Rebel Without a Cause

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Rebel Without a Cause Page 5

by Robert M. Lindner


  Many psychologists and psychiatrists have interviewed, examined and tested Harold. While they disagree on the causative factors in his case, all are in accord on the diagnosis of psychopathic personality complicated by social difficulties arising from the condition of the boy’s eyes. One psychiatrist stressed the avoidance by other children which Harold probably experienced, stating that they undoubtedly considered him a freak and this, as a consequence, forced his mother’s indulgence. Another specialist reported a need for productive occupation, and asociality and egocentricity as the leading factors in the clinical picture. Still another stated that Harold evinced pronounced feelings of inferiority in respect of his place in the family group, adding that he found the boy to be cowardly, unreliable and a schemer. This specialist also reported the presence of “subconscious jealousy of the father and a mother fixation.” The last examiner’s report closes with the statement: “… unless someone is able to psychoanalyze and reconstruct his personality from about three years of age on, the boy will continue on his career of crime and, because of his violent impulses, will become a more and more dangerous criminal.” A final expert found Harold honest in his statements and fairly intelligent; and, questioning him closely on his sex habits, obtained an admission of masturbation and sexual relations with girls in the neighborhood.

  On his arrival in the institution where the writer made his acquaintance, Harold showed a Mental Age of sixteen years and one month; an Intelligence Quotient of one-hundred and seven. He was found to be free of disease; serology was negative; weight 150 lb.; height 5 ft. 8 in.; ophthalmological diagnosis was Nystagmus, Strabismus, Ptosis; psychiatric diagnosis was Psychopathic Personality. The psychiatric initial summary revealed: “… a recidivist whose attitude toward officials and fellows is poor.… Since childhood he has had practically no respectable occupation or regular employment and it is evident he has matured without benefit of proper parental discipline.… During interview he presents the picture of a sullen, resentful, weak-willed, gullible, fidgety youth … lacks insight and judgment … enjoys using the language of the underworld and frequently lapses into gangland lingo when describing his escapades.… Prognosis for institutional adjustment and rehabilitation is guarded.”

  On a spring morning some time ago a prisoner sat apprehensively on a chair in the anteroom of the writer’s office. He had been sent for at the urging of a clinical assistant who felt that at least some of the symptoms which the young man showed should be studied and treated. Since the inmate had no inkling of the reason for his call, he was filled with that nervous anticipation and foreboding of personal danger that only petitioners and clients of professional people can know. Several times he rose from his chair and paced the room with the curious litheness and agility common among psychopaths.

  He was a moderately tall, sparingly built boy, wide-shouldered and narrow-hipped. The cast of his face would have evoked an impression of ‘intelligent’ from the layman; and there was a suggestion of competence in his large-knuckled hands. The one feature that attracted immediate attention was his heavy-lidded, continually fluttering eyes. These lent his appearance the almost mask-like quality of the totally blind, until the observer noted the restless, shifting play of the pupils and the quick winking of the lids.

  During the interview and examination, Harold maintained a sneering sullenness modified by the abject disinterest such individuals often demonstrate in the presence of prison or hospital officials. He stated apathetically that he could foresee no benefits from any kind of treatment; that he had been dancing attendance on all varieties of medical specialists without reward; but that he would be willing to allow an examination and experiment with a new therapy. Accordingly, he was subjected to a complete physical check and another examination by a competent ophthalmologist. There was no change from his admission status.

  A chance remark passed by Harold during the initial examination determined the writer first upon a therapeutic program based on post-hypnotic suggestion. In response to the question, “Would you rather be blind than get so that you can keep your eyes open for longer periods?” Harold answered, “I’d rather be blind than to see some of the things I have seen.” The presence and verbalization of so peculiar a remark, with its undertones suggestive of a pathological solution of conflict, settled the immediate initiation of a course of hypnotic therapy.

