—one of those educated fools. Got book learnin’ up the ass, but doesn’t know a fuckin’ thing about life or people. He’s one of those guys that lived in a neat white house with a picket fence and pretty lawn and went to Sunday school every day until he was sixteen. He never stole anything in his life—never had to steal anything. Him and his wife both teach Sunday school. I know he doesn’t give her any head … probably didn’t ball the broad until they were married. He acts like his job is some kind of missionary among the heathen parolees.”
    The crude description was funny in a way, yet Willy’s difficulties were vivid. There’d be no communication between someone like Willy and the personality he described.
    â€œHe should be happy you’re not hooked and stealing,” I said.
    â€œHe wants everyone to be like him. People are different. I know that, and I’m just an illiterate dope fiend. I’ll show you what an asshole he is. If he knew I was driving a car he’d throw me in jail and write a report to the parole board. He’d feel bad, but to him it would be his responsibility. Can’t he understand that being without a car in L.A. is like being in Death Valley without water? It’d take me four hours to ride a bus to work.”
    Willy went on to recount how he’d already lost two jobs because the parole officer had told the employers that Willy was a felonaddict on parole. The regulations required an employer knowing, but not many parole officers pushed it. A man running a business wasn’t interested in ex-convict problems; he was more worried about something being stolen. So Willy was fired after a couple weeks, the employer giving some lame excuse and the parole officer never realizing the truth of what had happened.
    â€œHow’re you getting along with Selma?”
    â€œIt was pretty shaky when I got out. I didn’t go with her right away. You saw the new baby, huh?”
    â€œHers—but not yours?”
    â€œRight. I was down two years. I didn’t expect her to watch television. Shit, I didn’t even leave the television. I sold it and shot up the bread the month before I got busted. But a baby! It’s so stupid. Nobody has unplanned babies anymore, not with pills and shit. Even an abortion. And she didn’t even tell me until I was ready to get out. The baby was four months old. Right then I didn’t want to see her anymore, and when I got out I stayed at Mary’s for a week until I got a paycheck. Joe was already busted. Anyway, Selma came over, one thing led to another, and we made up. Who am I to throw rocks at anybody?