Rebel Without a Cause (15 page)

I find that when I wear shorts in bed I dream more often of women. When I don’t wear any it’s hard to have a discharge; the reason is that there is no irritation.

I can’t understand how it was that I thought of the symbols, the two pillars and the arch and the table directly underneath the arch.

I can remember that the plate was dirty, but I don’t remember if there were any knives or forks or spoons or cups, the people at the table, who they were. There were a lot of other tables around and every one seemed to be filled. I remember we had beans; I don’t know what kind. The plate was dirty, sauce all over it.

I’ll take steak anytime rather than beans. Can’t see any connection there. I remember hollering at Lt. K—— that I wanted something to eat and he looked at me out of the corner of his eye and smiled.

I don’t even remember if the tables were in line or how many people were sitting at each table. Lt. K—— was standing directly across the table from me, right under the arch. It seemed to me I was sitting at the second table from the end, at the center of the table. I wonder if that could have any bearing on the sex act? I remember the scar on the lieutenant’s face distinctly. It seems to me that there were nine or ten other fellows at the table with me, and I remember there were fellows across the table from me. I don’t know who they were and I can’t place them. It struck me funny at the time because I knew that the tables didn’t face that way, they face toward the arches, lengthwise, and no officer stands that way, leaning against a pillar. Why, any of the arches, the pillars and the arches in the entire institution, anywhere, might resemble a vagina. I don’t know what made me think about that. Perhaps my going through the door, the grille, walking up to the education section might mean the same thing!

I don’t remember who was sitting at the table with me. If I could only think! But all the fellows looked the same to me, their clothes were the same, their faces the same; the only thing about them was their hair. Their hair was either black or white. Perry’s is black;
Yuggie’s is white; Mike’s is white, Don’s is white. Perry is the only one who has brown, black hair; the others are all white or blond or grey.

Dobriski is the best friend I have here, but there is nothing between us. The most is that sometimes he puts his arm around my shoulder or I put my arm around him. He is really a fine fellow, only kind of dumb. He’s just like a brother to me. I used to argue with him but even though I felt like hitting him a couple of times we never had a fight. Sometimes we’ll get mad at each other and won’t speak for weeks, maybe a month. We’ve been good friends for about three years and I think we will be good friends for ten or fifteen years to come. We don’t argue like we used to; I guess we are getting older. He’s about two or three years older than I am and he looks out for me. I don’t like some of the fellows he fools around with, and I tell him I don’t like them and to keep them away from me. He does. Now I see him occasionally in the mess hall and I wave to him. One time he was sitting at the moving pictures with some Swedish kid and they were holding hands. It made me so mad I didn’t speak to him for two weeks. I hated to see him get mixed up with anybody like that, but I guess he can take care of himself. He’s interested in putting up money and getting out a ‘lovelorn’ magazine when he gets out, so I gave him a few ideas how to get people to subscribe to his magazine, how to get a big list of names. He seems positive about going straight when he gets out. He has been in the reformatory for about two years but he’s a quiet kind of a kid, doesn’t holler or shout when he talks, but he always spreads his hands all over the table.

Perry is a fine fellow. He’s a little crazy of course. He lives in my cell block and he doesn’t go out very much, stays in a lot. I seldom see him outside because he would rather stay in with his work and you can’t even drag him out with a team of horses. We have lots of fun converting a lot of fellows to any faith we want to, changing their minds to capitalism or socialism, lots of other things, just for fun, just to pass the meal away.

I have another friend, Carlson, and I sometimes see him on Sunday mornings. He is about thirty and his mother has been to see my mother a lot since I am here. I was around the ball-players a lot and I used to see him and Dobriski eating on Sunday evenings. Carlson always asks me if I want a steak or something. He’s a very radical fellow, a real radical, radical as hell. He’s against everything, the
New Deal, the country, the place, everything. He’s always got a joke up his sleeve he wants to tell. Sometimes when you talk to him he pretends he’s asleep. That way he lets you know he don’t care to listen to you. He’s a smart fellow, no getting around that, and he’s a chemist by trade. He gambled a lot and made a lot of money gambling and conniving, talking people out of things.

