Rebel Without a Cause (19 page)

I kid him sometimes about my eyes. I tell him that deep down in his heart he doesn’t like me because of my eyes. He almost cries. I am only kidding him but I think he believes what I say is true. A lot of times he asks me what I say to you and what you say to me. And I tell him a long made-up story, and then five minutes later I tell him a different story, and then I tell him a third story. He knows

I am lying to him. He doesn’t ask me many things now. He knows we are talking about something, but he doesn’t know what it is. He emphasizes that I should say nothing to you about him. I tell him I don’t. He probably wouldn’t say anything if he knew, but I wouldn’t tell him. I find him a very fine fellow to associate with. He seems very willing to help other people in any way possible. We go out
together occasionally and he tells me not to listen to C——. C—— has only one idea about everything and he wouldn’t change it. He’s afraid C—— will take it upon himself to be my guardian.

Most of the time when I was on the outside I’d hang around and do nothing, practically waste away a lot of time. I’d read junk, mostly detective stories, mystery stories, just to while away the time. And in the evening I’d go out and get drunk a little bit when I was in the mood. I didn’t care to talk to anyone: I didn’t care what happened to me or the world. The world would go on regardless.

I never used narcotics. I don’t remember when I started smoking. I remember I was smoking when I was about ten or so. We’d cut cat-tails and light them up and make out like they were cigarettes. There used to be three of us who were pretty good friends, me and a fellow and a girl. She was big and fat, with dark hair, around eight years old. A nice kid. Once when we were having some fun somebody asked her who she liked best, me or this other fellow, and she picked this other fellow. After that I didn’t like her much, even before she said that. I guess it all goes back to my eyes like everything else. You see, when I was about nine I started thinking that people didn’t like me because of my eyes. I know now that many people dislike others because of some physical defect, the way they hold their head or keep their mouth open or something.

I didn’t go out for any sport when I was in High. I was mostly interested in girls and cutting classes. In the nights I played around with the girls. Never in the day because I didn’t want them to see my eyes. When I went out in the daylight I always wore dark glasses so they couldn’t notice anything. A lot of people have told me I’m not a bad looking fellow and I know that girls would come up and speak to me without my speaking to them first.

In the High School I attended I got along fairly well with my studies. I got left back in a grade in grammar school though. But when it came to passing a grade in High I passed it alright. My hardest subject was English. I didn’t like to read a lot of literature. It seemed long and drawn-out and dry. I’d read and read and finally fall asleep with the book in my hands. I don’t know which was my most favorite subject. I guess science and biology and math. They were easy for me. In the hallways we’d speak to the girls and say
their dresses were sticking out, but sometimes I’d be sorry and tell them they looked nice and then I guess they liked me a lot.

I didn’t get into trouble from the time I was twelve or thirteen when I finished grammar school and went to High. I didn’t finish High. I was about seventeen when I quit to stay on my aunt’s place. When I came back I tried to find work. A few times I could have had a job but the eye tests always eliminated me. That’s the way it went, so I got disgusted. I didn’t want to go on, so I got in trouble again and again and then again and again.

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 …

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

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 that 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