Rebel Without a Cause

by Robert M. Lindner

  L: ‘Why should you feel that you weren’t wanted by your mother?’

  Well, because she was paying too much attention to my father. My father would work hard so when he came home he would be angry. He’d say that his back hurt and he’d tell my mother about it, and my mother, right away she would treat him like I wanted to be treated. I wanted her to pat me on the head too. Like the fellow was telling me last night; I wanted somebody to see that I do the things I ought to do … wash myself, comb my hair and things like that. I began to look into that yesterday after he said it to me. I tried to reason it out. It’s true. I always wanted my mother to … Maybe that’s the reason I like Perry. That’s a good one! He makes me wash myself more than two or three times a day. He sees that I keep clean, that I don’t sit around in dust and dirt and things like that. My mother used to see that I kept clean but sometimes she used to—well—she—when she’d tell me to do something she didn’t mean to tell me that because she wanted me to do it. For instance, sometimes she’d tell me to brush my teeth for the reason they were dirty. I guess she saw my teeth were dirty and she’d make me brush them; but she’d make anybody brush their teeth when they were dirty; not just like they were my teeth. She would treat my sisters and myself about the same when it came to something like that, keeping clean. When she said something to me like that it wasn’t emphasized for me as a particular individual.

  L: ‘And you, of course, wanted to be treated individually and specially.’

  I find that’s true, very true.

  L: ‘So that now Perry is, for all practical purposes, playing the role that your mother played. And he is very well suited to that role, isn’t he?’

  I guess he is. If my hair isn’t combed … He notices everything and he tells me about it and keeps on telling me and telling me about it until I correct it. These other fellows, Carlson and Dobriski, they seem to me … If something is wrong with me, my hair all mussed up or my face dirty, they wouldn’t tell me about it. When I find out about it I get sore for their not telling me. Maybe they want me to become a bum like they are?

  L: ‘So Perry is, in reality, a substitute for your mother?’

  Yes …

  L: ‘Then that is the real reason why you feel the way you do and that you don’t want relations with him?’

  Yes! That’s it! That’s it!

  L: ‘Are you sure you understand it?’

  I do. I get along with Perry. I like him a lot. Some of my friends don’t like him. I tell them I can take care of myself; I know what I’m doing; but when I tell them that they only get madder. I guess I feel sorry for Perry. He hasn’t any friends, only me. Now, after what we just said, I know it’s more than just feeling sorry for him. At first I didn’t talk to him, but I did like him. Sometimes when my hair isn’t combed he tells me it looks like a mop. “If you had a wooden leg they could use you for a mop.” When I don’t shave for two or three days he won’t talk to me. “If you don’t shave you look like a bum.”

  I guess Carlson is right. I want somebody to run after me, brush my hair and tell me what to do. Well, he said I was easily led. If I see him I’m going to ask him what he means by that. I guess he means that anybody could be friends with me easy. But he’s wrong: I really dislike to talk to people. When I’m talking with Perry or Carlson or Dobriski and they start talking about me I don’t like to talk about myself so I switch it away. I don’t like to talk about myself even with Dobriski …

  L: ‘Do you recognize the fact that you actually dislike Dobriski? Has it ever occurred to you?’

  O—I—I don’t … He’s o.k. He’s—a good kid. He’s supposed to be my—best friend, but I dislike him because he hangs around with people I dislike …

  L: ‘Is that the only reason?’

  I used to like him a lot. I used to like him very much. He used to be just like a brother to me. I guess when he went away from the cell-block where we were living and started to hang around with somebody else I started to dislike him then. I talk to him but when I do I get mad right away and I want to fight him. I threatened him a lot of times already but it finally winds up that it doesn’t do any good. I never had a friend like he was to me at first. In the sunlight when I look at him his eyes are in a funny position. That’s a reason why I dislike him. He’s got a chin like my father too. Inside the building he’s got nice soft eyes but outside in the sunlight they look hard to me, cruel. I used to like him a lot, more than anybody else; but he is different from me. He picks on a lot of different people, the wrong kind of people, for friends. I know he dislikes Perry.

  L: ‘Do you think perhaps you dislike him for that?’

  Well, sometimes he appears to me just like my father. That’s the real reason, I guess. Sometimes he acts to me like my father. He curses Perry out when he is with me, calls him all kinds of names. He never does it in front of Perry though, and one thing I will say: he talks very nicely about Perry in front of anybody else. He wants me to do everything he enjoys doing. He has real wide shoulders, big arms and hands, big bones in his arms. Sometimes when he picks up his pants and sticks his chest way out he reminds me of my father. Every time I talk to him we get in an argument. Dobriski reminds me of my father in his attitude on people that have a knowledge on some subject too. He rationalizes his own lack of knowledge and he says they probably don’t have any idea of real life. It used to make me laugh. I know it just serves his inferiority feelings. I don’t like those friends of his. Sometimes he talks to me in Polish too, just like my father.

