Rebel Without a Cause (12 page)

I don’t read many newspapers, although some fellow sends me the
New York Times
every day. I just read its headlines.

Sometimes there is too much noise in the cell-block to do anything so I just stand by the window and smoke and look outside. The trees and the lawns look nice. Over the wall I can see the mountains. They look rolling, misty: in the evening it looks like a painted picture. Upstairs, from the auditorium, you can look outside and you see the whole countryside. It looks so nice and green: in the wintertime it looks white and snowy.

I remember when we were kids we used to have snowball fights and we’d snow-up the middle of the road to try and stop the cars from going through. And we’d build snow-forts. I recall we used to make big piles of snow and then dig little caves out of them and then we’d make a fire in them and they would melt down. One time we made a fire right in one of the caves: there was a lot of smoke in there. And sometimes the river would freeze and we would slide on our shoes right on the frozen river.

Several times I went down to the Bay for swimming when I played hookey. At the Bay we would have to walk through big fields of mud and we’d get mud all over our shoes and clothes.

Me and Jimmy used to go to baseball games at night. His uncle was a policeman and he used to talk to a fellow at the gate and he’d let us in and give us good seats, grandstand seats, right behind the batter. They would have all the lights on, just like daylight. And you could see the white ball and all the action, just where the ball is and how it goes. Sometimes when they would hit the ball it would go beyond the rays of light so you wouldn’t see it and you wouldn’t know where it was coming down. There was a score-board way out in the field, and above the score-board there was a clock. I couldn’t see the clock; it was too far away I guess, but it was real big. I went a lot of times to these night games. I never ordinarily went to see games in the daytime, only at night. I used to like to see the white ball. I could see it anywhere. There was a net before the grandstand to protect the people from the balls. Many times the ball would come over and hit the net and then roll down again.

Dobriski pitches sometimes; he also plays at first base. He’s a pretty good ball player too. It is hard to play ball in a place like this because all they have to play for is an extra steak dinner once in a while and that’s all. In a place like this there is always a lack of cooperation. Some of the fellows don’t like this and some don’t like that. One fellow is praying that the manager will make parole
so he can get back on the team. He can’t play ball very well but he tells everybody it’s because he has bad eyes.

I’ve got another good friend, Carlson. He marks the score behind the batter; last year he wanted me to take that job over. He asked me if I wanted it, so I didn’t tell him I couldn’t see, only that I didn’t want it. I didn’t tell him why. Once he said something to me about my eyes and I didn’t talk to him for about a month. Every time somebody says something about my eyes I always remember it later. I always remember. I use it as a basis for hating them.

I don’t remember much about a dream I had the other night.

All I remember is I was talking to some young fellow and he wanted to run away from the draft; so I told him it was better to go in the army for one year than in a place like this for five. I also remember that there was a war going on or something, and that there was also some fellow who wanted me to write a letter home to his mother. He was dying.

This one that was dying was an older man: the other was a young fellow. I don’t think I looked very carefully at them. The younger fellow reminded me of Perry, except that he had hair like Dobriski, kind of a dirty blond. I don’t recall what the older fellow looked like at all. I was telling the younger one that it was better to be in the army for one year: that it was bad but not as bad as five years in here. The one that was dying was in one piece; I mean that he didn’t have his legs or his arms cut off or anything like that; but there was a hole in his side, a pretty big hole. He wanted me to write a letter to his mother. He wanted to let his mother know but he didn’t want anybody else to know. I can’t even place the fellow. He wore a tin hat like they have in the American Army. I don’t know how I was there or what place I was holding or what job I was doing. I don’t even know if a war was going on. Things changed from one moment to the next. He kept hollering to write somebody a letter: he was hurt or something. While I was talking to the young fellow there was a freight train going by and he was going to jump
on that freight train to avoid the draft. The train was going and going and going, and it looked to me as if there was no end to it. I don’t remember seeing the engine passing, all I remember is that the freight cars were going.

Sometimes I lie in bed and I can’t fall asleep until about eleven. I get up several times to get a drink of water or to take a smoke and look outside. Sometimes I’m up till five-thirty in the morning. When I lie in bed like that and can’t sleep often I write poetry. The words just keep going through my mind like waves, fine and smoothly. I can’t remember a thing going through my head and so I write everything down in the night. In the morning I try to decipher what I wrote.

I remember in the dream the freight cars were all going, moving, moving. They made a rattling noise. I could hear it plain as day as I was watching the cars.

When I lived in T cell-block they had sliding doors made of bars. I was up on the third floor. Up there I would sleep until count-time: many times the officer would holler at me for sleeping late. I didn’t like the place, someone would walk by and your mind would lose interest in what you were doing and turn to the person going by. Somebody was always playing some music, the same song all the time. I didn’t like it so after about three weeks I moved out. I couldn’t get any of my work done.

The only reason I moved up to that cell-block was that Dobriski was up there. We are always having a lot of arguments. He is a very fine fellow only he would burn me up a lot by talking to this fellow Billings or the one they call Shanty. If a person says anything or makes any remark about my eyes I always remember it. He purposely and deliberately agitated me by doing that. We had a lot of arguments about it …

I had three dreams.

In the first one I dreamed I was on the road above the greenhouse here. I dreamed that I and a girl were going in there. We went
in on one side and at the other end I saw my sister, so we ran out of one door and my sister came out the other end. She started rushing toward the girl with a whip in her hand. The girl didn’t know what to do. My sister had a whip and I tried to stop her.

In the other dream there were some men with big hats. I can’t place any other people or any of the characters. I don’t remember much about this dream. There was a room with a big bathtub in it and somebody turned on a tap and hot steaming water came down on all the people. I don’t remember getting any of the hot water on me.

