Rebel Without a Cause (33 page)

I would rather not say anything. Believe me there is nothing else in my life that I wouldn’t tell you about. This was—we were in a poolroom, and he called me a dirty lying mother—f——r. I agitated myself for about two weeks—and—one day—I—I got him alone.

I was scared. I didn’t want to do any time. I was afraid of time, that’s why I didn’t care when I went out on hold-ups if I got shot up.…

I thought that if anything went wrong with this experiment, with this treatment, it might be caused by the fact that I didn’t tell you. But I can’t tell you all, even if you would want to stop the experiment. I’m in a spot. I don’t know what to say. I’m in the penitentiary and I can’t … I trust you more than anyone else in the world, but I can’t say anything.

L: ‘Harold, as I have already told you, if you don’t want to tell me, it will not matter.’

When I was about ten or eleven I played cowboys and Indians a lot. I’d get real fun out of playing cops and robbers too. All the money that I could get I spent right away. I didn’t care very much about money: I’d get rid of it, get rid of everything around me. Sometimes when we played cards or shot craps my cousin Riggs would ask me for money: if I felt in the mood I gave it to him and never asked it back. When I was younger, my cousin Riggs and I tried to steal a car one time. We got in and started the car and it went backwards and it piled up on the car behind it, so we never tried to steal a car again. We would do a lot of things that didn’t matter very much. We’d steal bread and cakes from the lunch-wagons and once in a while we’d soak the breads in water and drop them on people from the bridge. This was when we were around twelve or thirteen.

When I was twelve I belonged to the Boy Scouts. My cousin
didn’t belong there. I had a lot of fun with those kids: they were honest and fine. They really had this daily good deed business at heart. I guess they’re all grown up now. When I broke away from the Scouts I started hanging around with those kids from S—— Street and getting into a lot of trouble. I wasn’t as closely watched around home as I was before twelve. Before that I had to be home every night at nine but after I was twelve or thirteen I’d sneak out of the house at night, sneak out and steal all kinds of things.

The whole scenery around the house and the whole neighborhood seem changed. Buildings are going up. They are going forward. It doesn’t remind me of the place it used to be ten years ago.

I don’t remember much about my grandmother and my aunts. My aunt Louise wanted me to go to school and study real hard and be something. She promised that she’d get me a job where she worked. I never finished High School on the outside. I just was running here and running there, doing this and doing that. I didn’t care whether I finished school, whether I’d have anything to eat or clothes to wear. I used to leave home every two or three months. I never went hitching in any freight cars. I was afraid of them. I remember the kid that got his leg cut off when I was about fifteen. I saw a big crowd of kids on the railroad and I saw the train coming, and suddenly the train stopped. When I got up there the kids were all crowded around, and I saw the kid and saw his leg lying five or six feet away. A cop picked it up. I saw him. It was nauseating. I couldn’t stand it, picking up a leg like that. I knew the kid; he was about ten or eleven; he was in the same gang with me. He got hurt somehow or other. I didn’t get hurt.

Even when I was twelve sometimes I didn’t go to school. I played truant all by myself. I would stay away for two or three days and then stay away from home too. When I got hungry and tired I’d go home and then I’d get a beating, so I’d get it all at once. But I hated my father to give me a beating.

Before I was eleven I didn’t like to read books or do anything like that. When I belonged to the Boy Scouts I used to read a few books on sports, then I got interested and switched from sports to detective stories and crime stories and things like that. I used to think of myself as a brave criminal, a smart man, hard with everybody.

I was never interested in stealing anything before I was twelve
years old; O, I guess I stole a few pennies. When my mother sent me out to get something I told her that the price was higher than it was, so I’d buy a few candies or something.

I don’t remember if I got into any fights at H—— Street school. I was a pretty quiet kid; I didn’t bother anybody. I didn’t think I knew very much. I used to sit in the back of the class, away from the teacher and everything that was going on.

