Free No Beast So Fierce by Edward Bunker Page B

psychological—the asking for work. No matter how often I told myself that uncounted millions of men had asked for work, it was new to me. Each office was frightening because it would expose the hollow desperation of need. I was, beneath whatever exterior I displayed, begging for a job. Only the trickle of money from my pocket—a dollar for lunch, two dollars for a second shirt, forty cents for carfare—kept me going, for I was terrified of going broke, of what I would do. I resented being thus driven, and perhaps it showed. I was ashamed of having to tell each prospective employer that I was an ex-convict, and perhaps I hid that shame with a note of defiance.
    For three days I searched downtown, limping, full of self-doubt, torn from every personal tie that had ever bound me, trying to find the bedrock on which to commence building a new life. As the nickels and dimes trickled away, I felt the inexorable pressure of time. Nowhere could I find work. Being an ex-convict eliminated job after job, even menial ones such as delivery driver and janitor, because those jobs offered a chance to steal something, and nobody wanted to risk giving me that chance. I sat in stifling offices and air-conditioned offices, filled out forms, left my address. A giant insurance company gave competitive examinations. Knowing it was useless, nevertheless I took the examination and passed with the highest score in a group of thirty applicants. But when I told the interviewer that I’d been in prison, he said frankly that no company would bond me, and the job required bonding.
    Back to the hot sidewalks and cramped buses—and to the crummy furnished room to count the dollars that remained.
    Rosenthal came by on the third evening. He disliked the hotel’s location: the neighborhood “smelled” of heroin. I wanted to talk to him about a job, ask him to let me be quiet about my record, but he was concerned only that I would appear at the nalline testing center on Friday.
    Finally, a corporation that had a string of parking lots said they’d give me a job (the personnel manager had served time), but I would have to wait a month until they opened a new location. I was down to thirty-three dollars.
    The temporary office help agency was on Wilshire Boulevard, on the eleventh floor of a blue skyscraper. It was the lunch hour and nobody was visible except a young woman at a rear desk. She flashed an impersonal, business smile and came forward to meet me. She was in her mid-twenties, and though not naturally pretty made excellent use of makeup. She had nice legs. They showed advantageously in a high, tight skirt. She made me ill at ease. After so long in an all masculine world, a sexually attractive woman made me nervous.
    Efficiency personified, she ascertained my purpose, found that I could type, and had me at a typewriter for a test. She set a timer and went back to her desk. I pressed too hard for typing speed, made errors, cursed myself. The skill had served me well in prison, for I’d supplied my need for toiletries, coffee, and tobacco by typing football pools, petitions for habeas corpus, and letters for other convicts. Now I was doing less than my best work, yet reached the last line when the timer sounded. The girl came over, checked the copy and commented that I’d done very well. She was explaining that it would be easier to keep me working if I had other skills or would take other work. I only half listened. My jaws were tight. I felt shame for having a skill so trivial that thousands of halfwitted stenographers could do it.
    She gave me an application form. Irritation smoldered as I filled it out. Where questions were asked about past work experience, I left the spaces blank. When I returned the form, a frown marred her smooth forehead. “There’s something you left out,” she said. “Where you worked.”
    â€œI haven’t worked.”
    â€œWell, if you were self-employed, or in