In the next dream I remember helping a fellow provision a boat with food. I was going to buy a boat for myself, a motor boat, and I was going to cruise to Atlantic City.

I remember sitting in the show last night and it was real hard for me to see the picture. I was straining my eyes so much. The pictures were too bright, I guess.

L: ‘Harold, suppose you start with one dream and tell everything that occurs to you in relation to it.’

Well, I don’t know who this other girl was. I think it was Lila. I remember my sister saw her one time with me and she didn’t like her.

It was at the greenhouse in here. The greenhouse is about eighty feet long. We went in at one side and she was at the other, the other end. We came out on the road and my sister had a whip or something like a whip and she came running at the girl and it seemed she was going to hit her. I started holding my sister back. I wouldn’t let her whip her. I remember distinctly the girl with the whip was my sister Marie, the older one. They were the only two persons in this dream. I remember they were in the greenhouse inside the walls and I remember the greenhouse, the road, the buildings and everything. My sister had a dark dress on. I think we walked in one end and saw my sister come out the other with a whip in her hands. She was holding it in two hands, the thick end was in her left hand.

L: ‘Why would your sister want to whip you?’

She wouldn’t whip me, she was going after the other girl. She saw the girl with me one time and didn’t like her. She always used
to kid me about what ugly girls I picked up. I held her back. The other girl didn’t know what to do, to stay or run away. My sister’s got a bad temper, a really bad temper but I always can cool her down. I just talk to her and just cool her down a little bit. But she had the thick end of the whip in her left hand and the thin end in her right hand. She was holding it with her two hands. The whip was about four feet long. I held her by the shoulders. I held her back but I didn’t take the whip from her.

I remember that time my sister saw me with Lila. My sister had a red dress on and the girl was wearing a pink dress and I had a white shirt and blue trousers. I don’t know why my sister didn’t like her. I guess she was ugly in a fashion: she had straight hair and my sister has nice curly hair, shiny. I remember all the kids I hung around with would kid me about her. They used to say that she was taking good care of me.

I think it was very funny. I remember very distinctly the greenhouse and the wall and everything about it; the greenhouse in this place and the wall in this place, everything in this place except the girl and my sister.

Most of the other girls I ever went with my sister liked but she disliked this one. I didn’t go with this one very long, about two months or so. My sister really hated even her name.

All I remember is that it was daylight and it was in the summer, and the grass was so green.

They were the only two persons in my dream.

My sister is right-handed so I don’t see why she would hold the whip in her left hand. I don’t remember whether the girl was running away from me or where she went. I was holding my sister by the shoulders, holding her back. She was saying to me that I should get out of her way. After that I remember nothing about it. I think I woke up then.

L: ‘Can you remember anything more about the second dream?’

The second one I don’t remember much about. There were a lot of men, men with big hats, big hats like Stetson hats, and cowboy shoes. It was in a room or something. They had a lot of things like sprinklers near the ceiling set in different angles. It was a kind of bathroom with a sink and a wash basin and everybody was there. Somebody turned a knob and the hot steaming water came down on everybody. I don’t know who anyone of them were.

In the last dream I had I can remember the place. It was at a
dock where all the boats were tied up near C——. There is a bridge there over the river and before you cross that bridge you come to the place where all the boats are kept in storage. There were several people, a man and his wife and a small child, a girl. They owned the boat and were fixing it up to take a cruise. I was telling some girl in the party that I was going to buy a boat some day and I kept pointing out to her several different ones. I would like that one and that one and that one; and I would take a short cruise to Atlantic City for about two weeks or so.

I was in Atlantic City once or twice. I remember seeing the big pier standing way out into the ocean. I didn’t like to go swimming in the ocean. I’d rather go to a pool. It’s not so dirty and there is no sand.

I remember about ten years ago we went off on a trip up a river on an excursion boat. I think it was my aunt Louise, my mother, my sister and myself. We got on the boat somewhere and went straight up the river. It seemed like a river so maybe it was. With a river you can see both sides unless it is very wide. Maybe it was the Bay. The boat went out and then it turned around and came back. I don’t think it was a river; if it was it was certainly very wide. There were big mountains where the boat docked. I saw people swimming and rowboats and sailboats. There were a lot of people on it but not many people swimming. It was a long time ago. I remember when we started from home. We were living on B—— Street then. There were only myself, my other sister, my aunt Louise and my mother. We lived near the railroad station and I remember we took a train there for where the boat was. When we got off the train we took a bus and went to the dock where the boat was and we went on the boat and then the boat started. I can’t remember whether we went up the river or down or up the coast. I don’t even remember why we went. I was very young then. When we came back it was dark. I recall the people dancing and looking down the boat through a small iron door into the engine room where I saw the wheels and the motors talking, I mean turning, and making a lot of noise.

I can’t remember the name of the boat but it had three decks. When we got there we walked up the mountains. There was a road, a dirt road.

This all probably happened when I was around eight years old. When we came back I was telling everybody about it. I remember one fellow saying he was going on a trip too. We were talking under a street light on the corner. There was a fire hydrant on that corner.

One of the fellows lived near that corner. He used to take barrel-staves and cut guns out of the wood. I remember some men once drained the sewer on the corner and found a cannon-shell, about a foot long and eight inches in diameter. I tried to pick it up; it weighed about forty pounds. The fellows used to lose balls in that sewer, baseballs and handballs. They got them out by chinning themselves in the manhole and picking the balls up with their feet. In the summer time the firemen would turn on the fire hydrant on that corner. One time I had a fight with a fellow who hit me in the eye and I was lying on that corner crying, right underneath the street light, the street light. It was shining bright in my eyes and everybody was looking at me. After that my mother didn’t let me go out and I used to sit in the window and watch all the fellows out there playing.