Cell 2455, Death Row

by Caryl Chessman

  I told Tim I believed him.

  Judy had parked half a block away. After wiping the interior of the police car, we strode swiftly and silently to my Ford—bringing the riot gun along with us—got in and drove off, unseen, undetected. I let Tim and Whitey off at Tim’s, telling them, “You two guys come on around to the apartment after you’ve got some sleep.” They said they would. Then I chauffeured Tuffy to his home in Pasadena. “Give me a call, Tuff, when you’re ready for me to make the run back over here and pick you up.” He nodded and waved Judy and me on our way.

  We reached the apartment and I parked. I took Judy in my arms, held her, kissed her. “Judy,” I whispered, “I love you—so much that I don’t want what I’m doing to touch you, not in any way.” So I asked her to promise me that she would forget all about this night and that hereafter she never would come looking for me again, that, unless I personally told her, she never would even think about what I might be doing.

  “I promise,” Judy said, adding: “But I only wanted to help, Daddy. I was afraid I’d lose you. And I can’t stand that feeling. I can’t!”

  I kissed Judy again.

  “Darling! Darling!” Judy whispered. “Don’t go away!”

  Later, still holding her in my arms, I said, “I’m a fool, Judy Baby. But I’ve got to gamble. I’ve got to gamble everything, even our love.”

  And that’s what I did.

  • 21 •

  The Game Grows Grimmer

  We were continually on the move.

  Incident piled upon incident.

  I drove myself and my friends toward a mirage, an impossible goal. If you knew your way around, if you knew how to look out for yourself, nothing was impossible, I insisted.

  You had to know, though, what you wanted and then you had to have the guts and the savvy to go after it. You took the violent, the savage, the macabre, the humorous, the fantastic in stride. Soon you would go off to war and you didn’t expect to return; you didn’t give a damn if you returned. So you occupied yourself with cramming a lifetime into a few months.

  You got around. You robbed. You hijacked. You snatched a pimp here; you knocked over a bookie or gambling joint there. You sat at your paralyzed mother’s bedside and talked the night away. You saved.

  You had friends. And enemies. You loved one girl—your wife—more than life. But you knew that for you, love and life were exquisite instruments of torture.

  You met gay, sophisticated young things who bestowed their favors liberally, who, for a moment, shared their physical selves with you. And you knew that they were as lost as you were. Behind their laughter was not a tearful melancholy but a terrifying emptiness. Unable to fill the void, they fled from it. They made flight their goal. Briefly you fled with them.

  Occasionally you dreamed still, and laughed mightily at yourself when you did. For you knew that only hopelessly innocent fools dared dream.

  And you were beyond innocence. You had convinced yourself that you were a knowledgeable young cynic who knew all the answers, all the angles. And you were so positive that only the impossible, and the unattainable, would satisfy you.

  Oh, you were a clever young man, all right.

  No doubt of that.

  A clever young man and a busy one. . . .

  That brings us to the evening of January 16, 1941, and a violent prelude of things to come.

  In swank San Marino Tuffy and I stole an expensive Packard club convertible. Ten minutes later we walked into a liquor store. “Two quarts of beer,” Tuffy said, naming the brand. The clerk was getting us the beer when a tiny old lady came from a back room and looked at us with sharp appraisal.

  “You boys are too young to be buying beer,” she said.

  Tuffy and I exchanged glances. I nodded. We displayed our guns. There was no age limit on banditry.

  “Pardon me, ma’am,” Tuffy said, “but this is a robbery.”

  “It’s nothing of the sort,” the old lady snapped back.

  “But it is” Tuffy insisted, as gently as possible.

  “Your guns don’t scare me, young man,” Tuffy was told. “And you can’t have our money. We need it. You ought to be ashamed of yourselves for trying to take it.”

  This spirited little old lady—she must have been at least seventy and couldn’t possibly have been five feet tall or weighed a hundred pounds—gave us an inspired scolding. She wagged a finger at us and told us what we needed was a good tanning. She continued to lay down the law for a good five minutes, until a customer walked in. Then she smiled sweetly at us.

