No Beast So Fierce by Edward Bunker Page B

the job started, wanted more details about Bulldog’s kid brother so I could gauge the danger line of involvement. But Abe was too busy on the telephone to stop for conversation, and I was drunk enough to sit contentedly resting my feet.
    Abe left to eat supper and change clothes for the evening’s business. I lied about having business elsewhere and departed. I was feeling good. Temptation would be around this atmosphere, but it was comfortable for me, and I would make the decisions concerning temptations. Rosenthal would never appreciate the irony of the situation: I was getting a job solely on the basis of criminal reputation.
    I got on the bus feeling satisfied.
    After taking a bath and shaving, I walked from the room to a hamburger stand around the corner. The dusk crowd was a hurrying jumble. The hamburger stand had a patio beside it with an aluminum awning overhead. I sat watching the rush of pedestrians.
    I was almost finished eating when a figure went by that I recognized. Augie Morales, reform school graduate, ex-convict, and childhood friend, was hurrying along the curb, passing pedestrians as if he was on the fast lane of the freeway. His clothes were rumpled, indicating his condition. Without thinking—and thought wouldn’t have made any difference—I hurried after him. I caught up when he stepped into the gutter, bent over, and vomited. Some pedestrians glanced over. None stopped or said anything. The vomiting, I knew immediately, came either from too much heroin or withdrawal from lack of it. On arrival, I saw it was withdrawal. Sweat dripped from his cheeks, his shirt had damp circles around the armpits, and his eyes were wide, the pupils filling the complete iris.
    I touched his arm and said his name. He jerked tense, like a cat at a loud sound. He nodded recognition without surprise or warmth. It was understandable considering the supreme agony of his condition.
    â€œYou don’t look good, brother,” I said. “Got a runny nose.”
    â€œI’m one sick dog.” He looked around at the traffic. “Got a car?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œLet’s keep moving. This neighborhood is full of narks.”
    â€œWhere you headed?”
    â€œThe nearest fuckin’ gas station to fix.”
    â€œYou got some ghow?”
    â€œTwo grams in my mouth.”
    â€œWhat about a ’fit?”
    â€œIn my ass.”
    â€œMy room’s around the corner. You can fix there.”
    I led the way, limping. Augie wanted to go faster. He was having stomach spasms every twenty feet. His habit was obviously big.
    I experienced a prickling of misgivings about my impulsive generosity. Offering my room was a fool’s move. We might be stopped and arrested, and I’d go back to prison simply for being with him, especially if he had fresh marks on his arms. I should have turned back when I saw him vomit. Yet I’d known him for twenty years—we’d met in juvenile hall. He was there for stealing bicycles. Once in reform school, when I’d been fighting a Mexican, he’d kept others from ganging me. We were friends in prison, too, not intimate, but enough so we nodded and spoke whenever we passed. It might have been a fool’s move to call him, but it would have been shameful to let a friend go by without speaking, or let him risk taking a fix in a gas station toilet.
    All Augie said during the walk was “hurry up”. A sick dope fiend has no thought beyond replacing misery with peace—or oblivion. Perhaps they are the same thing.
    I locked the door and pulled the dresser in front of it. Augie spat out two red balloons, each the size of a tiny marble, each tied in a knot with the end snipped. Without embarrassment, he went to a corner and unfastened his pants. Crouching down, he poked a finger up his ass and prodded out a small, feces-speckled package. He rinsed it in the sink, unwrapped it and spread the contents on the dresser: the dish of