Carlson doesn’t like Perry. Dobriski is different: he seems to say, if he’s your friend he’s my friend too. I never heard him criticize Perry. If he ever wanted to criticize he’d keep it to himself. He’s the one fellow in the world who can get along with everybody, no matter who. I couldn’t listen to a lot of things people tell him, all of their troubles. He’s very anxious to start some business when he gets out and he offered me a partnership. He likes me a lot and he shows it. He’d kid me by saying my head was filled up, that my capacity to learn was too small, that I would have to stop. When he said that I didn’t like it and I got mad. I know he did it on purpose. I didn’t talk to him for three weeks until one Sunday morning he came over and sat down right next to me and put his arm around me. Perry didn’t like that. Something funny going on here, something wrong. I guess Perry is alright; he is what he is, but I don’t want to have anything to do with him that way. It isn’t right. I wouldn’t feel right. I don’t see why when the days are going by just fine, rolling along, why I should do anything like that to spoil it for myself. We’ve been friends for a year, more than that. Sometimes he gets those moods or spells. Most of the time he hasn’t any relations with anybody and spends his time with his books. Sometimes he wants me to go and check this or that in the library for him. I enjoy his company: I like to be friends with him. We’ve been friends for a long time and I don’t want to spoil it by doing something that isn’t right. It wouldn’t be right for me. A lot of people know that Perry is bi-sexual. I never did anything like that with him and I hope I never will. It doesn’t matter what they think of me, or what I think of them. Only what I think of myself.

When I get out maybe I’ll get married. Maybe and maybe not. I don’t think so. If I spend all my time with my work like I am doing now I don’t think I’ll get married …

Well, I had another dream last night. I dreamed that I was on my bed half-asleep, and somebody was pulling the covers over me, shaking
me I guess. That person was my mother. I got up and it was the same cell, the same cell I have now, everything was the same, only the blankets were different than we have here. So I got up in my cell and I got over to the wash-bowl and started washing myself, and I looked through the window in my door and right across the hall was Perry’s cell. His light was on and he was washing himself. That’s all I remember.

L: ‘Can you associate to any of the objects or people in your dream?’

I don’t know. Everything seemed the same in my cell as when I get up in the morning. The only thing is that Perry don’t live where I live and nobody wakes me up or shakes me like that. The only person that did that was my mother; many times my mother would wake me up like that in the morning at home. The blankets in the dream were like those at home, soft quilts. Everything was the same with the exception of the blankets and my mother shaking me. When I got up the cell was the same and through the window I saw the light in the cell right across from me and Perry was in that cell washing. I could see him combing his hair and wiping his face. I remember somebody waking me, nobody calling me but somebody shaking me. The person was my mother and then when I got up no one was there. There was nothing changed in the cell. I think I was sleeping in the same bed in my dream. The dream had only two persons. My mother and Perry.

My mother was always kind to me. O, she gave me a beating every once in a while, but that was alright. Sometimes when I asked her for money and she wouldn’t give it to me I would try to get on her nerves by walking up and down. She was always kind to me and my sister, like any mother would be. She always held up for my side when my father said something to me or when he talked to her about me.

Perry is a friend of mine, an acquaintance, that’s all. I probably will never see him again after I leave here. I know him for a long time but I never dreamed of him before. Our association has always been pleasant. O, he didn’t talk to me for a while because he doesn’t like some of the people I hang around with, but now I get along with him alright. I always used to get along with my mother too.

L: ‘Can you think of any connection between Perry and your mother?’

No, I can’t, but I don’t know. I like this fellow Dobriski very much. He reminds me of my mother, the wrinkles around his eyes
are just like my mother’s. He’s short but well-built, with broad shoulders. His hair isn’t like my mother’s but his eyes, the wrinkles around his eyes, remind me of my mother.

