Cell 2455, Death Row

by Caryl Chessman

  “That’s right,” I said, “you didn’t.” I grinned, thanked him for the ride and walked away.

  The afternoon shadows were lengthening.

  A few minutes later I thumbed another ride, and was wide-eyed and silent the remainder of the trip in an old Lincoln, listening to a constant stream of what Aunt Elsie (my loquacious chauffeur) had said to Henry (her husband) and what Henry had said to Aunt Elsie, what Aunt Elsie had said to Henry . . . ad infinitum.

  I got out on Brand Boulevard in Glendale.

  “Mind your P’s and Q’s,” Aunt Elsie admonished. Then, with a loud clashing and clanking of gears, she drove off.

  I waved her on her way. Then I looked around—at the traffic, the familiar buildings, the dimly seen mountains in the distance, the tall, elderly uniformed cop standing on the corner across from me. Once again I was almost home.

  The curtain was about to rise on another act of an ironic, violent farce. And the show must go on.

  So hurry! Don’t miss your cue! Run, fool, run!

  Perversely, I paused.

  A skinny youngster of twelve or thirteen was hustling papers on the corner. I called him and he came on the double. “Paper, mister?” he asked eagerly.

  Paper, mister? Mister Eightecn-Year-Old. Mister Wise Guy. Mister Dreamer. Mr. Nonconformist. Mr. Fledgling Psychopath.

  “Just a paper,” I said. “Not a paper, mister.”

  I took the paper and handed the kid a dollar bill. (The young sharpies invariably look at the bill, fumble in their jeans or with their coin changer, which they keep almost empty, tell you to wait a minute while they run for change and then hesitate, hoping you’ll be in a hurry and tell them to keep the bill. This dodge often works.) The kid didn’t go into any routine; he immediately began to make change. I told him I didn’t want it.

  “Gee, mister, thanks!” the kid said. He sounded sincere.

  I set my bag down and glanced at the headlines under a street light. A couple of hammy performers were posturing, raising all kinds of hell in Europe. Their names were Adolf and Benito and, from all reports, they were sinister characters indeed, full of righteous snatch-and-grab ideas.

  I laughed. There were buffoons, buffoons filled with an overweening urge to trifle with things cataclysmic and infernal. And Humanity talked gravely of its destiny.

  I picked up my bag and walked briskly until I came to the stucco house with the porch lamp burning. I paused. This was to be home.

  I didn’t knock. I simply pushed open the front door and walked in, striding through the living room, the kitchen and into my mother’s bedroom. I found her propped up in bed; she had aged, her face was drawn and her arms were as thin as sticks. My sudden appearance had taken her by surprise and for two or three seconds it appeared she was having difficulty believing her eyes. Then she smiled, and her blue eyes misted.

  “Hi, Mom.”

  My mother embraced me almost with desperation. My return was her personal triumph. “You’re home,” she said. “Thank God!”

  • 17 •

  The Fool and the Madman Were One

  I was home.

  Here was a healthy, happy, loving atmosphere, not cloying or smothering, not calculating or possessive. Life had treated my modier and father ruthlessly and I had been anything but a model son. Yet they still retained a quiet, unaggressive courage and a pervasive faith in me. Here was no whimpering self-pity, no secret, smoldering resentments, no cunningly disguised hostility. Here was no bitterness for what had been, no sly projection of felt blame or guilt from one to another. Here, indeed, was home; home was peace.

  And peace was a vacuum and a threat to one who had seen and lived for so long in the jungle. For peace tempted one to drop his guard. And those who lived in the jungle feared it.

  My father had gone into the window shade and Venetian blind business for himself. He took me out to the big two-car garage and showed me his tables and equipment. He explained how the shades were made and the blinds assembled. “We can work together,” he said, and I agreed we could. He was glad. Perhaps he could be a pal to his son now. That is what he had always wanted, and he had held himself largely to blame for my conflicts with the law. For he believed that somehow he had failed to stay close to me and to help me and guide me when I had needed help and guidance most. My father had failed to grasp the real reasons for my many clashes with authority. He never would understand what drove me. He would never be fully aware of the jungle.