  Harold entered the trance state rapidly and easily, obeying each instruction as it was issued. Various tests, ranging from hand-levitation to catelepsy to the production of anesthetic areas, were consummated successfully. Then, in response to the suggestion that his lids would open and remain fixed and steady while a strong light from an ophthalmoscope was directed into his eyes, Harold—who had never looked into daylight with open eyes and for whom an electric light was only a stimulus to rapid blinking—opened his eyes and stared directly before him as the sharp shaft played over his eyeballs. This convinced the writer that he had here to do with a condition which, although it was essentially physical, perhaps had been initiated by a traumatic assault on the organism at a crucial stage in its development. A course of treatment was begun and carried out faithfully for about two weeks. Each session concentrated on the lengthening of the post-hypnotic period during which Harold’s eyes were to remain widely open and impervious to light. Results were not only highly satisfactory in respect of Harold’s ability to control the mobility of his lids, but the writer noted the development of an increasingly favorable rapport.

  All this time the author was keenly aware that he was attacking symptoms rather than causes. This, coupled with the temptation to capitalize on the rare, excellent rapport with a psychopath, (which was not understood at the time) prompted a resolve to attempt an analysis which, it was hoped, would for the first time ferret out the psychological factors responsible for the psychopathic pattern. The nature of the undertaking was described to Harold and he assented to being hypnoanalyzed.

  It occurred to the writer that it would be invaluable to have a permanent and complete record of the entire transaction for the light it promised to throw on crime and psychopathy. A microphone was therefore concealed in the couch on which Harold was to lie during the sessions. Connection with a loudspeaker in another room was made, and there a competent stenographer of the writer’s staff took down and subsequently transcribed the proceedings verbatim. This material, edited only to eliminate tiresome and meaningless repetitions and redundancies, is herewith made available to the reader.

  But before we examine the transcript of the hypnoanalysis, a word needs to be said here concerning the peculiar ethical problems which beset the psychiatrist or psychologist practicing in a penal institution. Because of the fact that he is, to those of the inmates who consult him, someone who is unselfishly interested in their welfare, he is often made privy to information which his duty to the State or Government urges him to communicate to law-enforcement agencies, but which his sense of obligation to his patient and to his professional standards compels him to keep to himself. In the present instance, this insistent dilemma was happily resolved by the patient himself during the period of re-education which followed the hypnoanalysis. Not only did he grant permission to the writer to publish this material, he actually urged its publication: this because he had come to a genuine and sincere realization of the social importance and the dangerous significance of his condition …

  THE FIRST HOUR

  The patient was instructed to choose a starting point and to talk without regard for topic or continuity.*

  There is a lot of rain now. Showers all the time. For the last two years we’ve had no showers. We’ve had dry summers and drought. There will be plenty of water for showers this year, not like the past two years. It got so hot and dry here even the corn died. Many of the plants were not even growing. It was so hot that they all shriveled up and died. This is a funny country. One year dry, the next year wet.

  In the night when I can’t sleep because it’s so hot I lie on my bed and think.
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  I don’t read much. My eyes are so bad.

  I was reading a Life magazine this morning. I remember the army maneuvers at Fort Knox. They had pictures of tanks and the men needed to operate them. I hear and read so much about war and politics and economics that there is not time for anything else.

  The light that is coming in over the transom reminds me of the light that comes into my cell through the small window. When I lie in bed after 9:30 I watch the light and it makes a complete turn, a complete circle. I see some dark spots in the circle. My eyes probably cause that. The day before yesterday I watched it go completely around. Sometimes when I lie in bed looking at the light I get bright spots before my eyes.

  It’s hard to sleep at night because of the heat. Usually after the siren blows I get about fifteen minutes sleep until count-time.

  The population count thrice daily is an item in prison routine.

  Sometimes I get more real sleep in those minutes than I do all night. To get to sleep at night I think about what I am studying or I count. Most of the time I just try to keep everything out of my mind so I can fall asleep.

