Rebel Without a Cause (29 page)

I didn’t like my aunt Vanya very much. She seemed tough; she wanted to hit people.

I remember now the only time that I slept in the same bed with my other aunt, Louise. I was about twelve then. This was when my mother and my father and my two sisters went to my cousin’s out at L—— for the week-end. They went away on a Friday night and I was supposed to stay with my grandmother. I know that on Friday night the man who married my aunt came around looking for us and he came into a lot where me and my two cousins and about six other kids were trying to break into a lunch wagon, and he told me my aunt wanted me to come home. It was about eleven-thirty at night (I always used to stay out late at night when my mother and father were away). So I went to my grandmother’s house and my aunt Louise was alone. She wanted me to give water to the canaries—they had about ten or more of them. Then this fellow went home and
my aunt started fixing me something to eat, some cake and some milk, and then we went to bed. My aunt was afraid to sleep alone, she was used to sleeping with my other aunt, and I remember I put my pajamas on and went to bed with her. She put her arms around me and kissed me once or twice. When I woke up in the morning my pajamas were all open. I don’t know whether I opened them or not. I slept all night like a log. When I woke up it was about six or seven in the morning. Nobody was with me, my aunt got up early, and my pajamas were all crinkly around me, and when I straightened them out they were open. So I went back to sleep and when I got up my aunt called me in just when I was getting dressed. I don’t recall whether I looked my aunt right in the eye when I came down. She seemed cheerful, nothing was said about it. That afternoon she was in another room taking a nap and she called me. When I came in her dress was about three inches above her knees. I guess I was looking at her thighs and she must have been sensitive because she pulled her dress down. I don’t know what she called me for, what she wanted; I guess it was to fix the shades on the window or something. She was always kind to me, she always told me that if I ever needed money to ask her for it. Even when I was arrested this time she said she would give me the money to get away from this part of the country.…

I had a dream last night. I guess I took some money from my mother, a five-dollar bill or a ten-dollar bill, and I went out and bought a gun, some kind of a revolver. It seemed like the room in my house was just like a cell here. I dug a hole in the side of the wall of the cell and I had a little box and I wrapped cotton around the gun to keep it from getting rusty, keep it nice and clean. I dug a sort of square hole, about three inches square and I don’t know how deep. Then I hung a mirror over it. The mirror was broken in two places. When I looked at the cell door I could see across the corridor, about two or three cells down, and saw my father shaving. I’ve seen my father shave many times and one time I did have a gun hidden away in a wall. There was a board on the side of the wall in my room and one time I ripped it off and drilled a hole in the wall, about two by six inches, and I had a little box that just fitted in there. I wrapped the gun in cotton and put the gun in the box and the box in the wall. Then I put a stick right against the wall to keep anybody from seeing
it and to keep it from falling out. But somebody found it I guess: when I looked for it one time it was gone and I couldn’t find it. I never said anything to anybody but I think my father took it.

L: ‘Now let’s go back to the dream, Harold. I want you to associate to any of the items or events in it.’

Well; I remember that over the hole in the wall I hung a mirror to keep people from seeing it. The mirror was about fifteen by twelve and I hung it the long way, leftwise, not up and down. And on top of the mirror in the exact center of it a piece was broken off and the cracked-off pieces were missing and there were two cracks; from the center, one crack ran to one side and the other to the other side.

L: ‘So that the mirror was divided into three parts?’

Yes; the two parts broken off on the sides were very small. In the center the piece broken off was about two inches and there was a slight crack to either side.

L: ‘Yes, I understand. What is a mirror used for, Harold?’

For looking into.

L: ‘Yes, of course, but what do you think it signifies?’

It was just like curtains on a window. You couldn’t see things where two pieces were missing.

L: ‘If two pieces were missing and you looked into it, what is the answer? What do you see?’

Yourself. O, O, the broken pieces indicate that they need to be fitted in, replaced.

L: ‘Now let’s get to the gun.’

The gun was just like any other ordinary gun. I don’t know if I ever owned one just like it.

L: ‘What kind of a feeling does the possession of a gun give you?’

It—it gives me courage: it’s something to—to back me up: I don’t have to fall back on anyone. I get a real feeling of—of manliness.

L: ‘And what about this gun in the dream?’

The gun I used to hide in the wall was an automatic: the one in the dream was a revolver.

L: ‘What’s the difference between the two?’

Why; an automatic is just straight and flat. This one in the dream had a round cylinder, right on the end of the barrel.

L: ‘Harold, what is a gun most like? You know that any instrument, such as a gun may represent an extension of our functions. For instance,
when men pick up, let us say, a club or a stone, they extend their functions. Do they not?’

I give myself a bigger reach: shooting at a distance, it brings the subject nearer to me. And the shape of the gun … It might be called an extension: it might be a—the phallus. And the hole in the wall that I put the gun in, that might be the woman’s vagina. And three doors down I saw my father shaving; when I looked out the door I could see him.

L: ‘Now, Harold, you said that in the earlier situation when you were at home, you had put the gun in the box and the box in the hole in the wall. When you looked for the gun later it was missing. Now who was most likely to have taken it?’

The most likely one was my father. I know if my mother had found it she would have said something to me about it: she would probably have hollered at me or even hit me over the head with it.

L: ‘That wasn’t your father’s way?’

No. He would probably just take it and say nothing.

L: ‘But you think it was your father who found it? That he stole your gun?’

Yes. I searched the garage where he usually keeps such things. I searched and searched, went through all his things I could find but didn’t discover it.