  “Now you be good boys and be on your way,” she said. “And think about what I’ve told you.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Tuffy said. But he picked up the two quarts of beer, and was rewarded with a scowl. Sheepishly he dug into his pants pockets and brought out a couple of half dollars, which he laid on the counter.

  “Thank you, ma’am,” Tuffy said, “and good night.”

  “Good night, boys,” the little old lady said.

  Whereupon we got out as fast as we respectably could.

  “Whew!” Tuffy said, as we drove off.

  “Yeah,” I concurred. “And I see we’re off to a flying start.”

  We didn’t run into any more tiny old ladies but we did encounter something considerably more violent. After four or five quick robberies I got to thinking about that old Nemesis at road camp. Our travels had brought us out to Santa Monica and by then—it was near midnight— the police radio was crackling with a description of us and the Packard.

  “Tuff,” I said, “I’m in the mood to mix in a little pleasure with business.” Then I told Tuffy about old bad eye at the road camp. “I feel like driving out there and blowing the roof off his shack as a token of my esteem.”

  “Let’s go,” Tuffy said without an instant’s hesitation.

  The trouble started when we turned out onto the Roosevelt Highway. A couple of cops in a patrol car spotted us.

  Tuffy was looking back. “They’re following.”

  “Let’s see how good they are at following,” I said. I speeded up, began weaving in and out through relatively heavy traffic.

  “They’re catching up,” Tuffy said.

  So I rammed the gas pedal to the floorboard and the Packard leaped ahead. Tuffy climbed over into the back seat, got his guns ready, knowing what to expect if John Law got within range.

  The wind shrieked in my ears. According to the speedometer needle, we were doing over a hundred miles an hour. But John was still gaining, closing the gap between us.

  Then came the bullets, whizzing, zinging, thudding. And at that precise point it became a very elemental proposition: escape, kill or be killed. We had no intention of being captured.

  Up ahead was an S-turn and after that the highway straightened out for a couple of miles. On the straightaway we would be sitting ducks. Well, I had a surprise for John. Theoretically what I had in mind was possible. Actually I wasn’t so sure, but I had an inquiring mind. I was willing to find out. We were approaching the slow turn. I shouted to Tuffy to hold on.

  Then I took the wraps off my dubious surprise. I savagely jerked the steering wheel to the right, hit the brake. The tiniest fraction of a second before we rammed into the cliff face we lost traction and went into a dizzy spin. The rear end whipped around. And around. And around. I fought the wheel, cursed, prayed and used the brake sparingly. We missed passing cars by inches. We missed plowing into the cliff or diving into the ocean by inches. But inches were all we needed. We slid, lurched sideways to a stop. The patrol car whizzed by, unable to stop. Miraculously my surprise had worked.

  The motor had died, a bad break. By the time I had it going again the cops had got stopped and turned. They were sitting down the highway using the Packard for target practice. We got underway again, in the opposite direction. John continued shooting. One shot got the right rear tire. The spin had got the right front one. I zigged and zagged like mad to throw both tires, finally succeeded. Sparks flew. The sc
reech of the rims on the pavement was something awful. Other cars along the way were frantically heading for the wide open spaces, out of the line of fire. Bullets kept smacking into the Packard.

  Tuffy said, “I think it’s time I was heard from.”

  I heartily endorsed this idea and he began to fire at John. The speedometer needle climbed to eighty before it and half the instrument panel were blown away. I heard strange sounds coming from the back seat, darted a glance around in time to see Tuffy flying to the floor, heels up and kicking. I thought John had got him and began to curse. Then I heard grumbling. Up rose Tuffy from the floor, wiping the blood from his face. “Those bastards can’t do this to me,” he said, whereupon he snatched up the shotgun and began booming away until it jammed. Then he emptied two pistols simultaneously, all the while voicing his indignations. What had happened was that a bullet had struck him on the forehead and deflected through the fabric top. The impact had slammed him to the floor and then another slug had blown off the heel of one shoe, which explained why he had kicked and jerked so.

