Rebel Without a Cause

by Robert M. Lindner

  I don’t know what I’m going to do when I get out. I’ll probably go to my aunt’s place for a couple months. I know I’ve got a lot of work to do. I’m not worried about getting along outside, that’s the furthest thought from my mind. I only know I’m going to do something. My aunt has a nice little place up in the mountains. The only trouble is that these people have a cemetery nearby.

  Someday I’ll just go back there and see how everything is. The world doesn’t change much. The mountains don’t change: the trees’ll still be there …

  THE EIGHTEENTH HOUR

  Well, Doctor, I am still biting my fingernails. I know I can stop it easy. I did once but every little while I do it again. I just keep chewing them.

  I don’t remember having any dreams. I slept good last night. It must have been the rain. When I got up this morning I felt kind of grouchy and I didn’t talk to anyone until this afternoon. Last night I got into an argument with a friend of mine. He kept emphasizing something about my eyes. It irritated me and I got angry and couldn’t control myself. Everytime he sees me he asks me not only once but five times the same question. When people say something to me about my eyes I get very angry inwardly. I used to tell them to mind their own business and control myself at least outwardly, but yesterday I didn’t. I don’t talk to a lot of people simply because they ask questions about my eyes. They probably mean well but it seems to me so many of them are asking the same thing. Every time they are asking the same thing. Every time they see me, even if they talk to me a hundred times a day, they ask me questions. I think men could learn more by observing than by asking. This fellow now, he means well. I haven’t been in a mood like that for almost a year now. I’ve sort of got myself out of that habit. When I was on the outside I seldom talked to anyone in the morning. After lunch I’d say something but I’d seldom start a conversation before that. In here it seems just like one continuous day. Sometimes I feel just as well in the morning as at night. I felt entirely different yesterday and today. Perhaps I shouldn’t feel that way but I guess occasionally it’s alright for everybody. Not too often though.

  There’s some red dirt on the ground that reminds me of the kind of dirt at my aunt’s place. I remember when I worked in the fields, haying or digging potatoes. It got so hot, like a hot stove. I didn’t like it up there very much because I couldn’t go swimming. The river was a little too swift, and sometimes it wasn’t high enough. But I went swimming a lot at home. I spent a lot of time on the water, especially when I was about twelve. That’s all I did most days when I didn’t go to school, swimming in the summer and a lot of mischief in the winter. A lot of things we did I guess was just to show which was the bravest. A lot of the fellows ended up as I did; a lot of them have been arrested.

  My cousin Joe did time, not as much as I am doing; and my uncle did time too. But they didn’t do much. My uncle only did eighteen months because he took a gun from a friend of his who was drunk and the bartender saw it. Before he’d let the other fellow go to jail he went himself. But I guess my cousin Joe and me are the worst ones in the family. He was in reformatories a few times, mostly for burglary. One time Riggs and myself saw him somewhere near the railroad track behind a billboard jerking off. I remember I used to kid him a lot about it afterwards and he’d get so mad.

  Here in this jail there’s a fellow that was in prison with me before. I did six months for stealing some stuff when he was doing three months. He used to sleep with one of the colored boys there a lot. The other day I just hinted around about it to him: I didn’t say anything much; and he got red in the face and mad as hell and he didn’t know what to do. There used to be four of those fairies in there, four colored ones. A few weeks after I got there these four fairies came in. There were only about eight white fellows and fourteen or fifteen colored fellows in that jail, and the colored fellows slept on one side and the whites on the other. The white and the colored fellows had two dormitories apiece and they couldn’t get at each other because at night there was a guard in the center between the doors in the hallway. He was supposed to sit there, and the dormitories were supposed to be locked up. This fellow would go and sleep with one of the colored fairies. He didn’t get back until two or three in the morning. I just hinted around, more to kid him than anything else. He wanted to walk away but he couldn’t go anywhere. Perry says I act like a hoodlum sometimes. He didn’t know, but he saw the fellow get so red. Now he says he hates me because I’m acting like a hoodlum. He doesn’t know that one reason I told this fellow that I still remember his experiences of about four years ago was that he goes with a lot of people like Perry. He knew what I meant though; that if he ever bothered Perry I’d tell a few people about his experiences. Now I don’t think he’ll ever bother Perry.