  Just last Sunday—you know—when the sun’s rays were coming in and moving and jumping around, I was sitting at the table and I didn’t know what happened. I didn’t talk with anybody. I felt like throwing my plate straight up in the air. Then, in here, when we talked about it—my memory—what I was trying to hide—you know … I didn’t speak to Perry for three days and even when he wanted to talk to me I wanted to walk away. That’s the same way I treated my mother at home sometimes. My mother would call me and call me, and I used to turn away and run. I used to treat my mother like that. Then when I came home she’d give me a beating. When I came home maybe a week later she’d feel sorry and I’d feel rested and better.

  Carlson, he doesn’t dislike Perry very much: he likes Perry but he don’t like the idea of my associating with him. But I don’t care what people think. I don’t worry about it. I don’t have to report to anyone, especially any inmate. They’re all small-minded. They probably think—if they have the choice between the good and bad—they all probably think the worst. Dobriski and I used to live in the same cell-block for years. We hung around together and were closer than brothers. O, we’d argue and we’d almost come to blows, but we’d always get back again and be friends.

  L: ‘But as Perry has more and more played the role of a mother to you, so Dobriski has more and more taken on the role of your father. Is that right?’

  Yes; I’m sure that’s right. A long, long time ago we were playing down at the end of the yard and another friend of Dobriski’s said something. We were rolling those balls and it was in the winter. Well, this fellow said something about my eyes. “What the hell is the matter with you? You’re not too damned blind to see that, are you?” I got sore. I felt like hitting him with the ball but I threw it on the ground and walked away. Dobriski said he didn’t hear it but I know he’s a liar. And that reminded me of my father too, because one time I got into a fight with somebody about my eyes and my father hit me. I told Dobriski to get rid of him but for three months he kept hanging around with the fellow. He used to eat at the same table with us next to Dobriski. So I told Dobriski to get him off our table, to do anything to get rid of him, and it lasted like that for a few months. That was the first time I realized that there was something about him I disliked. I avoid him sometimes like I avoided my father. My father hit me one time when I was going to fight with somebody. I was only about sixteen and this guy was a man around forty-five. He was drunk and he said something about me in Polish. I starte
d cursing him out and I was going to hit him. My father was there and he hit me from the back, hit me in the right ear. Then everything really started going bad with my father. I didn’t want to talk to him at all. I always remember that and this incident with Dobriski reminded me of it again. They both seem to be about the same, Dobriski and my father.

  You know … ripping up that match-box, now I know why. You see, I went outside and wanted to take a rest and I saw Dobriski with two other guys I dislike. These two fellows called him over and talked to him. So I called him a stooge and he got sore and I walked away. I was thinking about my father all the time. So I guess I was ripping the match-box just to take out on something how bad I was feeling …

  THE FORTY-FIFTH HOUR

  From what I am trying to understand about myself, why I’ve committed a lot of crimes, I think I was trying to prove to myself that I was more—superior than I was; that I was trying to prove my superiority. It’s like myself are really two people and I try to prove to the other person that I’m more superior than he is. I would take a lot of risks and unnecessary chances, even when I went swimming or stealing, to prove myself superior to what I really was.

  L: ‘Let’s return to the question of your stealing activities, Harold. Why did you take articles that didn’t belong to you?’

  Perhaps because I wanted to possess it …

  L: ‘And why did you want to possess it?’

  Well—I—I—ever since I can remember—because—these things—my mother … Well, because ever since I can remember I wanted to possess—my—mother—more than anyone else …

  L: ‘Way back in your childhood you became definitely convinced that you could never surpass your father and possess your mother. How, then, did you possess things after that? By stealing, by taking, as substitutes, things forbidden to you. Does this explain to you why you went alone when you broke into a house? Can you understand the symbolism?’

  It symbolizes—walking through a door—having an intercourse. Now I see … I—I couldn’t have anyone else go with me. That was one way to—possess—my mother … Now I see. I can see—all these things—what they mean. And it is right.

  L: ‘Obviously you couldn’t get things merely by asking for them. There was only one way for you to possess your mother, which is in many respects a perfectly normal childhood desire. In that stage of a child’s life, the child is jealous of the father, so jealous that he actually wants to get him out of the way, even to kill him. We call that the ‘Oedipus fixation.’ Have you ever heard of that before?’

  Yes. You told me a long time ago. It means the love of a son for his mother and dislike for his father.

  L: ‘Do you know the story of Oedipus?’

  He is supposed to have been a Greek who killed his father and married his mother …

  L: ‘And he didn’t know it at the time, just as you didn’t know it until now. So you remained in that stage, at that level, instead of developing out of it as other children do.’

  Yes. My father was making money. He was bringing it home to my mother. He gave her things. I couldn’t.

  L: ‘I wonder if this explains to you why you had intercourse with your sister?’

