Rebel Without a Cause (44 page)

L: ‘You wanted her to like you more than your sisters?’

Yes. O, yes! My mother always was good to me. When I’d come home she’d come in the room where I was to see if everything was all right. Yes. I know my father would argue with her about me. When I’d hear it I’d say nothing about it. I’d just go away for a week or so. The last time I heard them arguing about me was before I got that stretch in the jail. I heard them arguing when I was coming up the stairs. I heard my father talking to my mother about me. I guess he was sore because I didn’t have no job and my mother was telling him to wait a while. He was saying that it was always the same thing, that I was never going to be any better. I turned around and went out and didn’t come back for a couple of days.

I very seldom used to see my father. I didn’t like to see him. My mother always made me go out. When he was coming in the front door I’d go out by the back. A lot of times she handed my coat out to me. Sometimes I’d stand out in the cold and shiver for quite a while, waiting for my coat or sweater. When I got them I’d go to a poolroom and sit around and wait. When I got home late at night he would be sleeping. My mother tried not to agitate him. After the last time I heard them arguing I decided to go away and so I left and stayed away for six months or more.

The last time I saw my father was in the Judge’s chambers. He wanted to shake hands with me. I didn’t want to shake hands with him. The marshals pushed me in there. When the Judge gave me all this time everything got blurry: I couldn’t say anything; I couldn’t
make him out. I know I was crying because I got so many years. I cried for about an hour and then it was all over. Then the Judge told the marshals to take me to his chambers to see my mother and father; he said my father wanted to shake hands with me. I didn’t want to go in so they started to turn me around. When I came in my mother started crying, so I put my arms around her. She fainted afterwards and they brought her to. I was in another room when she fainted. They took me away. I was crying then. I didn’t want to shake hands with my father. I don’t know whether I blamed him for being sent up or not. If I hadn’t heard him arguing with my mother; if he had helped me get a job somewhere …

I just feel bad today, I guess.

L: ‘Why do you feel that way?’

I don’t know. I used to feel like that occasionally on the outside. I know it’s just one of those days. I was like that yesterday. I was out in the yard and I had a box of matches in my hands. I tore the cover of it all to bits. Then I spoke to C—— and he said I was just jittery, nervous and jumpy. I’m not angry. I’m not really angry at anybody. I just don’t want to talk to anybody. When anybody talks to me I answer them. I just don’t want to talk to people first when I feel like this. I can’t explain that feeling; but the feeling is—well—it’s—I guess it’s a feeling of a longing for loneliness. But there is nothing really worrying me, nothing I can think of. I don’t worry about many things any more. I feel like laughing now. I can’t even read a newspaper. Nothing seems to interest me.

L: ‘What do you think would interest you?’

What would interest me? I don’t know; dreaming I guess.

L: ‘Dreaming about what?’

Riding upstream in a canoe, or something like that: dreaming about plans. I guess it doesn’t mean very much. On a day like this I like to be alone, away from everything and everybody. A long, long stream, and going upstream in a canoe that’s easy to paddle and would go fast. I get like that once in a while. I don’t think the treatment is the cause of that feeling. Some of my friends in here, when they talk about my treatment, they irritate me. I don’t like to talk about it to anybody. Last night a friend of mine was talking
about it. He was describing me to another friend of mine and he said I liked to be pushed around, I like to have somebody to look after me, to see that I do the things I should do, comb my hair and things like that. I didn’t like it. So, I don’t know … This morning I started typing one of my lessons and I made a lot of mistakes with the typewriter. I didn’t finish my lessons. I used to feel like this a long, long time ago, not just yesterday.

L: ‘Is this the first time you have felt like that since we began this work?’

No. The last time was Sunday night; but before that I just used to go outside and walk by myself, not talk to anybody. When somebody would say something to me I’d just say “sorry” and keep on going. No; this isn’t the first time. I want to get away from everything.

L: ‘What do you want to get away from now?’