I can’t seem to remember very much. Everything seems as if I’ve told you already.…

L: ‘You see, Harold, the only reason it seems to you that you have told me all of this, is that you have developed guilt feelings about not having told me.’

A feeling of guilt?

L: ‘Yes. You feel just a little bit sorry that you did tell me as much as you did as well. Now let me put you at ease by considering with you my own position, the position you placed me in by telling me what you did. You can see, if you think a little, that your telling me is a potential source of danger to me—not only to you, but to me. Now that I am possessed of this information, if it ever got out you would naturally think I did it. No don’t interrupt me! You must realize that it constitutes a potential source of danger to me. We both understand those things. Now the reason you feel that there is something standing in the way of your telling me things, that you have told me all this before, is merely a manifestation of that resistance. You are sure you see that?’

Yes; I am.

L: ‘Well, what do you think of it?’

I should have never said anything …

L: ‘Why not?’

I don’t know. I know there’s nothing you can do about it. There is no way the courts could convict me or anything.

L: ‘There is no way that anybody could harm you?’

No; even if you did say anything I could still deny it. I am not afraid of you or anyone else saying anything, but it’s …

L: ‘What are you afraid of?’

I don’t know. I don’t know. It’s just somebody else knowing this, that’s what it is I guess.

L: ‘You think somebody else knowing it might worry you?’

No: I don’t think so …

L: ‘Well, then, what special feature bothers you?’

I don’t know. I—I even had the feeling that—if I said anything to anybody else … I firmly believed that I would never say anything to anybody about it. I don’t mind you knowing it; knowing it you might be able to form a—more definite conclusion about me. And even knowing it, you can’t do anything about it.

L: ‘Let’s put it this way: perhaps you are sorry you told, perhaps you regret telling me, because it might make some difference in my attitude toward you?’

Yes. That’s it!

L: ‘Now let’s look at it closely. What is the relationship between us?’

Psychologist and patient …

L: ‘And what else?’

Well, I guess a slight friendship.

L: ‘Is there anything more than that?’

Well, more than just a slight friendship …

L: ‘Yes. You see, Harold; there is and there has to be complete trust between us; my trust in you, which helps me to do my job, and your trust in me. And, you see, there can’t be any question about a change in my attitude first because, as you have rightly said, there is no danger to you in what I now know. It can’t be proved. It happened many years ago. Right?’

Yes; that’s right.

L: ‘And secondly; even if I did say anything about it, there would be a tremendous difficulty about producing even a shred of evidence.’

Yes.

L: ‘And thirdly there can’t be any change in attitude on my part because, to me, what you have told me is the same thing, in the same category, as what you told me about putting your finger in your sister’s eye. Do you see that?’

I understand what you mean, Doc …

L: I want you to understand the basic mechanism of this thing. There is one process with which you are already familiar; resistance. I have explained that to you. Now there is another process which is not quite as familiar to you; the process we call transference. That is the name for the “more than friendship” relation which we have. It means that because of mutual respect and confidence, we can depend upon each other, we feel warmly about each other. Now when one of us resents the other,
mistrusts him, or dislikes him, that state is called negative transference. We must try to preserve the positive type of transference, because with this type of accord our work here becomes easier. Since you told me about that incident, you have been in a state of negative transference, resentful, suspicious, mistrustful. I am trying to make you understand what happened to you. Now if you understand, you may go on.’

I made a lot of mistakes in my life but the greatest mistake I ever made, I feel now, was reading the wrong material, the wrong books, things that have no value. O, I can catch up on those years: I have to catch up. All I was thinking about was getting drunk and laying around; all I wanted to do was drink. When I had no money I’d go out and steal some. In the beginning when I’d steal I’d feel nervous, but after a while I’d cool down and everything began to seem natural. Even when I pulled my first hold-up I almost shot the person, I was so nervous. I had an old gun, and somehow it went off, right through the windshield. I was so afraid I didn’t know what to do, drop the gun and run away or what. Finally I managed to stay. They didn’t have any money. After that everything was more natural. I held up a few insurance salesmen. I felt right at home with it: it seemed right in its place.