  Going through the Santa Monica tunnels John sneaked up—while Tuffy was reloading—and let go a burst at us. A furious burst. And Tuffy shouted, “The damn gas tank’s on fire!” Sure enough, it was; flame was shooting out of it as it does from a flame thrower. “Will she blow up on us?” Tuffy asked, and I said I didn’t think so. “Then we got nothing to worry about,” Tuffy said. “Just keep going. You’re doing fine.”

  We got run down a dead-end street and had to turn around and go back the way we’d come. We passed John at a literal distance of not more than ten feet. Again shots roared and metal ripped—but no one was hit. Not long thereafter, John’s car conked out; Tuffy had blown half of its motor into kingdom come.

  So we limped away to freedom.

  Tuffy asked, “How much farther do you think this crate will go?”

  I had no more than said “Not much farther” when the right front wheel crumpled. We climbed out and took one last look at the Packard. It was a smoking, burning, bullet-riddled wreck.

  “We’ll leave the shotgun behind,” I said. “It’d draw too much heat if we took it. Can’t tell how far we may have to walk or who’ll be looking.”

  Tuffy nodded agreement, wiping blood from his face. He took precisely one step, stumbled and winced in pain.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “My ankle. It must be sprained.” He lifted his foot and we saw then what the cop’s bullet had done.

  “Let that be a lesson to you for getting in the way of bullets,” I admonished. “Here, I’ll help you.”

  A couple of blocks away we encountered a man and his wife getting into their Ford sedan. I stepped around to the street side, pulled my gun and covered the man. “Get out,” I said. “We want your car.” The woman screamed, leaped from the car and ran, shouting “Help! Help!” at the top of her lungs. We ignored her. The man froze, speechless. (He was so frightened, we learned later, that he reported to the police the two bandits had stolen his Plymouth, a second car he owned, rather than his Ford.) I reached out and took the car keys from him, then said, “Start walking and keep walking!” With an effort, he did, jerkily, like an automaton. Sometimes the sight of a gun will have that effect.

  We beat it for my place and got there without incident. Tuffy followed in my coupe while I drove the hot Ford to upper Glendale, where I left it.

  Back at my apartment I treated Tuffy’s scalp wound. “You got a hard head,” I told him. “Otherwise you wouldn’t have a head.”

  Tuffy grinned. “People been tellin’ me how hard my head is for a long time. But this’s the first time I realized having a hard head can be such an advantage.”

  With my help Tuffy hobbled down to the car. “Take the Ford home and come on back this afternoon.” I handed him the car keys.

  Then Tuffy remembered. “Hey,” he said, “I still got all the money.”

  “Keep it. We can split later.”

  “All right. Take it easy.”

  “That’s all I ever do is take it easy.”

  When I went back upstairs, Judy didn’t ask any questions, perhaps for fear of the answers she would get. But the worry, the fear was in her eyes, in the tight, strained lines of her face.

  When I kissed her she clung to me for a long time. I knew then, holding her, what a prize heel I was. Judy loved me so much she trusted me absolutely. I could do no wrong. But she knew—although I had never told her—what I was doing. I was breaking her heart. Still she fiercely loved me; still she fiercely wanted to believe in me.

  Her slim fingers explored some holes she’d found in my coat—neat, round holes. Her eyes grew large with a terror that suddenly assumed tangible shape, chilling meaning.

  “Must have ripped my coat,” I said, grinning. Then I took off the coat and looked closely at those holes—four of them. And I hadn’t been scratched! I was almost ready to believe I had a guardian angel. Perhaps Judy’s unwavering love was keeping me from getting killed. What else could explain my incredible luck?

  Judy looked up into my face, searchingly. “How much longer, Daddy?”

  “Not much longer, Judy Honey,” I reassured her. “Just a little while and then everything will be fine.”

  The next day’s papers devoted considerable space to the gun fight. One account began: “Police of the metropolitan area loosened revolvers in their holsters and removed the safety on shotguns today as they followed a trail of armed robbery and screaming bullets, a trail which has been punctuated by a series of robberies and automobile thefts and which always leads back to Glendale. Detective Captain W. E. Hegi of the Glendale police said he is convinced that at least one of the gang of armed desperadoes who held up and robbed two deputy sheriffs early this month in Flintridge and who have since terrorized the entire southland lives in this city.”

