Cell 2455, Death Row

by Caryl Chessman

All are human. All are capable of erring, of being both cruel and kind, of being just and unjust. Honest and dishonest.

  What makes one man a policeman, another a criminal?

  Is it not largely a matter of training and education—and even chance?

  Why does one man succeed and another fail?

  Because of character, you say. And I agree wholeheartedly. But what molds character or whence does it come?

  And what are the ingredients of character? Courage? Intelligence? Decency? Humanity? What more?

  Have you ever considered committing a crime? If so, why didn’t you?

  Why do you think the other man did?

  What do you really know about the crime problem? What do you really know about those who commit crimes?

  I expect one day soon to be marched into the execution chamber. When that happens, do you think it is possible the thought will occur to you that “There, but for the grace of God, go I!”

  Make no mistake. I don’t blame my plight on you or on society generally. I blame myself and I accept full responsibility for what has happened to me. I realize that what has happened to me probably never can and never will happen to you. And when I am dead I am perfectly willing that you say, “Well, he asked for it. He had plenty of warning, but he kept right on. He had only himself to blame.”

  So be it. I am prepared to accept both death and that convenient judgment.

  But first I shall try to make certain that you see through those fictions which surround the crime problem like a deadly fog. A problem cannot be solved until it is understood. I know there is no neat, formula solution to the crime problem. Still there is a solution, and half of it is recognizing the problem for what it is. The problem is one criminal multiplied by the total number of criminals. The problem is what that criminal does and, when and if it catches him, what society does about him. The problem is how he got that way in the first place. The problem is convincing him that it is in his best interests not to commit crimes, and this often entails equipping him to take a useful and productive place in his community.

  And thus viewed, the problem is Caryl Whittier Chessman. It is why Caryl Whittier Chessman. But it is more than a clinical, psycho-pathologically definitive, inanimate, out-of-context why. It is more than finding some way to hustle Caryl Whittier Chessman, the as-sertedly “dangerous psychopath,” into the gas chamber.

  It is why, dynamically, in terms of both society and Chessman. It isn’t a one-sided why.

  Of course, there is an anomaly here, but it is not a consequential one. Granted that it is hardly the normal thing for this particular kind of problem to be articulate, to be able to stand off and survey itself and society alike with critically objective detachment. But whether such detachment is normal or ordinarily encountered is irrelevant. Certainly it would be inexcusable to refuse to accept the fruits of that detachment if those fruits can help us solve the problem. I submit that I, better than anyone else, know what I have done, and that I have as well a functionally sound idea of the crucial why.

  That’s all very well, you may say—but what qualifies me as an authority on the subject? I’m certain that’s a question you also feel should be answered. Well, let me reframe the question and pose it more bluntly: What makes me think I have something to say that you should listen to?

  Cuilibet in arte sua perito est credendum, declares a maxim of the law. “Credence should be given to one skilled in his peculiar art.”

  • 16 •

  “A Being Darkly Wise, and Rudely Great”

  I lay on my Reformatory bunk and thought about the future.

  Here at last was the day I had been waiting for, the day I would leave the reformation factory behind me—forever. Appropriately I was departing on a Saturday, Saturn’s day. Irony’s day. June, 1939.

  Ahead lay freedom. Ahead lay the inferno.

  My name was Caryl Chessman, not Don Quixote, and I would tilt with dragons, not windmills. I was eighteen. In the eyes of the law I was an adult. Things juvenile were in the past, and the past had decided the future. The past had contained the reformation factory. I had been reformed. Now I was being released.

  The reformation factory belonged to you—society. So it must have been what you wanted. And you must have wanted its product too. . . .

  Today you’re turning me loose. I’m being released on parole, three years of it. Of course there’s a chance I won’t get out the front gate. But taking that chance is part of the game.

  We’re playing a game, society. You against me. And the object of the game is very simple: I do what I damned well please and you see if you can stop me.

  If you wish, see if you can destroy me. That apparently is the only thing you know how to do with guys like me. Fair enough. I’ll give you plenty of chances, just as I gave you plenty of warning.

