Rebel Without a Cause

by Robert M. Lindner

  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.

  L: ‘What exactly do you think Perry wants to do with you?’

  He wants to do it himself. Of course, I know about his bisexual condition. I had a feeling he wanted to, well, I—Well, I have a strong suspicion he wants to—to suck my peter. I don’t want to … He is like that. One time we were talking outside about our relationship now. He said, “I’m in love with you. We’re having a fine courtship,” and that he is really a female. I guess that’s what he wanted. I guess that’s right about the dream. The cello is me and the guitar is Perry. I couldn’t make my manliness fit his femaleness. It wouldn’t go. The strings wouldn’t fit. I couldn’t do it. They’re kind of alike the cello and the guitar, just like me and Perry are both men. The strings don’t fit.

  Jesus Christ! A fine courtship!

  THE TWENTIETH HOUR

  This 20th hour provides a neat firsthand account of the inner state of a psychopath during a period when he is tensionally supercharged and ready for an explosive episode.

  Harold appeared to be very tense and upset at the beginning of this hour. He was slightly late for his appointment: his clothes were disheveled and his hair uncombed. For the first time since the initial session he had to be told to lie on the couch.

  Things haven’t gone so well with me the last few days. I am aggravated and irritated by people; my nerves are on edge. I am just blowing off excess steam, I guess. I feel like hitting some fellows. Still I control myself as best I can. I worry about a lot of things. I haven’t felt like this for a long time. When I first came here I was like that: was in a nasty mood almost every day. Then I taught myself to put off these moods and not to stay in them. O, I guess they’re alright once in a while, but when they come too often it’s not good for anyone. I used to feel like that sometimes on the outside. Sometimes I wouldn’t speak to anyone in my family. I’d get these moods when I just wanted to be alone and not talk to or see anyone. What
made me feel like that I don’t know. I guess I felt tough, real tough; at least I thought I was tough. I’d wander around anywhere and when I was asked something I wouldn’t even answer. This wouldn’t last long though, sometimes a day or two. I’d want to do nothing but sleep and get away from everything and everybody. When I was up at my aunt’s home I felt like that once in a while. Why I don’t know how to explain. I just wanted to get away. I’d get into some argument with my aunt and I’d want to forget about it. My aunt would want me to do something or go somewhere and I didn’t want to do it. My aunt is alright, only when you see some person for a long time, see the same person all the time, you somehow want to get into an argument with them. Not that I have anything against my aunt and uncle out there. They struggle hard for a living. My uncle sometimes gets in the same kind of moods that I do: he doesn’t want to speak to anyone; and when anyone talks to him he grunts.

  I don’t know when I first started to be that way. I guess I must have been about sixteen when I got into those moods. When I was in school before that I was cheerful and friendly except once in a while when somebody said something about my eyes. I used to hang around with a fellow who was just like that. He never said anything to anybody. If somebody said something to me about my eyes I would probably leave but the next morning I was just as cheerful. I don’t know why I’d let it irritate me. I guess I couldn’t help it. I’d get nervous if somebody would talk to me because I thought they might say something to me about my eyes.

  Carlson said something to me about my eyes the other night so I told him, “Why don’t you shut up and mind your own business?” I haven’t spoken to him since.

  I don’t get that way very often. I think that’s the reason I dislike my father. I don’t dislike him: I just don’t want to speak to him. Once in a while my mother would call me a blind bat or something like that in Polish, or my sister sometimes would say something.

  I used to hang around with my cousin Riggs and he’d call me names like Squint. I don’t know why I hung around him, I disliked him so. I never committed any crimes with him because I hate him so much.

  The obverse (‘Only with those whom I love can I commit crimes’) enhances the significance of this amazing statement. As we shall see, Riggs was a father-substitute and thus hated. What Harold means is that the forbidden (criminal) act is the forbidden (sexual) act and—for persons like himself—can only be performed with mother-surrogates as a substitutive means of gratifying the hidden wish.

  One day I had an argument with him and I hit him. Now I don’t even remember what the argument was about. O, yes; we were going to High School and there was a candy story where we hung out, and we were in the back room where they had some tables and chairs. I swung on him and hit him and he staggered back; then he hit me; then we waited, and he swung no more and we cooled down. One time, when I was still going with that girl Lila he tried to get me to bring her to his brother’s house when there was nobody home. He figured I would do it because there’s no one there I guess, and because I am his cousin. But I wouldn’t do it: when I had a girl I didn’t like to share her with someone else. A lot of fellows when they got a girl would have a long line-up, sometimes as many as fifteen fellows. I never did that because I didn’t like them. They’d get a girl at night and one of the fellows would play the girl up, and then a whole line of fellows would follow him, maybe a block away two fellows and another block away two more, strung out way behind the first guy.