L: ‘Let me recapitulate, Harold. You had a gun, and you say it represents a phallus. You put this away, you bury it somewhere and your father discovers it. Your next act, your next move, was to take a mirror and place it over the hole where you buried the gun; but the mirror was broken, something was missing. Therefore, when you looked in the mirror a part of what you saw was missing. Is that right? What do you make of it?’

I make of it this. The gun was my phallus and I wanted to hide it because my father would steal it like he stole the other gun when I was home. He had the razor in his hand and he was shaving so maybe he was going to cut it off, take it away from me that way. The broken mirror shows that something of me was missing, I guess, because when I would look in it I would see part of myself missing. That part is the gun, I mean the phallus. But maybe there is another interpretation.

L: ‘Go right ahead.’

My father has black hair and so does Perry. Maybe it represents a secret desire to have intercourse with Perry. It isn’t clear how and I think the first one is better but I just thought of this. Sometime ago I told Perry that I woke up in the morning with my hands around my pillow, that I had a wonderful dream. He begged me to tell him what it was. I guess he thought I dreamed about him. It seems strange: a hole in the concrete wall. You know them, those concrete blocks that cells are built with.

L: ‘It was a difficult job to get into them?’

I don’t remember. I recall laying it in there, not in the box or wrapped in cotton; I just laid it in there and then hung the mirror right over the hole.

Anytime I was with Perry or am with him now it stimulates me. I try to run away from him when it comes to a point where I can’t control myself. I don’t try to force myself on him. It wouldn’t be difficult for me to—to have intercourse with him. He seems to think that everything I do is planned out; that I only talk to him when somebody is likely to interrupt us. I would say that I don’t know whether it was or was not difficult for me, all I’d have to tell him would be that I am in love with him. He tells me that he watches my actions. When I say something he doesn’t pay any attention to what I am saying but how I say things, the muscles of my face and neck, and how I use my hands.…

I didn’t get along well with many of the kids in the school. A lot of them would laugh at me: they seemed to squint their eyes when they looked at me, so I wouldn’t say anything, just turn and walk away.

In H—— Street school especially I didn’t like to sit in the sunlight. There was a fellow that sat with me way back in the classroom in the arithmetic class and when I couldn’t see the blackboard he’d give me the examples and I’d do the work. When I was at St. A——’s in the fifth grade another fellow that sat with me would copy everything from the board and give me the problems. I never did any copying from the board there. I’d make believe I was writing when really I was drawing pictures or scribbling, and once in a while the sister would catch me and I’d get punished. It always seemed to me that the sister was picking on me. Sometimes when I
knew something was going to happen, when I didn’t have my lessons or something like that, I’d play truant; I just wouldn’t go to school. One time when I was playing hookey my mother was walking down the street and she saw me. She didn’t call to me or anything: she waited until after I came home from school and then she gave me a licking. At that time I had the habit of shielding my eyes against the sun by holding my hand to my forehead. My mother made me break that habit: I guess it made her feel uneasy when I did that.…

All that I can remember about living in P—— is that my father had a business of—O—re-treading tires. I don’t know much about it. He had a truck, just a small truck, and he used to go around and come home with a truckload of tires, all used. He’d put them on a machine that used to—go around and round and round and make new tires of them. I don’t know why we moved from P—— because we had a—well, it wasn’t exactly a house, it was by itself but it had glass windows on it. It was on the side of a road. There were a lot of other houses around there. They all seem away from ours. Our house looks like—like a store. It must have been in a small town somewhere. The truck was in the back of the house. The machine was in the store where he fixed the tires, I don’t know how it worked out, but when we were moving back we took the machine with us. My father was going to start a business where we went but I don’t recall that he did. When we got there he got a job as a truck driver. I think we moved after my grandfather’s death. I remember once when I looked up at the third story of a house I saw somebody at the window and someone told me it was my grandmother.

My aunts weren’t very big then, one was about fourteen, one about ten or eleven. They were both going to school, a Catholic school, St. C——’s. My aunt Louise once took me, long before I started school myself; she took me to the Polish school where she was going and I sat between her and the girl she was sitting with. I remember I started playing with the inkwell, banging the little steel flap on it,
and the sister hollered that I was making too much noise and I hid underneath the bench. The sister was in black and she had one of those white things around her head. When I first came in the sister wanted to hear me pray and I couldn’t even speak Polish. I could understand it a little because my father used to speak it. My aunt was sitting not very far back, about four seats back, with another girl. She was fatter than my aunt was but I don’t know what color her hair was. My aunt was on the left side of me, the other girl on the right. I know when she was writing I pushed her arm and I started playing with the inkwell and the sister started hollering at me that I was making too much noise and I hid underneath the bench. I know that. I can’t remember if there was anybody else in the room but it seems to me there were around twenty boys and girls. This was long before I started school. I know it was one afternoon and I still remember my aunt asking my mother if she could take me. My own sister was a little baby then and my mother wanted to go to the movies so my aunt volunteered to take me to school with her. I remember I got tired walking: it was too far away; I didn’t want to go and I told her that I was tired walking. I don’t think I slept in the school. I was watching everybody. After the sister hollered at me I got my head up again from under the bench and looked around. I even looked out of the window for a time. The sister was interested whether I could pray or not and I hid behind my aunt. I know I used to be able to pray. My mother taught me. I remember when I was about ten my sister got a licking for laughing about something, I don’t remember what it was, when my mother was teaching us how to pray. I wanted to laugh too sometimes but I saw my sister get a licking and so I thought better of it. The classroom that my aunt was in had big double seats, two in a seat. My aunt Louise liked me a lot, even when I was that small. She used to take me out to the park near home and when she wanted to give me a drink of water she’d hold me up. You know, I must have been about two or three when my aunt took me to school. I’m sure I wasn’t very much older than that anyway.