I don’t know the color of Perry’s eyes, but Perry’s hair is dark and the muscles on his arms are soft like my mothers’. Once in a while I have seen my mother look so downhearted and blue and sorrowful that I was sorry for her. When she looks at me that way it makes me want to cry. Perry is the same way; he looks so pitiful and helpless. My mother would tell me not to hang out with kids who got in trouble a lot. She wanted me to keep away from them. Perry is the same way; he always tells me to keep away from certain people, that I might get in trouble hanging around with them.

Many times I put my arms around my mother, always when I wanted to get some money out of her. I used to tell her how beautiful and young she looked. Finally she got wise to me and right away when I started doing that she knew I wanted something from her. But I never put my arms around Perry, not that I know of. Perry wants me to study harder and so does my mother. My mother is very religious and Perry isn’t. I don’t know what they like that would be in common. Perry hates coffee and my mother drinks a lot of it. My mother is mostly quiet but when my father argues with her sometimes she answers back, but not often. Mostly she’s quiet, what you would call the timid type. Perry doesn’t speak to anyone; he holds his head down most of the time. My mother reads a lot of books, mostly love stories. Perry reads books too but no love stories.

A lot of times I am half asleep when eating breakfast and Perry hits me in the ribs or punches me in the arm to wake me up. When he eats he holds his hands up by his face and mother does that occasionally too. She talked to me about biting my fingernails and Perry does the same thing.

My sister Marie doesn’t look like mother at all. She has brown hair, is quick-tempered and ready to get in a fight or argue all the time. My other sister has blond hair. My father has black hair; but he’s bald mostly.

Perry’s nose is almost the same as my mother’s, except my mother’s is broader I guess, and she is shorter and stouter. I used to see my mother look so pitiful and occasionally Perry looks the same way; he looks down to the ground, his face so long, looking so blue.

I guess Dobriski reminds me more of my mother than Perry. He’s
about the best friend I have in the world. We have been friends for three years now. He pulled me out of a lot of arguments. He’s never underhanded; never made any underhanded advances. The other day he motioned to me in the mess hall to come out and see him. He wanted to see me for something so I hurried up and went out. He told me he quit school because he had an argument with a teacher, and the only reason he wanted me to come out was that he wanted to look at me. We talked for about an hour.

I used to call him Gooch. Once I saw that name in a funny sheet so I put the name to him and he calls me the same thing. That’s kind of childish.

My mother used to like that Amy I went with in the country. She had black hair and eyes like Perry. They were very beautiful. My mother liked her very much, she wanted the affair to go further, I guess. This girl was religious and went to all the church activities. I guess that was one reason my mother liked her so much. I put my arm around her once but I never kissed or touched her …

During the last few days I have been having some trouble. Some of the fellows are talking. For instance, yesterday we were in the mess hall eating and a baseball player, a fellow by the name of O’Grady, he tells me I am losing weight. He insinuates by that kind of talk that between me and Perry there is something up, and all the people like that seem to believe like he does. My friends won’t believe it. So I had some arguments and finally when I cursed them out a bit they came around and saw my point.

Perry was in one of his moods today. When he is in one of those moods he doesn’t speak very much: when he is in those thoughts he is moody, downhearted, kind of pitiable. He don’t pay attention to anybody, like as if he was in a daze. Yesterday morning he didn’t seem very cheerful, in the evening he laughed and smiled a little, today he was very bad.

Every time O’Grady sees me he makes some nasty remark, the kind of remark I don’t think he should make. My friend Dobriski gets in a lot of arguments like that too. When he did and I was around I’d talk to him and calm him down, kind of twist it around and get him out of it. He likes to talk about baseball. I keep quiet
because I don’t like this talk about baseball all the time: it gets monotonous. They talk and they talk and every second word is some cuss word to describe themselves or some other fellow.…