  I didn’t like to have my father and mother interfering with what I wanted to do. When I was around seventeen I thought I could handle everything myself as well as anyone could. I didn’t think I was very smart but I thought I was smart enough. This fellow that I told you I was going into business with knew another fellow who used to make different kinds of machines. He made a machine to punch out nickels and he did time for it. He knew how to make all kinds of machines. My friend would go and start a conversation with this fellow so we could get some ideas out of him. We would try to work it to get his ideas for ourselves. That was one time in my life when I really wanted to do something. After that I went back home and started to hang around with another bunch of fellows and it was the same thing. We used to steal cars and then we’d go out for a ride. I personally never stole a car myself, that is I never got in it and drove it away. I drove stolen cars plenty of times, and I held up people in them. One time Riggs and I were going to steal a car and we got in it and started it and it was in reverse so it backed up against a truck. We just went away and left it there.

  Riggs and I used to gamble and when we won money we’d spend it going to the devil, buying whiskey, seeing shows. I don’t know what’s happened to him. I know he found a job as a bell-hop in a hotel and as far as I know he still has it. I guess he was afraid of me. I carried a gun. I didn’t carry it all the time. Nobody ever knew when I was carrying it until, I guess, some of the fellows would see a bulge in my pocket and then they knew that I was carrying it. They thought I carried it all the time. I never got searched by any detective. I always felt I was safest in a big crowd with it. I guess I did it because I wanted something to keep the fellows away from me, and when somebody would say something about my eyes I would get so mad I didn’t know what to do. I guess I’ve had about a hundred inclinations of shooting people. I had several fights about my eyes. When somebody would say something to me about them I would burn up and rush up to him. When I got in a fight I wouldn’t wait for anybody to start at me; I’d grab him by the throat and hit his head against the street or the side of a building or anything. When I fight with somebody I don’t see him. I just feel him, my hands around his head or his throat.

  There was a fellow who stole a bicycle; he came to our house and let another fellow take my bicycle, the bicycle I stole. So I got sore and when this fellow came around I rushed at him and banged his head against a fire hydrant. I didn’t hurt him very bad but he went home and told his mother, and his mother came to see my mother; and I couldn’t say anything because I didn’t want my mother to know that I stole the bicycle. I managed to get out of it somehow, I guess by a licking. I didn’t get very many lickings. When my father gave me one I remember it was pretty bad, but when my mother licked me by hand it wouldn’t hurt. Sometimes though she would throw something at me, just like my sister.

  Once in a while I like talking to people. It depends on who I’m talking to. When you say something about my eyes, Doc, it means nothing.

  Yesterday another good friend of mine was asking me about them. I told him to keep quiet. I don’t think I’m very sensitive about my eyes; I just have different periods when I am more sensitive, that’s all. Last night I was up in the library and I was looking at a book catalogue. It was in very small print and I held it close to my eyes and ran my finger up and down the page. Perry came over and said, “Tell me what you want to look at and I’ll get it for you.” The way he said it made me so mad I walked away, and this morning I wouldn’t talk to him.

  I agitate myself when I am asleep. I even dream about him. I had a dream last night that we moved from one cell block to another. He moved to the first floor and I moved to the third floor. I was so mad I was cursing everything and everybody. I am not sure it was Perry but it must have been some good friend of mine.

  L: ‘Tell me all you remember about your dream, Harold.’

  Well, I remember we were living right next to each other and one day he got notice to move and then I also got notice to move to the same cell-block. He was going on the first floor and I was going on the third because we were living next to each other and they wanted to break us up. I was sore and cursing everybody and telling everybody even the Associate Warden that I wouldn’t go. I was cursing and so mad.

  I consider him a good friend of mine. As for living next door to each other, that might mean close association. I guess I didn’t like the idea of having us separated, him on the first floor and me on the third, keeping us away from each other. I didn’t want anybody to interfere with our f
riendship.

  L: ‘Can you think of anything more?’

  I lived in T cell-block when I first knew him over a year ago. He was on the second and I was on the first floor. I don’t remember anyone else being in the dream. I think it was him; whoever it was had hair like his.

  L: ‘Do you see any special significance in the fact that he lived on the first floor and you on the third?’

  Well, I live on the third floor now and Perry lives on the second. We didn’t like the place we were living before because the kids were pretty wild and tough. In the dream I was running up and down cursing somebody, and I was yelling I didn’t want to go. When I woke up I thought I was in T cell-block; that’s how real it seemed to me.