  Right outside my window is the garden. The circular bed with the flowers bordering the lawn is right in the center. There are big red flowers in the center. They are called Canna. They remind you of Gladiolus. They are an old-fashioned flower, growing from a tuber like Dahlia. A Dahlia tuber reminds one of a carrot, soft, not as hard as a carrot, about three or four inches long and pointed at each end. A Canna tuber is not pointed: it is long and thick and rounded at the ends, and it has eyes like a potato. From these eyes grow the flowers.

  When I was at my aunt’s farm, I used to help work my friend’s place. I used to help digging potatoes. They had a team of horses and a plow. I used to drive ahead and two people would follow behind and pick up potatoes and throw them on the wagon.

  Me and Toby palled around together. We had Saturday and Sundays together. Those were the only two days we ever had. There was no place to go except to a little town a couple of miles away, twenty-five thousand people and a couple of movie houses. But we didn’t go to the movies very much. We’d go out in the car to see how fast it would go, how fast uphill and how fast downhill.

  Toby was a better driver than I. I only drove it once or twice. Hank, his brother, would drive it a lot. Hank was a Sunday driver, always on the right side of the road and very careful. Toby didn’t care and just drove anyway. We used to race cars and sometimes we’d wind up in a ditch. We liked to drive over ramshackle bridges fast and feel the boards rattling underneath us.

  There was a little town, Arcia, nearby. It had about fifteen hundred people and a nice little church. My grandmother used to make me go to church. My uncle was just like me. He didn’t like to go to church, but when grandmother was there she made him.

  My uncle used to drink a lot. After he married my aunt he stopped drinking. I guess they still live on the same level. The farmers don’t seem to progress there like they do in other sections. There is a shortage of markets for what they produce.

  Farmers in the south don’t make as much as those in the north. Transportation facilities are better in the north. And then markets are more easily available. In the south there are not enough cars for them to load their products. Farmers can’t make a contract for their products at a certain price. The cotton farmers have a pretty hard time now. I talked with a fellow whose father has a farm and he says it hardly keeps them alive. This fellow used to be interested in electrical appliances. He used to sell all kinds of appliances, like washers, toasters and such things. Many men in this country work and work as hard as they can. There are not ten million unemployed as they say but twenty-five million. One hundred and ten percent more than what the average believes. Of course many of those have part-time jobs. And the WPA.

  The WPA is supposed to be a business stimulant; it circulates the money. It is the pet idea of the New Deal, but I think it stimulates mostly the automobile industry. According to some statisticians, families live on ten thousand a year and some on one thousand. It shows that a man living on a certain standard spends as much as he can for pleasures. Money seems to be a substitute for anything in the world. There are many men in this world who don’t care much for money.

  The question is production and consumption. Money is just the exchange value. You buy something with it. And then the money is still there. The commodity you bought is destroyed but the exchange value is still there. This is something I can’t understand. When you buy an automobile, as you use it, it is being destroyed. The cash you used to buy it with is moving on to produce more. When I think about things like that I get a headache. How is it made and how is it destroyed? Eventually I think I’ll be able to understand.

  I am not interested in making money. I am interested much more in understanding and finding out things, and in writing books. I don’t know whether I can write. At night, when I am in my cell, I have a pencil in my hand to write down what I think. Anything, poetry or anything else. And in the morning when I look at it I find it more of a puzzle than the night before.

  It seems clear that the reference to poor handwriting and the inability to decipher it is an apology for the lack of clarity and cohesion in what he has just produced.

  I have been thinking of how to get money to buy a typewriter. My handwriting is bad. I scribble something down and one letter is too big and one too small. When I think of something and I want to write it down I scribble so hard I can hardly read it. Other times when I am not thinking about it I can write pretty well.…

  THE SECOND HOUR

  We went to a factory, my cousin Pete and I. We went there and neither of us got the job. I was rejected and they put him on the list. I don’t know if he is working there now, but I believe he is. My other cousin, John, (he’s Pete’s brother) is getting married soon. I think when a man gets married he settles down and lets the world go by and pays no attention to anything after that. He goes to work and settles down and the world slides by. The same thing, day after day. I think when a man gets married he has a big obstacle in his way. No great man in history ever aspired to get married.