I don’t know. I want to get this treatment over with fast, as fast as possible.

L: ‘Why?’

Well, I don’t know. I’m coming over here and it is doing me real good. My eyes are a hundred percent better, more efficient. They feel heavy and strong.

L: ‘Have you ever considered the possibility that you would really rather remain as you are, as you were before you undertook this work?’

That may be so. Sometimes it feels almost like going into something worse, knowing all this about myself. And a few friends of mine say to me that you are young, and you may do the wrong thing, you haven’t got enough experience, you may be hurting me instead of helping me. But I think you are all right, Doc. These friends, when they say something about my eyes I jump up and tell them I don’t want to talk about it. They think the treatment is getting on
my nerves. It’s hard for me to explain it. I think I’ve said everything. When I think back now I imagine some of the things were wrong, that I must have created them in my imagination. Maybe I don’t remember what I was doing when I was ten, or twelve, or five. It’s all strange, probably because I don’t know anything about it. I don’t even know what I’m saying now. I just like to get away from everything and not even listen to any noise, just listen to the birds flying by and have everything nice and quiet with a little bit of sunshine.

L: ‘Harold, do you remember when we were speaking some time ago of resistance?’

Maybe that’s it …

L: ‘You are sure you know what that means?’

I—I think—it means—a force—which creates a—feeling to—cover something up, to hide something, keeps you from—telling, holds you—back, separates me—us—from—what we want to find out.

L: ‘Now, Harold, I want to get back to the problem of why you stole?’

Why did I steal?

Well; I can’t tell you the reasons. I don’t know. When I was twelve, when I used to hang out with that gang of kids, we stole everything that wasn’t nailed down. I went to school, to St. A——’s School, and several of these fellows were in the same class with me and they lived in the same neighborhood. So I got into this gang. We were all the same age, most of us the same size too. I wasn’t smart; but when it came to seeing things about stealing, to planning things out and so on, I could do better than they could. We used to divide ourselves into three groups and we’d separate, here one section and there one section and so forth, and we’d steal everything that wasn’t nailed down. Then we’d bring the stuff to the clubhouse and if it was anything good we’d split it up. I guess I thought I was a pretty smart kid, not afraid of anything or anybody. I didn’t have very many companions before I started going with this gang. They all seemed like swell, very swell fellows to me. There was another fellow named Billie—I don’t know whether he or I was the leader—and most of the other kids looked up to us. When they’d steal something they’d show it to him or to me and we’d get together and decide what to do with it … batteries and car tires and everything like that. I guess I took a delight in having all these kids come to me and treat me like I was a father …

L: ‘What does that suggest to you, Harold?’

It would suggest—that because of my—relations at home with—my father and my mother, I would naturally look for something like that to—balance off my feelings.

L: ‘You’re beginning to see why you stole. Now carry your line of reasoning a little further.’

Well, I used to feel that I wanted to be with the gang because I wasn’t wanted at home by my father and mother.

L: ‘Why should you feel that you weren’t wanted by your mother?’

Well, because she was paying too much attention to my father. My father would work hard so when he came home he would be angry. He’d say that his back hurt and he’d tell my mother about it, and my mother, right away she would treat him like
I
wanted to be treated. I wanted her to pat me on the head too. Like the fellow was telling me last night; I wanted somebody to see that I do the things I ought to do … wash myself, comb my hair and things like that. I began to look into that yesterday after he said it to me. I tried to reason it out. It’s true. I always wanted my mother to … Maybe that’s the reason I like Perry. That’s a good one! He makes me wash myself more than two or three times a day. He sees that I keep clean, that I don’t sit around in dust and dirt and things like that. My mother used to see that I kept clean but sometimes she used to—well—she—when she’d tell me to do something she didn’t mean to tell
me
that because she wanted me to do it. For instance, sometimes she’d tell me to brush my teeth for the reason they were dirty. I guess she saw my teeth were dirty and she’d make me brush them; but she’d make anybody brush their teeth when they were dirty; not just like they were
my
teeth. She would treat my sisters and myself about the same when it came to something like that, keeping clean. When she said something to me like that it wasn’t emphasized for me as a particular individual.