  I thought of Judy and her question—How much longer, Daddy? I could hear her stirring around in the kitchen, humming as she prepared dinner. My presence, and the daylight, had driven off her fears. But I would have to leave; the darkness would return. All the night long Judy had slept fretfully and even as she slept she had held me tightly, as though if she clung to me physically I couldn’t get away, nothing could happen to me. But much that was ugly and sudden and violent could happen to me. In the closet there was a coat with four bullet holes in it. I lit a cigarette, walked over to the front windows and looked down at the street three stories below. It was a dark, gray, gloomy day, but children were happily at play. I thought again of my beloved Judy and how much she had wanted to have a baby—"A teeny, weeny little Chessman, Daddy,” she had coaxed. I thought how I had insisted we wait. Surely that had been wise, for now the end was near, and it might not be a pleasant end.

  • 22 •

  The Beginning of the End

  Perhaps the malignant gods had worked out the denouement in advance, in a moment of inspired malice. Again, perhaps Saint Nick, the patron saint of thieves, had withdrawn his patronage, just to see what would happen.

  We knew how hot we were. Our luck in escaping capture had been consistently, incredibly good. Every time we had turned around we had run into cops but, amazingly, we always had managed to fight our way out of their attempted custodial embrace, their traps. At the same time we had contrived to stay out of the morgue—no small feat. But we realized such luck couldn’t last forever. If nothing else, the law of averages would catch up with us if we kept on recklessly pulling such heavy stufl. And when that happened we would find ourselves permanently buried either in some cemetery or in some penitentiary, some joint. “And there’s no future in that,” Tuffy pointed out, with irresistible logic.

  So, after holding council, after debating the pros and cons of our future in the business of organized banditry, we called it quits. Just like that. I gathered up the guns and put them away. All except my own gun, that is. “We let the town cool off,” I said. “From this day on we’re out of business.” Unfortunately, Fate wasn’t content with such a s
imple, direct decision.

  There were complications, dramatic and violent ones. For long, unquiet months—through the summer, the fall, most of the winter— I had been living a Jekyll-Hyde life. Student by day, bandit by night. Hijacker and gunfighter on occasion. I had been, of necessity and yet by choice, many things to many people, and to myself as well. Now— this was late January of the year 1941—there was promise that these many Chessmans soon would find it possible to fuse into one. The R.C.A.F. was but days away. I had logged all the flying time I needed or wanted. In not more than two or three weeks I planned to be in Canada—all arrangements had been made and I expected no difficulties to arise with my probation officer—and within a couple of months after going to Canada I would be in England. Instead of shooting it out with cops I would be shooting it out with Jerry.

  I had saved and saved for my mother’s operation. Unhappily, the joint venture with Tuffy, Bill and the others had brought us only modest financial return—and a million dollars’ worth of heat. For a time, however, we—or at least I—had gotten bullheaded. An unbelievable run of bad luck, and having cops always getting in our way, had only made us rashly angry. Repeatedly, we had had it impressed upon us that the road we followed led not to riches but to prison or the grave. Soon we reached the point where we were unable to justify a continuation of our collective effort without frankly admitting that our goal was merely to raise as much irrational, violent, dramatic, suicidal hell as possible for as long as possible, and that wasn’t our goal. It never had been, notwithstanding my own proclivities.

  Later I was asked why I had got into such serious trouble. What had been my “reason"? When I attempted to explain, I was told, “Why, that’s not a good reason at all!” Maybe not, but it was a good enough reason. Such virtuous belittling of motivation, moreover, proves nothing. I doubt if, by accepted social standards, the youngster who clashes with the law ever has a “good reason” for doing so. But the indubitable fact remains that delinquency rates continue to rise alarmingly. And they will continue to do so until society itself, in turn, is able to give the delinquent boy or girl a positive and compelling “reason” why he or she should abstain at all costs from turning to crime. Certainly menacing or belittling the delinquent won’t turn him away from crime, as my own case demonstrates.