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19 American Revolver I knew a guy named Red from Concord who robbed whorehouses for a living. You couldn’t tell just looking at him: his time in San Quentin, his love of the stolen .44—he was good in bed, biceps hard & waxed from years of prison workout—a real American centerfire revolver— When I asked why he did it, he said: to see the look in their eyes. We took long walks on Stinson Beach, talked Social Science & World Geography— what he studied in prison, but his eyes most electric blue when he talked about the robberies: in Richmond, Martinez, Pittsburg, down Highway 4, when he’d yell: Give me all your money! & the hard girls in gauzy nighties & push-up bras squealed with fear, wooden doors slammed, & half-naked men did a jittery dance with their socks. Those nights he’d fuck me standing & yell: Give it to me!—the whites of his eyes glazed & gleaming, immersed in a maelstrom of peril & hot thrill, then he’d run to the waters within him, to that solitary jubilant lake of conquest. ...

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