  Dobriski says he dislikes my association with Perry. He says he knows there’s nothing he can do about it but he dislikes it just the same. I like Perry because I am learning a lot from him. Why, I don’t curse as much as I used to. I had a nasty habit of cursing with every second word. Now I’m breaking that habit. But come to think of it Dobriski doesn’t curse either. Yet Dobriski hasn’t got the vocabulary Perry has. Perhaps that’s why my vocabulary is so small. I always said the same thing to people because they didn’t interest me. You don’t find many people in here who are interesting unless you look at them as cases like you do, Doc. To me, on the outside, people as a whole were just people. Sometimes I wouldn’t speak to my mother or sister for three days at a time. I had nothing to say to them. I didn’t speak to my father maybe for months. When it was absolutely necessary that would be the only time I ever would talk to anyone. O, I get along with my father and my mother and my sister now. I don’t blame my father for being in here or anything like that. I don’t say he’s a bad father. I don’t say my mother is bad either. The only reason I came here I guess was that I didn’t care whether I was outside or in here. I did things that weren’t right.

  I used to think I was afraid of my cousin but I wasn’t. I just disliked him very much. O, I palled around with him once in a while but I disliked him.

  A lot of people used to see me and pass by and say, “Hello, Squint.” I kept away from them.

  Instead of interesting myself in something of value I went the wrong way. I took a great delight in having a gun, and when I had a gun on me and somebody called me Squint, I’d get so mad I’d feel like taking the gun out and shooting them. A lot of those fellows knew I had a gun on me too.

  One reason I hated my cousin was that he called me that. When I leave here I guess I’ll never see any of them again. Maybe my cousin once or twice, but after that I’m not going to see anyone again. I want to change the whole atmosphere of everything.

  I never expect to get married. My cousins Riggs and Joe are married. I don’t know why but I just don’t like it. When I see all the trouble my mother had with my father and my father had with my mother over different petty things I feel that I don’t want to get married and go through the same thing. I’ve heard a lot of fellows say that but after a couple months I hear they’re getting married. Then they get in arguments and then they’re sorry about getting married. I’m telling my sister not to get married to a fellow that hasn’t got any money. She’d only get into arguments all her life when she wants something to eat and the children want something to eat. She doesn’t want to marry out of her class. You can’t take your class with you if you want to get anywhere. You’ve either got

  The inability of the psychopath to cherish class loyalities, and his continual struggle to change his class is a generalized symptom. In this they differ from the conscientious social thinker who recognizes class distinctions and perhaps even lends his support in their eradication. The psychopath wants to change his class.

  to get out of it for good or stay in it. I’m getting out. I feel sorry for those people but … I think they caused me a lot of irritation. I like them. I feel sorry for them. But I don’t want to bother with them. I’ll do all I can for them but other than tha
t I’m through with them. When they came up here to visit me they seemed happy and contented; everything was going along fine; they were not worried about anything. I just feel sorry for them. If I had enough money I’d buy them things they need, but I have no money myself. I guess they are happy in these days in the state they are in. I won’t try to make it worse for them: I’ll try to make it as best as possible. My sister is working now, but I wonder what it would be like at home if she lost her job. I guess it would be the same as it was with me.

  I used to worry a lot but now I look back and see how foolish it was. I guess if I had really wanted a job I could have got one. I didn’t look very hard: I could have looked harder. I guess I just didn’t care. I didn’t care if I had a job or money or not. When I got any money I’d spend it right away. To me money always seemed a short-cut to get something you wanted. I guess money can’t buy everything you want. I used to think of money as something to strive for: now I don’t; it doesn’t interest me that much anymore. I dislike it here. I dislike it because of the effect it has on my mother and my family, what they think and what people say and think of them. I’ll never come to prison again. Never; not even one day. I didn’t care whether I went to prison or whether I died. Now I want to live as long as possible, and I don’t want to spend any part of the time in jail.