I never want to pick up a gun or any other weapon again. I never want to look at any.

Somebody shot at me one time. I don’t know whether the bullet went over a house or where it went. I know I lost my wrist-watch that time and it had my fingerprints on it, but I was never accused of that crime.

I had several guns in my time. They weren’t really good guns, they were cheap. I had a lot of brass knuckles, blackjacks and so on. My mother found a blackjack one time that belonged to me.

My mother would search for things all over the house. It finally got so I had to put my gun in back of a bureau and fasten it to the wall with adhesive tape. She never looked back there. Whenever I had money she accused me of stealing it. I’d tell her I won it in a crap game or a card game. She didn’t believe me.

Everything seemed unimportant to me. Everything seemed to vary, seemed to cover up for something else. I’d stay out of the house so I didn’t have to listen to my father. I guess he didn’t like me very much. I used to get drunk and he’d see me drunk once
in a while. It made him mad so I would stay away two or three weeks. That way it would agitate him more.

When I was broke it was hard for me to ask my mother for money. So I’d steal it, in any way, just to get it. People used to say, ‘Gold is where you find it,’ even if you find it in other peoples’ pockets, so I’d steal the gold. I pulled quite a few hold-ups and burglaries; that’s the only thing I ever did, I mean in that way, of course. I tried my best to curb my desire to get money. Only a small amount should be sufficient for anybody. I just want to fish, and write. That’s all the things I want to do. I don’t want any money, I mean accumulate money in a bank, in stocks or bonds.

I don’t know: when I look back everything seems all kind of funny. I can’t really believe it. I know its going to be the exact opposite from what it has been in the past. It was really bad but I can’t change it now. Just let it go by and forget about everything, pass everything up. I don’t want to bother much with making money when I get out. I don’t want to tie myself down in one place. I didn’t like it when I was a kid and I don’t like it now that I am a man. I always liked boats. I used to have a lot of fun when I stayed out at L——, just sailing around the bay. There are a lot of islands with cabins on them and I slept in a different one every night. There were no fish to speak of but there were a lot of crabs and we went crabbing a lot too. I didn’t wear many clothes, just a pair of shorts through the day. When I look back … I should have stayed like that.

When I was about eighteen or nineteen I used to like to leave home when it was raining and walk around, stay out about four or five hours and then go home and go to bed. I didn’t like to say anything to anybody. The next morning my suit would be all wrinkled up and I’d have to press my pants. I used to press my pants almost every day, just to have something to do I guess. I’d go over to the park to see if there were any girls I knew, see if I could have a little fun. I dressed up as best I could. My clothes were always neat. They weren’t good clothes, but they were always neat and very clean …

I notice my eyes are open a little more than they used to be. Sometimes the sun is too bright and then I can’t see very far.

Before I can remember they used to remain open all the time, and when they were open in the sunlight I couldn’t see anything: I had to close them. I couldn’t even see my hand in front of me. Now I can see a good deal more clearly, even when they are open in the sunlight. I can’t see very clearly yet, but in the future I’ll be able to see more distinctly.

One time I ran right into a pole. I didn’t see it. The sun was shining right in my eyes, everything was so hot, shiny; the street was reflecting the sunlight right into my eyes. I was running across the street and I hit my head right into the pole. I learned a lesson then: that I shouldn’t run, walk slowly, watch all around me and see that no cars are coming. I really hurt my head then. I was about ten and I was coming back from my grandmother’s house.

I know the sun was always too bright for me and I never liked to go out in it. When there was some place to walk besides in the sunlight I would walk there. I prefer the night to the day.

I think my vision is improving since I began to come to you. I don’t know if there was anything wrong with my eyes in the first place, but I can say that my vision is really improving.