  When we returned to the house, my mother told me, “Dad’s fixed you a nice room on the back porch.”

  As gendy as possible, I explained that I preferred to fix a place tor myself in a corner of the garage. “Some nights I’ll want to work and study and if I’m out there I won’t disturb anyone.”

  “Whatever you want, Hon,” my mother said. “Dad and I just want you to be happy.”

  My fadier nodded his head in agreement. He looked at me and chuckled. “Looks to me, Mom, like he’s too big to argue with.”

  We set up a cot in an unused portion of the garage and widiin a few days, with my dad’s help, I had converted half of one side of the garage into a bedroom and study. Here was my castle—the quiet place where I could be alone and think and study and write and dream— and for the present, at least, I asked none better.

  Later that first night home I took a long walk, thinking. Returning home at a few minutes past three, I thrust my head dirough the doorway of my mother’s bedroom. The room was very dark, very quiet, and then my mother spoke. “Hello,” she whispered softly. “I’m awake; so come in.”

  I felt my way to the chair near her bed. “I was hoping I’d find you awake.”

  “You’ve had a long day, Hon. You must be awfully tired.”

  “I’ve had a long day, all right, and a strange one. But, oddly enough, I’m not very tired.”

  We talked cheerful small talk for a while and then my mother said, “My portable typewriter is in the closet and I had Dad buy some typing paper, which you will find widi it. I want you to take the portable out with you, Hon. I think you may want to use it.”

  “Mom,” I said, “I’m convinced you’re a mind reader.”

  “Then you do want to write?”

  “More than anything in the world. But I’m afraid I want to do somediing I cannot do.”

  “But you can. You should and you must.”

  “I’ve tried. I always fail.” It was best I speak the blunt truth. “You think I’ve changed, Mom, and I have—only not the way you think. Now I’m wearing a mask and the world is wearing a mask and we’re grinning at each other, leering at each other, like gargoyles, and waiting. Waiting for the other to make the first false move; waiting to leap at the other’s throat.

  “Yes, I want desperately to write. But I refuse to write madness or to pay lip service to pious hypocrisy. A writer must have a faith. He must believe in more than the harsh, terrible, final reality of a jungle and his own ability to survive in that jungle.”

  What could be said so long as one was threatened, challenged, mocked by this jungle enemy? What could be written so long as “good citizens” made the jungle itself a continuing reality? Beauty and form were at the mercy still of a monster named Force. If what was good and creative within constantly had to be defended against the savage attacks of this monster, then goodness and creativity were not assets but liabilities which punished and invited disaster. One could not give, freely and gladly, when one was under attack both from within and without; one could only fight, defend and question whether what is called creative really matters.

  “And once you are free you must write!” my mother stated, understandingly.

  “Once I am free I’ll write—or I’ll be dead.”

  “You won’t be dead,” my mother insisted. “Not then. Not until the creative part of you has fulfilled its mission.”

  I laughed. “I wish I had one-tenth the faith in myself that you have in me, Mom. But I can’t have. I know what has happened to me. The son yo
u once had has been banished to a spiritual limbo, and a jungle-bred stranger has taken his place, a self-excusing, hating, rationalizing, ambiguous, violent, psychopathic stranger with a glib tongue and a grinning, battered mask for a face.”

  “If that is true,” my mother said quietly, “then my son will find a way to return and depose this stranger. I only pray to God that he doesn’t wait too long.”

  Doubtless that also should have been my prayer. But I was at a disadvantage. I had no God.

  I reported to my parole officer in downtown Los Angeles the first thing Monday morning. This servant of the sovereign, a tall, bony individual, eyed me suspiciously. Yes, my name was Chessman, Caryl Chessman. How did I pronounce my first name? “Carol, as in Christmas Carol.”

  “Your record doesn’t read like one,” I was told with a frown.

  “Appearances are often deceptive,” I replied politely—with a grin.

  What did I mean by that, Chessman? Nothing. Nothing in particular. I was just trying to hold up my conversational end.

