Rebel Without a Cause (18 page)

I always had an idea that when I got older I would go to Annapolis. I was always trying to work that, but when I was hanging out with these kids I got into trouble, once and again and again, and everything started going wrong. This friend of mine, Wally, he kept out of trouble alright. When he and I were Boy Scouts he went to camp every summer for a month or two. Of course, I couldn’t go: my father couldn’t afford it. The years went by and I met him once in a while. He went his way and I went with the gang and here I am.

We had a fight once, me and Wally, and he picked up a milk bottle as if to throw it at me. I was cutting a piece of wood with my pen-knife, so I ran at him with the knife. I didn’t cut him but he ran down to the police station and told some detective there about it. The detective knew who my mother was and he told her. Nothing happened from it though.

On S—— Street we lived in a two-family house and on the second floor lived a family with two girls who went to school while the man and woman worked. Several times I went up there and nobody knew that I was up there. I fixed the front door. There was only one way of getting upstairs and that was by way of the front porch and there was something wrong with the lock on the front door. It
was very easy to open. I fixed it so I could get up there anytime. I remember one time I stole seven dollars. Me and my two cousins spent it all within a week. That was when I was around twelve. After this the family moved out and another one came in. They had two girls, about my age, and several boys. I used to play with one of the girls under the stoop underneath our porch, and when nobody was around I played with her further than most kids that age would.

She wasn’t the first girl I had though. I don’t remember who was the first one. It all goes back to when I was about seven or eight. Most of us young kids played together. There was a woman with one or two daughters and a son. The girls played with us and the son belonged to the big gang. One of those girls was the first one I had. Then I used to have Wally’s sister, who was about as old as me. We would go to their house when nobody was around and undress and lay on the bed and roll around.

My cousin Riggs and I and another fellow got one of these girls around back of the garage and we were trying to lay her, and she hollered and screamed. My cousin Riggs wanted her to suck his peter. She was only seven and she wouldn’t do it. When she got home she told her mother and I told you how Riggs said I was the one …

One time I took my father’s straight razor—this was before my sister was born—and I started to cut wood off his bureau. When my father came home and started to shave he noticed it. I said I didn’t know anything about it but my mother kept telling me to tell the truth. So I finally told the truth and got an awful beating.

Sometimes when I got a bad beating I used to cry and I felt as it somebody was singing in my ears songs I knew, and it used to make me feel worse.

I remember the first dog we ever had, a female called Nellie. We had her for about four years. One time she bit me when I ran past pushing somebody in a wagon. That’s the only time she ever bit. I remember she used to run after cars and people. One time when she was having business with some male dog she got stuck and I remember my mother beating her. I don’t know what happened to her pups. I think my father drowned them.

My father had a job driving a truck. It was a big dump truck.

My mother’s godfather always got drunk. One time my mother
got sore because he got drunk too much, so she took all the whiskey bottles and broke them up. There was a store across the street where they sold bootleg whiskey and he’d go across every couple hours to buy a pint. It made my mother mad. I don’t know why he left our house; there must have been an argument about drinking.

In B—— Street we had an old car in the lot. We’d blow the horn and raise hell with it, us kids. Once I was standing in the back of the car when I felt someone grab my ear. It was my mother; she was looking for me and she chased me away from the car.

In the big house where my cousin lived there is a big cellar, real dark, and a couple years ago somebody lost five or ten dollars in change and silver there. The kids spent a lot of time in that cellar trying to find that money, digging and digging, hours at a time. Most of it was never found. It’s a very dark cellar. The big kids tried to get us little kids to play with their peters there. One fellow tried to get me to do it but I ran away. And we collected old bottles and put them up on a shelf in the corner. Then we’d take rubber bands and staples and break the bottles. We saved a big box of broken bottles to spread under cars.

There was an Italian kid that lived on the corner and we’d get in arguments with him so once we tried to get even and I stole a pair of dumbbells and a small sailboat from him.

I got a lot of beatings when I was young. The one about the razor was the worst, I guess. I remember I could hear somebody singing. It was going through my head. I didn’t know what it was.

My oldest sister slept in a cradle in the same room with my mother and father. I slept in the other room with the boarder, whoever that would be. Most of the time it was my godfather, I mean, my mother’s godfather. We had an old stove, a grey one with a black top and nickel-plated rims on the side, and the gas jet was right above the table. It was a big round table. By the house was the garage where my father kept his car. He built truck cabs and truck bodies and rebuilt sewing machines there. I was interested most in bicycles then. I used to steal the funny papers at home and bring them to a friend to let him see them just to ride on his bike.

We used to go to the movies every Friday night. The whole family would go. After father got paid he would come home to wash up, and then we would go to the show, every Friday.

When I was living on B—— Street I had a friend, Eddie, who
was about five years older than I but always treated me like a brother. There was one person who really was a friend to me. His mother was taken away to an insane asylum. They said she had a fit and they got an ambulance and took her away. I remember that night they took her away. I knew his father too; he was a fine man.

When I got to be a little older, about nine or ten, I scrubbed floors for my mother. Before that I washed dishes. And I remember my aunt Louise used to get me to say my ABC’s—I didn’t know them very well—get me to say them while I was washing the dishes.

There was a family that lived in the big house. The man would get drunk and beat up his wife and his daughters. We’d listen how he cursed and beat up his wife. Then there was a fellow who lived directly across the hall from where Wally lived. He lived there with his real old mother. One time he came out in the street and he had a gun, and the people called the police station. The police came looking for him, and when they got there he was home on the third floor. They went up to get him and he jumped out of the window. You can still see his foot marks where he landed. There was also an old man in the neighborhood who rode a bike with hard tires. We’d kid his son because his father had to ride a bike while other men had cars. I don’t think the kid liked that very much.