  But you ignored the warnings. You’re huge, you possess huge power, and this gives you the idea that you can coerce or crush, that you can mentally or physically beat or scare guys like me back into line, into submissive conformity. Your servants taught me “some respect for authority” and then soft words and a grin lulled you. You’re sure I’ve “learned my lesson.” Well, I have.

  “The fool is happy that he knows no more,” said Pope. That’s true, and you and I are both fools. So we must play a fool’s game. We must play a violent and deadly game. A game of winner take all—and nothing. You tell me that I can’t win. What you don’t realize is that neither can you. . . .

  See this fine suit and this expensive shirt, necktie and pair of shoes I’m wearing? There’s a story behind them. They’re not regular issue. I came to the receiving and discharge room the other day and the man threw me a cheap ready-made suit and a pair of mismatched block-toed shoes made at the school. I asked him courteously enough if I couldn’t get something a little better to go out in.

  “Think because you work in the assistant superintendent’s office that you’re better than anybody else? Take ’em and like ‘em!”

  What did I say? Nothing; just grinned. I had no difficulty conniving another outfit and a friend stole the shoes for me. By an odd coincidence that clothing-room gentleman and I wore the same size shoes. Also it happened that he was off that day. A relief man was working in his place who did not know one pair of shoes or suit from another.

  “You better not try to smuggle out any letters for your friends,” the Snake had warned me. “I’ll have your parole if you do.”

  Thinking the matter over, I concluded the Snake should be given an opportunity to get my parole. It wasn’t my fault he couldn’t find all those letters I had hidden in my property—or was it?

  At the administration building, just before I was checked out, and while I was waiting to be handed train fare to Los Angeles and ten dollars, the assistant superintendent’s wife had a word with me. “You’ll have no excuse for getting into trouble again,” she said. “If you haven’t learned your lesson by now you never will. And remember, we can run these places without your help.”

  I grinned and assured this good lady that I doubted if she ever would appreciate the full extent of my assistance. She looked at me strangely before being called to the phone.

  The friendly lady, Miss Turner, was there to wish me luck. She offered me her hand. I shook it, and when I did, I felt the wadded paper and closed my fingers around it. Neither of us said a word about the paper.

  “Goodbye, Caryl, and good luck.”

  “No lecture, pep talk or good advice?” I asked quietly.

  She shook her head and smiled. Then she walked away, briskly. I had seen the friendly lady for the last time in my life.

  “All right, Chessman,” the superintendent’s secretary said, “here’s your release money.”

  A supervisor drove me to the sleepy little village of lone, where I would take a bus to Stockton and then a train to Los Angeles. On the way I was told, “Next time you won’t be sent back here. Next time you’ll go to San Quentin. So you better use your head and stay ou
t of trouble.”

  Why? What’s wrong with dear old San Quentin? What’s wrong with trying it out for size? Maybe running a loom in the Jute Mill is worth looking forward to. That’s what the school’s charges told each other. “Go to the joint and learn a trade with a future in it,” they said. “Learn how to turn out that hundred yards a day for The Man.” They’d heard that a task on the looms was an even hundred yards and such talk gave them a chance to show how knowledgeable they were and how casually contemptuous of the fate that probably awaited them.

  I stood on the sidewalk and watched the supervisor’s car disappear around a corner. Gone was my last tie to the reformation factory. I was free. I was on my way. Where didn’t matter.

  My fingers closed around the wadded paper in my pants pocket. I withdrew my hand and, palm up, slowly opened those fingers. I unwadded the crinkly paper. I looked thoughtfully at the two twenty-dollar bills. I thought, “Thanks, Miss Turner. Thanks for this and for skipping the lecture—and for being human.”

  I had been waiting and then, suddenly, the wait was over. I returned to the jungle—or the jungle returned to me. Perhaps in our zeal for reunion we met each other halfway, the jungle and I.