  Well, my record of gross antisocial conduct was no joking matter. It was time I realized that. It was time I grew up, acted the part of a man and accepted responsibility. I knew about the provision in the law that permitted the juvenile authorities to turn me over to the courts for sentence to San Quentin if I perversely refused to adjust, didn’t I? It seemed to me I’d heard something about it. Well, it would be a good idea if I kept that law in mind.

  “Why?”

  “Yes, why?”

  Because, sputtered the parole officer, I wouldn’t find San Quentin a very nice place. Because . . . well . . . because I knew very well why. I wouldn’t ask any more silly questions; instead, I would listen, respectfully. And the first thing I would listen to were the terms and conditions of my parole. There were rules, rules, rules and more rules. Violating any one of them or otherwise failing to “cooperate” with the parole officer could land me in San Quentin.

  “Is that clear?”

  “Sure, that’s perfectly clear.”

  “Hereafter, Chessman, I don’t want slangy answers. After this you will answer me ‘Yes, sir,’ or ‘No, sir.’”

  “Yes, sir!” I said, snapping to attention.

  And that instant my parole officer became Authority, and Authority turned beet red in the face. “Chessman,” Authority snapped, “it appears to me that you have an extremely poor attitude.”

  “Toward what, sir?” inquired a Chessman who appeared a picture of bewildered innocence.

  “Toward me, toward parole, toward society,” was the angry retort. “It’s obvious that you need supervision, close supervision. Unfortunately my case load is so heavy, I won’t be able to watch you as closely as I’d like.” To this, Authority added ominously, if somewhat illogically: “But don’t let that put any ideas in your head you can get away with anything. You can’t. The minute you pull any of your old stunts again I’ll hear about it.” Authority paused to let this coercive intelligence sink in.

  I thought wryly: What big ears you have, Grandma! I was sorely tempted to inquire if Authority would hear of new stunts with equal speed and dispatch. Already Authority had lost his standing with me as a human being; he had become one of those absurd, plethoric personifications of a society which too often mistook its vices for its virtues.

  So tell me, Cerberus, why aren’t you wearing your other two heads today?

  “Chessman, let me give you some good advice. Don’t get the idea that you’re bigger than society and its laws. You’re not and you never can be. Get that through your head. Stop being a square peg in a round hole. Take advantage of the training you received at the school. We know what’s best for you. Start following our directions. Be man enough to admit you’ve been wrong. Cooperate with us. Get the right attitude and keep it. Prove to us you’re worthy of belonging to our society!”

  Sure, conform—blindly, abjectly, through fear. Seek faceless anonymity. Arbitrarily reject all subjective criteria. Society (which in Authority’s eyes means Authority) is right, wholly. Chessman is wrong, completely. Chessman is an irresponsible social sinner. Make way! Unclean! Unclean!

  Comprehend nothing of your own dichotomous self, Cerberus. What is, is only what platitudinously appears to be. Be charmed by this assurance. Hark to the beguiling music of it, and let pass unseen an Orpheus who lost his Eurydice before he found her and who was yet to find himself.

  I drew myself up with a fine show of resolution. You’re right, Mr. Parole Officer. I must do what you say. I must straighten up. I must settle down. I must fit in. I must . . . ad nauseam . . . be a man (without manhood, spineless, drab and gray and sickeningly meek and meaningless, with a malleable blob of a personality).

  That’s better. That’s more like it. That’s being sensible.

  And slippery. And deceptive. And sly.

  I didn’t ordinarily drink, but I felt that the occasion of such a momentous meeting called for a drink. So I walked into a bar and had one. Just one. Just enough to violate parole.

  Then I paid a visit to a friend—also an ex-inmate of the reformation factory—and acquired a revolver, plus a handful of extra shells. I got the gun for the asking. All I told my friend was, “I need a gun. Have you got one?”

  He had more than one. He gave me my choice from a small arsenal. “Take yer pick,” he said, and I did.

  Acquiring a gun was an old stunt. Still, my parole officer failed to hear of this acquisition (or my taking that drink or doing business with a former inmate of the school of industry where we both had learned our lesson(s) so well). Apparently Authority’s radar ears weren’t so hypersensitive after all.