  This institution that I spent six months in, there were four dormitories and there were stairs in the center between the four, and by the stairs there was a desk where an officer sat all the time. To the right of the stairs was the colored side and there was a wall between the stairs and the dormitories and a gate the officer would lock. Only about eight white fellows were there. These kids used to dance around at about three or four in the morning. It was disgusting to me. One time I remember there was a man who came in there dressed up as a woman, and the superintendent’s wife cursed every time she thought of it.

  I can’t see it. I can’t see people doing things like that. To me it’s disgusting; that’s why I’ll never do things like that. These kids used to dance around. The fellow I am talking about who is here now got them to dance a lot: he was a regular wolf. They danced. They were just kids, about sixteen, all black. O Jesus! There was a light from the toilet on the white fellow’s side. Yes; there were two dormitories for the colored fellows and two for the white and two sets of stairs, one leading up to the boy’s place and the other to where the girls were. The light from the toilet came into the dormitory and there was enough of it to see everything. These kids used to dance around on the floor there. I got a kick out of it, the way one of them used to sing. I couldn’t go for them; not only because they were black but because they were just like me. I’m not an angel or a minister or a reformer. I’ve never done that and I doubt if I’ll never, I mean ever, do it in my life. I look at it in the broadest sense

  The over-protesting and the slip of the tongue here of course betray the latent, repressed homosexual elements.

  possible. I just feel sorry for them. They can do as they please. I don’t dislike them or hate them: I just can’t bring myself to get mixed up in anything like that. I guess I dislike wolves. They don’t seem like men to me, more like dogs, animals. I guess I let my hate run away with me. This fellow, I was just warning him that if he ever bothered Perry I would tell a few people what he did, about his relationship with the colored boys, and it would go very bad with him; he wouldn’t like it a bit; everybody would laugh at him.…

  We used to sit at mess, four at a table. They only had a small dining room; there were about thirty tables in it. They made the four fairies sit together. They’d never let them sit with anybody else. The colored were on one side and the whites on another.

  Three or four days before I left that place I got in a jam with an officer. He was all alone at night. There were about forty fellows he had to take care of and these dormitories were small; they would only sleep about sixteen. We had small beds there, the same kind we have here; the kind you can pick up, throw the legs under and pile up. They had been trying to separate these fairies and the officer wanted me to sleep by one of them. I didn’t like it. They had a little cage there with an iron floor, and I told him right out that I didn’t want to, that I’d rather sleep in the cage. So he called me out and closed the doors and then he hit me and I fell down the stairs. I don’t remember falling but I remember waking up. I slept by the fairy all right, at least I lay in bed but didn’t sleep all night. The next night the officer was all right. He spoke to me and told me that he was sorry he had to hit me but he had to show the others that he meant business. I didn’t blame him.

  A lot of these kids tickled me. They’d walk up and down and sing and dance. At night they’d dance naked. During the day they danced with their clothes on but at night they danced naked; not in their dormitories where the officer would see them; they danced in the dormitories where the whites were.

  One fellow slept with one of the niggers almost every night. After the lights were put out at about ten o’clock he waited, and then that was his cue to go and sleep with one. I could never bring myself to do anything like that.