  I had been vaguely aware that a squirming little boy of four or five, his mother and his grandfather were seated across from me. The mother had been having something of a time keeping little Georgie on her lap. “How much longer will it be, mama?” he kept asking. The grandfather was dozing and little Georgie’s patient mother said that he should be a good boy and not wake the old man. “Remember, Georgie, grandfather doesn’t feel well,” she said. And Georgie nodded gravely.

  I had heard the sniffing too, but hadn’t at first paid much attention to it. The sniffer was seated just in front of me, a skinny old female with a hatchet-sharp face, porcine eyes and a nose aimed at the roof of the car. Next to her sat her spouse, a small, withdrawn man who reminded me of a harassed rabbit.

  It hadn’t taken me long to associate the sniffs with Georgie, since every time the little boy had said a word—actually his voice had been neither loud nor distracting—the sniffer had sniffed, and a couple of times she had half turned and shot a venomous look in Georgie’s direction. When she had done so, Georgie had smiled at her engagingly, and she in turn had sniffed all the louder, thoroughly outraged. Innocently amused, Georgie had laughed gleefully, and his embarrassed mother had tried to shush him.

  Obviously little Georgie had yet to learn that there were white folks in the world who sniffed at a black skin.

  When a vendor came by with cold drinks, candy and sandwiches Georgie looked appealingly at his mother. Sadly, I thought, she shook her head and I could see the keen disappointment in the little boy’s eyes. But he didn’t protest.

  I looked closely at the three of them then: Georgie, his mother and his grandfather. They were dressed in their Sunday best, and it was neat and clean—and inexpensive and worn.

  And the day was hot and the coach wasn’t air conditioned and little Georgie was going to have some pop, candy and sandwiches.

  I waited. Another mile or so of fertile farmland was passed. Then Georgie’s mother stood up and placed him on the seat. “I’ll be right back, Georgie, so be a good boy and sit still beside grandfather until I return.”

  “All right, mama,” Georgie said.

  But Georgie just couldn’t sit still. He looked over at me and I nodded a greeting.

  “Hi, Georgie,” I said (and heard a sniff).

  Georgie climbed off the seat, stood in the aisle and surveyed me solemnly. Then the man with the cold drinks, candy and sandwiches returned. I ordered some of each, had the man put the candy and sandwiches on the seat beside Georgie’s dozing grandfather and offered a paper cup full of cold grape-ade to Georgie.

  “How about it, Georgie, thirsty?”

  The little boy’s head shook up and down in an emphatic affirmative. He accepted the cup and held it gingerly, broadly smiling his thanks. (A rash of sniffing took place up ahead.) Georgie’s mother returned and looked crossly at her son.

  “Please,” I said, “I’m sure it won’t spoil his dinner.”

  For a moment the mother looked at me searchingly, then she smiled and nodded that it was all right.

  We were entering a station along the way. Georgie, who had wandered a few steps ahead while sipping his drink, was thrown against the seat when the train unexpectedly lurched. The paper cup flew from his small hands and what was left of its contents spilled on the sniffer and her rabbity spouse. The sniffer slapped Georgie across the face, sent him reeling. She called him a name. Georgie’s mother jumped to her feet and snatched her son into her arms, protectively. The mother was trying desperately to apologize but hatchet-face would have none of it. “That,” she shrieked, “is what comes from not keeping you niggers in your place! Now who’s going to pay for this?” She indicated a few negligible spots on her dress.

  Time stopped with a lurch, as did the train. Hatchet-face could send her dress and her husband’s suit to the cleaners; a couple of dollars would cover the bill. But you can’t send a little boy’s scarred soul to the cleaners and the cost is incalculable.

  I thrust myself between hatchet-face and little Georgie and his mother. I had heard Georgie sob; I had seen the stricken look on his mother’s face. I practically threw the two twenty-dollar bills at the shrieking sniffer. I must not have been a pleasant sight, for this gentle-bred creature clamped her thin mouth shut and retreated a step, clutching the two bills.

  “The money will cover your cleaning bill, madam,” I said very quietly. “So shut your obscene mouth and get out of here, quickly! You’re not fit to ride with human beings.”