  I don’t think I am going to get married.

  A standard sign of Psychopathy, indicative of an inability to accept social responsibility.

  At least I’m not going to get married right away. I want to write some books on politics and economics. I think I want to get up to my aunt’s place, away from everything and everyone and write.

  It gets just as hot up there as it does here. Only up there it is cooler at night and in the morning because of the mountains. My aunt has a home at Mount Abel. There is a little school there, two rooms and a teacher or so.

  It’s very hard for most of the kids in that part of the country. Most of them are of foreign parentage, Polish and German. It’s very hard for them to concentrate on English grammar and mathematics. To them it is something entirely new. In their homes the language the parents speak is the only one they hear.

  I was out there several years in the summertime. There was a Polish girl I used to go with. She was a year older than me. I never had any sexual relations with her. She was a plumpish, dark girl. Dark hair. I don’t remember what color her eyes were. She weighed about one hundred and ten pounds. She was the oldest child in her family. I don’t remember much about it now. She was a funny sort of girl, a sort of mongrel I guess. There wasn’t a Sunday she wouldn’t attend the church activities in Mount Abel. She had a brother almost as old as I am now. He and I were always good friends. He was not muscularly built; a thin sort of lad. He was the pet of their father. He used to have more privileges than the other children. He would never speak to girls. This girl’s name was Amy. My sister was a good friend of her sister.

  Amy was the mother-type. She used to feel sorry for me. I was a wild kid, fast-driving and all that. She used to tell me not to go with guys who drive fast. She used to pity me. There really was no reason for it. I don’t know whether she is married now or not.
My sister corresponds with her sister but she never mentions Amy in her letters. I hardly ever think of her now.

  I feel as if I am in a daze or up against a big cliff. It seems somehow as if my path is blocked.

  In some patients, as in Harold, resistance is ‘felt:’ it is reported as a diffuse kinesthetic perception. In others it is more distinctly somatized and localized.

  I don’t think of this girl anymore. O, once in a while I wonder what’s become of her. She used to mother me.

  Before my uncle bought the farm he used to live across the road from their home. The first couple summers I never even noticed Amy. She came to visit my aunt once in a while but I was never in a position to talk with her. The third year I was there my sister introduced her. I used to get a lot of fun out of seeing how many girls I could speak to and what their actions would be if I spoke to them.

  My aunt always tried to impress me with what a fine church-going girl Amy was … a typical saint. She probably married some farmer and then did what other farm girls do.

  The last year I had no desire to go to my aunt’s place but I wanted to get away from the city where I lived and spend a few months away from everything.

  I used to go with a girl in the city. She was a small, thin girl, with kind of strawy hair. I don’t think she weighed a hundred pounds. She was a year or two younger than I. She lived with her sister and brother-in-law and their four or five children and another sister. They all lived together. I knew this girl about one or two months. Her name was Lila, I believe. She was oversexed, very much oversexed. I had intercourse with her several times. I don’t know how I didn’t contract some venereal disease from her. She was loose, I guess: she would play around with anyone who would say hello to her. She had very, very, very soft breasts. She became so—I don’t know—very nervous and excited; her fingers and arms would twitch when someone would touch her breasts. She used to cry a lot. I don’t know why. I used to spend a lot of time with her; had nothing else to do: didn’t have a job. She always used to tell me that she was in love with me. She used to cry because she couldn’t resist anyone who wanted her. She was the real reason I went up to Mount Abel that summer. I wanted to get away from her. When I came back I found she was going around with some Italian fellows who had gonorrhea. I never even spoke to her again. I just hung around and did nothing but think how I could get some money, maybe stealing here and there from cars and pawning what I stole. I don’t know what gave me the idea for the crime I am in here for. I knew there wouldn’t be much chance.

 

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