I never liked my cousin Riggs. I didn’t like to have him around with me. We’d cut our classes and go to shows together; when I had money I’d take him and when he had it he’d take me. I didn’t trust him though. I disliked him: I hated him for some reason or other.

Before I came in here I was going to buy a machine gun and another fellow and I had it all arranged. The only thing was that this gun had been stolen from a police car and didn’t have a round cylinder. It was just before I came in here. I was going to get Riggs and several other fellows and we were going out and hold up a bank. If I had ever done anything like that with Riggs I would have killed him I guess. About a week or two after that I was picked up on this charge and that’s how come it never came off. Now I hear he is married and settled down. Ha!

I never trusted him much. I never told him any of my business. I’d break into lunch wagons and steal soda and cake and pie and cigarettes. When I came home and the family smelled smoke from the tobacco on me I used to get beatings …

I used to listen to the radio a lot when I was outside, mostly to crime stories and things like that, or comedians. When I’d come home I’d turn on the radio for an hour or two and listen to it. Many times my mother came in and hollered at me for playing the radio when I was supposed to go to sleep. I’d wait till she was gone and then turn it on again.

I never was what one would call a heavy eater. I like to eat a lot of potatoes, cakes, pancakes, my aunt’s pancakes. She is really the only one that knows how to make them. They’re delicious. I go for cake a lot. I like cake and good coffee. My aunt Louise always had some cake for me.

My aunt Vanya is entirely different from my aunt Louise. She’s quick-tempered; we never got along well. Louise, she always reminded me of my mother; she likes to mother everybody even though she has three children of her own. Her husband tried to fix me up with a job at the A—— Co., where he is foreman or something. I went there but they gave me a medical test and I couldn’t pass it. I tried to skim through it but they wouldn’t let me.

I used to bite my fingernails. About four years ago, in the summer, I stopped for a while because I wanted to see if I could keep them. I did, and they grew so big they got in my way. So now I keep biting them again.

I don’t like to season my food with pepper. I like to eat tomatoes with a lot of salt but no pepper. I don’t like peaches, but I like oranges and grapefruit. I don’t like greasy food, fats or things like that, and I don’t like to eat more than is enough; I’m satisfied when I’ve had enough. Last winter I weighed about 155 lbs.; since then I’ve lost around six pounds. I know that eating doesn’t make you gain weight; it’s how much you eat and how you eat it. Now me, I drink about three pints of coffee a day. I don’t eat much bread and don’t drink much water.

I used to drink a lot of whiskey on the outside. When I was up on my aunt’s place I drank a lot. Toby’s uncle was a heavy drinking-man and he liked to go with me. He said that I was one fellow raised in the city who could drink more than most country fellows.

I don’t like crowds. When I’m in a crowd it seems to me that everybody is looking at me. I used to go through crowds, especially on a sunny day, and figure to myself that they were all looking at me.
I used to be one of those wise-cracking kids. If anybody’d say anything to me I’d get sore and give them a sarcastic answer. I gave my mother, my sister, everybody, sarcastic answers.

If my mother really wasn’t my mother I might dislike her. But of course she is my mother, and everyone likes his mother. A man

only has one mother. Sometimes she would say things that would reflect on my eyes. I didn’t like it, but we managed to get along alright. I talk to her: I like her. When I wanted to get some money out of her I’d throw my arms around her and kiss her and tell her how young and beautiful she looked. She always fell for it. But my sister is quick: she didn’t fall so easy. O, she’d usually loan me the money, but sometimes it was a lot of trouble. Me and Marie got along pretty well. Once in a while we have an argument, then she throws everything she can get her hands on at me. One time when she saw me with Lila she started kidding me, kidding the life out of me; so finally I told her to shut up, and she got mad and started throwing her shoes and everything at me. My younger sister is about twelve now I guess. She’s like any young kid, thinks she is tough, wants to fight with everybody. She’s my father’s pet. My mother always stuck up for me when my father said something to me. He blamed me for not getting a job. I’d look for work but I couldn’t find any, so I got sick of it and didn’t try any more. I didn’t care much about anything. I didn’t care.

I didn’t have many clothes outside. I didn’t want to ask my mother for any money to buy clothes with, or my father. The money I stole I used to buy things with for the fellows in the gang. I’d spend it mostly for whiskey.

My mother wanted to make me stay in. She didn’t want me hanging around in the poolrooms and doing things like that. Sometimes my father would see me and then he’d say something. I never said anything; I never talked to him.

I’d stay up late and when it rained or something I would remain at
home and read. Then my father would say something to me about a job; so I would go out into another room and get dressed and go out even if it rained. I’d sneak out a lot.

My older sister doesn’t get along with my father either, only he doesn’t say anything to her. She works. She makes about twenty-eight dollars a week and is only around twenty. I guess he won’t say anything to her as long as she works, but as soon as she loses a job he starts talking. She was up here about two months ago and she has certainly changed a lot. When you say something to her she has a smart, quick answer, kind of sarcastic. I always figure that if I didn’t know her and looked at a picture of her, she would appear to be a quiet girl. But she really talks and talks and talks.

I don’t know what makes me think of Perry now. He’s quiet; doesn’t say much; doesn’t talk to many people; doesn’t get loud when we have an argument. We have some real good arguments, too. We argue back and forth and then he waits a few days and brings up the same argument again. He picks the place where I put my foot in it and ruined myself. He’s funny some ways. I gave him a magazine to look at the other day and he took it to his cell and threw it down. He didn’t even look at it and he started arguing with me: why was I always giving him such trash? So I took it back and I showed him what I wanted him to see. He started begging me for it after that. I didn’t give it to him. When we talk, he does most of the talking. I’m learning a lot from him.