  Hatchet-face immediately found voice. “How dare you speak to me like this!” she exclaimed in a sickening parody of offended gentility and virtue. “Who do you think you are, anyway, sticking up for these . . .”

  “I’m the Devil,” I said in a whisper, grinning my best grin. “But I hardly thought I’d have to introduce myself to you, madam.”

  The rabbit touched his mate’s elbow and whispered in her ear, “He’s mad! Come, dear, before he becomes violent.”

  Hatchet-face snatched up a satchel and they scurried off down the aisle. I watched them go. Then I turned and smiled reassuringly at Georgie.

  The little boy’s eyes were very wide. “Are you really the Devil?” he asked.

  “Only, Georgie, to those righteous, holier-than-thou citizens who want to believe I am.”

  “Oh,” Georgie said.

  To the little boy’s mother and grandfather, I said: “I’m sorry this had to happen. As God is my judge, I’m sorry.”

  It was the grandfather who spoke. “You only meant to be kind to us,” he said. “Don’t blame yourself.”

  “Yes,” I agreed, “I meant only to be kind.”

  And I failed.

  I turned, walked down the aisle and stepped from the train, stifling an impulse to throw my traveling bag as far as I could see it. I walked briskly from the train depot. I was in a hurry to get nowhere. In four or five minutes I reached the outskirts of the city. There, on the main highway, I stuck out my thumb. The first car that came along pulled over and stopped, almost standing on end. When I ran up to the car the driver asked me, “Can you drive?”

  I nodded. “Sure.”

  “Then drive,” he said, and slid over.

  I climbed in behind the wheel, threw my bag at the back seat and in a couple of seconds had the car, an almost new Pontiac two-door, on its way again. My host wore a rumpled suit and a tired look. Still I could see the tiredness was superficial, something he could ignore if he chose.

  “I’m a salesman,” he told me. “Oil supplies. Been driving steady from Portland. In a damned big hurry to get to Bakersfield. Big deal if I can get there in time. So drive like hell. I’ll take the tickets.” He threw his wallet onto the seat between us. “Money in there for gas. Anything else. Wake me up when we get to Bakersfield.”

  I gri
nned. “You’re sure a trusting Joe with strangers.”

  He yawned, closed his eyes, stretched out in the seat and grunted sleepily, “You got an honest face.”

  I laughed out loud and the tired salesman began to snore, very softly. I didn’t even wonder how he knew I was going as far as Bakersfield.

  I drove. I drove “like hell,” as I had been enjoined. Doing so was a therapeutic pleasure. I was driving right to the center of the universe. Everything else whirled around but I stood quite still. The egoist I was the only stable thing in the whole of infinity, in time or space or thought.

  In Bakersfield I pulled in to the curb in the middle of the business district. The salesman continued to sleep the sleep of the righteous. His wallet still lay on the seat between us. The nest egg it contained, while no fortune, was not to be sneezed at. All I had to do was pocket it, wipe the wheel of prints, grab my bag, walk off.

  But I didn’t take a second look at the wallet. A good hoodlum doesn’t beat his friends or those who do him a favor. Bag in hand, I alighted and walked around to the passenger side of the car. I reached in and tapped the salesman on the shoulder. “All right, sleeping beauty,” I said, “wake up.”

  The salesman came awake instantly. He looked at me and then at his wristwatch and then back at me. He whistled. “What the hell did we do, fly?”

  “In a way,” I said. “Thanks for the ride.” I pointed at his wallet. “We made one stop for gas. I thought you might be on an expense account, so I got a receipt. You’ll find it and the change in the wallet.”

  “Smart boy,” he said. “Can’t I give you something for the chauffeur-ing?” He reached for his wallet.

  I shook my head. “No. But you can check your wallet to be sure all your money’s still there.”

  He pocketed the wallet without looking inside it. “Why? I told you before, you got an honest face.”

  “All right, all right,” I said. “Don’t rub it in.”

  The salesman handed me one of his cards. “Here,” he said. “The next time you want to drill for oil, let me sell you the rig.” He added, “By the way, I didn’t get the name.”