Rebel Without a Cause (20 page)

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.…

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.

He was so mad, so mad he was almost crying. Honestly, he was almost crying, and trembling and nervous and irritated.

I usually stay in my cell after working and try to do some of my own work. When he came upstairs last night I thought he wanted me to go out, and then he started mentioning my name, calling me down to his cell, and we started arguing. I told him the officer was coming five or six times. It didn’t do any good. He kept telling me every time it was alright. Finally I did some quick thinking and I said I had to see somebody. When he came out I knew he was mad and he knew I was lying, that I got out of it by a lie, and I was afraid. I must say I think I handled that situation pretty well. I don’t think he’ll try that again for a little while. I think it’s something different now. You see, I know Perry hates people and that
he doesn’t talk to anyone. He thinks more of me than he does of anyone else: he really likes me: and I think he thinks more of me now than if I permitted him to do anything like that. I don’t know what came over him. He grabbed my shirt and started mauling me and pulling me into his cell. I told him he was foolish, acting like a child, a baby. I told him to keep his feet on the ground. I like the fellow a lot but if he doesn’t want to talk to me anymore I don’t know what I can do. He’s a fine fellow regardless of the way he’s constructed and I don’t hold it against him. I just don’t want to do anything like that with him. This morning he was smiling and laughing and joking. I don’t think I’ll say anything to him about it. I’ll just forget about it and let it go by. I don’t want to do anything. I’m all mixed up; I don’t know whether I’m coming or going. My eyes hurt and my head aches.

L: ‘Let’s get back to your dream, Harold.’

Well, I was figuring on stringing the wires of the big cello on the little guitar. I was only dreaming about myself. I was moving all my things downstairs and I was carrying this big cello. It was really big. I had to tip it to one side to get it in my cell. I stood it up against the wall and started to strip the strings from it, winding the big strings, and trying to put them on the small guitar. I don’t remember seeing anything else in my cell except the bed. I don’t even remember seeing the locker; nothing but the bed and the big cello against the wall. The cello was a big thing. The big thick wires were almost like cables; the thin wires were like thread.

I was figuring that I’d hook the strings on the end and tie them around the little halters, but those strings were so big I knew it was wrong. They were about nine feet long and the thin ones only about three feet. I don’t know why I thought I could get the big cables on the little guitar. I thought I’d tie them around the little pegs at the end.

That’s all of the dream I remember. Maybe there was more but I don’t recall.

L: ‘Do you think the strings on the cello and the guitar stood for something, Harold?’

They might have but I can’t place it. I remember I stood the cello up against the wall and I was sitting on the bed, stripping off the strings. It was a big thing: the strings were as fat as a man’s penis.
I used to know a fellow that played the cello. I never touched one but you never can tell; I had one in my hands in that dream alright. All I know is I was sitting on the bed and the cello was standing in front of me, and I was pulling the wires out of it, the big thick wires. I was figuring to turn the cello over. I didn’t know how to get the big cables on the guitar. There was something wrong there. The wires on a guitar are not like they were on this cello. On a guitar the thick wires come first, then the next thick and then a little thinner and so on down to the last real thin one. On the cello there were three real thick ones and three thin ones. The thin ones were in between the thick ones. Maybe the cello had something to do with me. It was husky and strong like a man, like me.

L: ‘Now, Harold, suppose we start from the proposition that the cello had something to do with you, was husky and strong, manly.’

(Silence.)

L: ‘Well. Where was the small guitar while you were stripping the big cello of its strings?’

I laid the small guitar on the bed.

L: ‘If the big cello had something to do with you, what had the small guitar to do with?’

Maybe there’s a female part of me. Yet I don’t think there is anything feminine about me.

L: ‘What do you suppose the small guitar had to do with?’

Maybe Perry. Christ! It sounds as if I’m getting in the middle here.

Well, I was in Perry’s cell only about a minute. He put his arms around me, that’s all. I said somebody was coming, and somebody really came by. He wasn’t on the bed. He was standing right there.

L: ‘Tell me. What was the shape of the cello and the small guitar: were they shaped differently?’

The cello was like a big violin. The guitar was a little different in shape, wider and thinner than the cello, more graceful, like a lady.

L: ‘Well, try to continue the association. You had this object, a big cello, a large object, with a deep tone, manly. Now you felt you had to strip the big object and try to fit certain of its qualities to the smaller object. This object was small, ‘like a lady, graceful.’ And you thought there was something wrong about it.’

I think I understand it now. I get the point of the dream.

L: ‘Can you suggest anything else, Harold?’

Well, we might take it this way. There is a big, powerful man, a business man, with money and power, and there is a pauper that has nothing, no strings on the guitar. You strip the powerful man of his strings, his power, his money, and apply it to the small one. It would be a useless job though. But this man has nothing to do with me, my life. There might be other reasons but I don’t know. The first interpretation sounds more logical. I like Perry a lot but I don’t want to do anything like that with him. I want to help him all I possibly can but there’s a limit to everything. I guess we’re at the limit. I don’t want to make any excuses. I knew what he was like and I even knew he couldn’t control himself. I knew he hates people and likes me a lot. I guess he wants to do it because he likes me. I think he is himself stronger in some ways than I am, mentally at least.