No Beast So Fierce Read Free Page A

ago, before the racial climate brought too many ugly stares from both black and white, we used to pace the length of the yard for an hour or two at least once a week. The walking habit had developed because if we remained in one place our friends would walk up and intrude in the conversation. The occasional serious conversations we shared—about books and their content—had had a salutary effect on me. Prison conversations usually concern murder, mayhem, homosexuality, gambling, narcotics, stool pigeons, cops, and escape. The all-purpose word is “motherfucker”, serving as noun, verb, adverb, and adjective—it’s meaning depending on context and intonation. Remove this word from the convict vocabulary and prisons will fall silent. Neither the vulgarity nor the topics offended me; they were too close to my own existence. But an unrelieved diet of them left me hungry for something different. Aaron’s intelligence stimulated me. In his eleven years of imprisonment he’d learned to speak Spanish, French, and Portuguese, had mastered computer programming and electronics, was a dental technician. His reading habits were less eclectic than mine, but he had a unique precision of mind.
    This was our first walk in six months. I’d backed away from him. He knew the reason and had said nothing. We’d never have become friends if the foundation hadn’t been placed before racial hate began erupting into wars. The atmosphere had changed in the last two years. The rifles kept things from erupting into wholesale massacre, but there were murderous skirmishes. If a black was stabbed by a white, whatever the reason, there would be retaliation: several blacks would suddenly rush down a tier and stab any white available. Whites would wait and reciprocate. Aaron viewed both sides as ignorant. This was not because he disclaimed his heritage or lacked pride—but he refused to make it a condition of shame or a rallying point of hatred. Quite simply, he found racists on either side to have unsustainable attitudes, lacking scientific foundation. And it was not white convicts who were the problem, assuming the blacks could change the world with violence. The blacks disliked him, too, because he disdained their ignorance. If they tried to force their opinions on him, he could make them back up, for his calm was not fear or passivity. He could be dangerous. He met every person as an individual, and no amount of ignorance could dissuade him. This view created an unusual situation. Many militant white racists treated him as a person first, his negritude being secondary. In other words they reacted to him as he reacted to himself.
    When I came to prison I had few prejudices, despite having been through racial gang fights in reform schools.
    Now I hate most blacks—because of their paranoia. Suspicion on their part may be justified, but paranoia is a disease. If they hate my whiteness, I hate their blackness. They hate whitey; they want revenge, not equality. They consider themselves unbound by white laws and moral codes. They pose a direct and immediate threat to me, and to meet it a loathing and hatred has grown—so when I look into their amber eyes glowing with hate, my blue eyes glow with a mirrored hate.
    I was ashamed of this attitude where Aaron was concerned, but the prison’s racial situation was something we seldom talked about, having agreed that there were no universally acceptable answers. But the situation had driven us apart—not our friendship—and so we talked infrequently. And this would be the last time.
    â€œI’ve only got a couple minutes,” I said. “You want me to help you escape from camp—if you go to camp.”
    â€œHere’s the situation, precisely. I’ve got eleven years served and I’ve been eligible for parole for four. I go to the board again next month. Yesterday I saw my counselor, and if the board denies me again he’s going