  When I was in here only a few months I told Dobriski that if I ever heard that he had been playing around with anybody I wouldn’t speak to him anymore. Why, it’s not manly. I don’t do it. I dislike it. Ah, no, not me. I’m not an angel but I’m not that bad, maybe because I like myself, like myself too much. Maybe I like some of these kids here but I like myself more. I have nothing against these kids. Most of it is mental anyway. What they do is their own business. Whenever Perry says something like, “I love you, darling,” or something like that, I tell him I hear an officer coming. He thinks my hearing is hypersensitive. I go one way and he goes the other. He really thinks an officer is coming. He notices I am running away from him. I really don’t run away from him, though; I run away from myself. I’m not going to get myself stimulated too much to do something like that. I think too much of myself. After all, no one in the whole world likes me as much as I like myself. Why should I give myself reason to hate myself? One reason why I hate a lot of guys is because they believe I’d do something like that. When I first came here a lot of fellows came around and tried to start something with me. They got straightened out pretty quick. I haven’t had any trouble with anybody since. Dobriski never as much as mentioned a thing like that to me. If he had we wouldn’t be such good friends. One time he made a crack about me. I dislike to wear a top-shirt to my underwear and I was kidding him that he was an old lady about keeping warm. I asked him if he wanted some red flannel stuff to keep warm. My shirt was unbuttoned and he could see I wasn’t wearing any underwear, so he said that I was going around just like a whore with no bloomers on, ready to drop my pants at a minute’s notice. I was so sore I almost hit him a couple of times. I didn’t speak to him for months. After that we cooled down and now we are friends again. He doesn’t ever say anything to me about Perry. He knows I wouldn’t do anything. I don’t care what people think of me. I only care what my friend thinks of me and what I think of myself. He has proven himself the only friend I have in the world. When I was outside with him one day some fellow came up and asked me, “How’s the Princess?” I knew what he was insinuating, Dobriski didn’t. I don’t know if he thinks anything about it; he doesn’t say. He gives me no opening to say anything to him about it. He dislikes my association with Perry and he tells me that if there was something he could do about it he would do it. The other day I was just kidding him and I asked if he would like to trade places with me, if he would like to be as good friends with Perry as I am. He says he doesn’t want to trust himself in that position. I guess that’s one reason he doesn’t play around with anybody, because if I ever found out he did it would be disgusting to me. I wouldn’t talk to him anymore in my life. I don’t see anything in it. You may think this is just to cover up but I don’t care. It will be a long day before I do anything like that, with Perry or anyone else. O, I know a lot of people who are homosexuals, still that doesn’t
mean anything to me. Another reason why I wouldn’t do anything like that is all the months of Good Time I’d risk to get something that you pay two dollars for in a whorehouse.…

  THE NINETEENTH HOUR

  I remember part of a dream I had last night. I was dreaming that I was moving downstairs to the first floor of T cell-block. That’s funny because I used to be on that floor and didn’t like it there so I moved upstairs. And I had something like a cello and I was bringing it into my cell and I was stripping the strings of the cello. I don’t know how many strings; I guess there were three thick ones and three thin ones. I was taking them off and trying to put them on a real small guitar. I don’t know how I was doing it. I remember there were three big thick ones, and they were separated by the thin ones, first a thick one then a thin one, and I was trying to put them on the guitar. I never had a cello in my hands and I don’t know how I came to be carrying one. I remember I took the strings off the cello and put them on the guitar. I didn’t touch the cello. It was standing against the wall.

  L: ‘Harold, you will remember what I told you about the technique of association. I want you to associate as well as you can to the items and events in that dream.’

  Some time ago I started learning to play the guitar. There was a fellow, Al, who used to play it from five in the morning to five at night, all the time. I kidded him a lot about it. He’d come around and ask me if he could have the instrument and finally I gave it to him. All he would do was sing. I can see no connection there. My uncle Sam had a banjo in his home; I don’t know whether he ever played it, At least I never heard him. I don’t know why I dreamed about moving to the first floor again. I was awake at four-thirty and then fell asleep about six. When I was awake I remember wishing that I wasn’t in this place because something very funny happened to me yesterday. I was through working about six o’clock and Perry came up and kept calling me down to his cell, and he argued with me and pulled me. I argued with him for about fifteen minutes and finally I gave in, and he got me in the cell for about two minutes. Then the bugle for school blew for the second period, so I started thinking quickly and told him I had to go outside to see somebody. So I left him and ran out. Outside the fellow I was going to see was playing ball. Dobriski. So I stayed out there waiting for everybody to go in, and after about five minutes Perry came out. He was mad: he looked as if he was going to kill somebody; and he came over and told me I had two alternatives; to stay in the cell with him or stop speaking to him. I don’t know what will happen now. I figured it would happen sooner or later but not so soon. I suppose it will have to be the second alternative. He was so mad and so angry I didn’t know what to do or say. He kept repeating he was through talking to me, and he was cursing me out. I felt embarrassed. I went upstairs when it was time to go in and got into my own cell. I was thinking about it all night. You told me not to make any crucial decisions without talking to you first and I guess you meant about him too. So I tried to forget about everything and just let things go by. This morning I was cheerful and friendly and didn’t mention a thing about it. I don’t know why I am telling you this but you said you wanted to know everything.