  That afternoon, after a year’s absence, I returned alone to my hills, and Authority, for a time, was an unopened tin can. The echoing and re-echoing roar was deafening as I blasted that tin-can personage full of holes with an inspired and deadly accuracy. Puree of tomato gushed forth from him. In no time at all he had bled to death. Then, methodically, I reloaded the gun and six more times in swift succession squeezed the trigger, watching Authority’s bloodless cadaver dance and roll and jump. And then lie still, quite still, battered beyond recognition. Let that be a lesson to Authority.

  In a deliberate parody of the Wild West, I uptilted the barrel of the gun and blew away the wisps of gunsmoke. The acrid odor of gunpowder filled my nostrils and I grinned with satisfaction. Once more I could hear the cadenced throbbing of the drums. Once again, Hate and Guile were standing at my side, counseling, advising, eager to leap into battle with me.

  Prophetically, they told me, “You’ll be needing us.”

  “Then stick around,” I replied. “By all means, stick around.”

  What was it Skinny had bitterly said of his society? “They got a gun pointed at us and they’re going to keep it there. If you show up with a bigger gun, then they’ll listen, not before.”

  Well, I had a bigger gun and it wasn’t the one in my hand. My bigger gun was really a flame thrower. It was fashioned of lessons learned and a peculiar jungle ideology, and it was capable of feeding a conflagration until it reached such heaven-scorching magnitude that even the most confirmed social pyromaniac would be forced to turn and flee in terror.

  The question was: Did I want to use that bigger gun? Did I want to snatch it up and shout, “All right, you righteous bastards, let me have your attention!”

  Hate nodded emphatically and, first swearing its undying fealty, Guile argued passionately for use of the weapon, a sly, plausible advocate.

  First, think! With violent clarity. Satirically. Yes, and contemptuously.

  Knowledge is power. Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. (Thank you, Lord Acton.) But even absolute power can’t corrupt Authority. Indeed, not! The proof: Authority, society’s benevolent Big Brothers, its pontifical patriarchs, its righteous vise-turners, all say so, by necessary implication. And what they say simply must be true, every last word of it. Why? Because it is they who say it, that’s why.


  So let them think for you; don’t think for yourself. (“We know what is best for you. Start following our directions.”) Stay safely within the orbit. Climb into the social womb. (“Cooperate with us. Conform.”) Blindly, passively accept its limitations, its inanities and hypocrisies, its platitudinous truths. (“Get the right attitude and keep it.”) Let yourself be supervised, regulated, ordered around, manipulated. (And thereby “Prove to us that you are worthy of belonging to our society!”) And feel crowded and smothered and chained.

  Or take the weapon in your hand and declare yourself free. Pursue freedom and flee from it simultaneously, paradoxically. Do what the mad dog does, knowing that his conduct is animally, belligerently reflexive and but rarely guided by any critical faculty within himself. Knowing that he tries futilely to steal freedom. But only with a snarling animal violence, with roars. By coveting disease. And without realizing that imposed or invited social hydrophobia, as well as the medical kind, is not a possession to be prized for its own sake, or a condition without cause.

  Hesitate no longer: continue this journey that leads both into darkness and away from darkness. Seek the prize and slay the many dragons you encounter along the way. Be grateful for their ferocity and the sustenance they offer. And keep on the march. Find that place of unbroken peace that is beyond the reach of Authority and Authority’s bullets and vises and cages and mouthings and pious villainies. Fight your way to that place. Defy Authority to try to stop you. Prove that you can’t be stopped. While Authority is teaching you more lessons, you in turn will be teaching Authority some lessons. And what pontifical denunciations your pedagogy will inspire! Perhaps one day in the distant future, with all dragons slain, all psychopathic battles fought, all prizes won, you will find the time to pen a whimsical report to society.

  “Dear Society [the report will begin]: Once upon a time there was a markedly pathological social organism who was voraciously feeding upon the hyperpathological conditions in his environment. It seems that this particular organism entertained the quaint notion that he could thus, by the psychopathological process of introjection, destroy such conditions. Instead, he succeeded only in giving himself a grievous psychical bellyache until he discovered how to regurgitate. Then . . .”