L: ‘And you, of course, wanted to be treated individually and specially.’

I find that’s true, very true.

L: ‘So that now Perry is, for all practical purposes, playing the role that your mother played. And he is very well suited to that role, isn’t he?’

I guess he is. If my hair isn’t combed … He notices everything and he tells me about it and keeps on telling me and telling me about it until I correct it. These other fellows, Carlson and Dobriski, they
seem to me … If something is wrong with me, my hair all mussed up or my face dirty, they wouldn’t tell me about it. When I find out about it I get sore for their not telling me. Maybe they want me to become a bum like they are?

L: ‘So Perry is, in reality, a substitute for your mother?’

Yes …

L: ‘Then that is the real reason why you feel the way you do and that you don’t want relations with him?’

Yes! That’s it! That’s it!

L: ‘Are you sure you understand it?’

I do. I get along with Perry. I like him a lot. Some of my friends don’t like him. I tell them I can take care of myself; I know what I’m doing; but when I tell them that they only get madder. I guess I feel sorry for Perry. He hasn’t any friends, only me. Now, after what we just said, I know it’s more than just feeling sorry for him. At first I didn’t talk to him, but I did like him. Sometimes when my hair isn’t combed he tells me it looks like a mop. “If you had a wooden leg they could use you for a mop.” When I don’t shave for two or three days he won’t talk to me. “If you don’t shave you look like a bum.”

I guess Carlson is right. I want somebody to run after me, brush my hair and tell me what to do. Well, he said I was easily led. If I see him I’m going to ask him what he means by that. I guess he means that anybody could be friends with me easy. But he’s wrong: I really dislike to talk to people. When I’m talking with Perry or Carlson or Dobriski and they start talking about me I don’t like to talk about myself so I switch it away. I don’t like to talk about myself even with Dobriski …

L: ‘Do you recognize the fact that you actually dislike Dobriski? Has it ever occurred to you?’

O—I—I don’t … He’s o.k. He’s—a good kid. He’s supposed to be my—best friend, but I dislike him because he hangs around with people I dislike …

L: ‘Is that the only reason?’

I used to like him a lot. I used to like him very much. He used to be just like a brother to me. I guess when he went away from the cell-block where we were living and started to hang around with somebody else I started to dislike him then. I talk to him but when
I do I get mad right away and I want to fight him. I threatened him a lot of times already but it finally winds up that it doesn’t do any good. I never had a friend like he was to me at first. In the sunlight when I look at him his eyes are in a funny position. That’s a reason why I dislike him. He’s got a chin like my father too. Inside the building he’s got nice soft eyes but outside in the sunlight they look hard to me, cruel. I used to like him a lot, more than anybody else; but he is different from me. He picks on a lot of different people, the wrong kind of people, for friends. I know he dislikes Perry.

L: ‘Do you think perhaps you dislike him for that?’

Well, sometimes he appears to me just like my father. That’s the real reason, I guess. Sometimes he acts to me like my father. He curses Perry out when he is with me, calls him all kinds of names. He never does it in front of Perry though, and one thing I will say: he talks very nicely about Perry in front of anybody else. He wants me to do everything he enjoys doing. He has real wide shoulders, big arms and hands, big bones in his arms. Sometimes when he picks up his pants and sticks his chest way out he reminds me of my father. Every time I talk to him we get in an argument. Dobriski reminds me of my father in his attitude on people that have a knowledge on some subject too. He rationalizes his own lack of knowledge and he says they probably don’t have any idea of real life. It used to make me laugh. I know it just serves his inferiority feelings. I don’t like those friends of his. Sometimes he talks to me in Polish too, just like my father.