  My sister—is close to my mother. I always had a sort of feeling that she—that she—was my mother. I—I understand. I can see it all now. It’s like a picture. I can see everything. It’s—it’s—it’s all true: it’s not hard to understand. I remember way back how I used to dislike my father even when I was a baby. I didn’t like him. He always used to—lay with my mother all the time—and—even—when my sister was born—one reason why—I stuck my finger in her eye—was because I didn’t like her because my mother would—take care of her too much. She had my cradle. I guess she was taking my place there when I got too big for the cradle. I thought I should still have it. I don’t think I felt like that when the younger sister was born; but I could hear my mother crying when she was giving birth to her. I could hear her in the next room. I could hear my father talking to her. I was thinking that my father—was the cause of her being hurted. I was about ten years old then. I don’t know what happened. I was in the room all by myself and it was dark and my mother was crying and I could hear my father talking to her and I know I was afraid of my father then. If he’d say something to my mother I didn’t like and holler at her I resented it. I remember thinking about all that when I heard my mother crying in the next room.

  I didn’t have very much to do with him even when I was young. It always used to be my mother, even before my sister was born. I always thought that my mother liked me most as between my sister and myself: because my father thought more of my sister than of me I always thought my mother liked me better than my sister. My sister got more lickings from my mother than I did. When my mother gave me money to get out of the house when my father was home and she wanted me out of the house, why, I used to think that she thought more of me even then. But she never used to holler at me or scold me as much as she did my sisters. My oldest sister, she doesn’t look like my mother; she has different hair and eyes and a different face.

  L: ‘Is that why you always wanted her to look more like your mother?’

  Yes. I always liked to picture her as being quiet, never saying much, and weighing a little more than she does. I always wanted to picture her like my mother.

  L: ‘Did you ever steal from your sister?’

  I guess I stole lipstick and things like that from her when I was about seventeen. She used to be fighting mad at me because she knew I did it.

  L: ‘Why did you steal lipstick from her?’

  I used to hide it from her just for pleasure, just to hide it. When I went with girls I used to take their rings and hairpins and handkerchiefs. O, I’d collect everything, rings, necklaces, and when I got home I’d let my sister take anything she wanted. I gave her most of it, and now I understand why.

  L: ‘Why did you take these things from the girls?’

  I didn’t especially want them bad; but they—they had no great value for me—but now I see. I took them for the same reason I stole. O, yes; now I see. I was—my mother … I see it now.

  There was a funny thing I remember now. I took a girl’s handkerchief. Her name was Amy. She looked more like my mother than anyone else I ever knew. She was five or six months older than I was and she treated me just like a little baby; so I took her handkerchief and she got mad at me. I told her I’d never give it back to her. I took all the cigarettes out of my cigarette case and put the handkerchief in the case and dropped it in the river. I don’t know why I threw that case away. It was a good case. It might have been for the same reason that … I remember I folded the handkerchief up and put it in the case and closed it, then I dropped it in the river. Throwing it in the river might mean that I wanted the handkerchief and the case to stay together for all time, so that nobody would ever disturb it; locked up in the cigarette case and at the bottom of the river so nobody would ever touch it again, especially not even my father.

  L: ‘Harold, when did you last sleep with your mother?’

  The—the last time—I remember was when one of my sisters was about six or eight. That was about five or six years ago. My sisters used to sleep together and when my father and mother had an argument my mother would sleep with one of them and the other one would sleep with my father. I always slept in a bed all by myself. I remember sleeping with my mother but I don’t remember when it was. O—I—one time when we lived on S—— Street … When we moved there I was about eleven or twelve and this was about when I was fourteen. My father used to go to work about six in the morning and I know I used to sleep on a bed my mother didn’t want me to sleep on. It was a small bed. I thought it was alright but my mother used to pick me up and carry me over to her bed. Her bed was softer.

  I never touched my mother. I—I was—afraid to touch her when she was in bed. I knew somehow that it was—forbidden. I never touched her. I was afraid to … When my father went to work early my mother would take me i
n her bed and I’d stay there until maybe eight o’clock, until it was time to get up and go to school.

  My mother always gave me money; any time I wanted money she’d give it to me. I used to try different methods to get it from her. Sometimes I’d walk up and down, up and down, when she was trying to read, just to get her nervous: so finally she’d ask me why I was walking up and down and I’d tell her that I had nothing to do, and then she’d give me the money to get rid of me. Other times I’d put my arms around her quickly and kiss her and tell her how young and beautiful she looked. That was the more effective way. She’d always give me money when I did that.

  It used to feel strange, sort of tingly, creepy-like when I lay in the same bed with my mother. If my mother awakened me when she picked me up and carried me to her bed, if I was really tired I’d fall asleep again. Sometimes I’d be asleep and I’d know my mother was there even in my sleep and I’d be afraid to touch her even if I wanted to. But it felt so—strange. I always felt I had no right to be there; that it was something I had no right to do. When I’d move or something my mother would say, “Lay still and don’t move around so much!” When my sister and I were real young—I was about eight then—my father would go to work and sometimes in the morning we’d wake up and come in my mother’s bed and we’d hit her with pillows and she’d make believe she was mad. But I was always afraid, though. I don’t know what was the matter.…

  I used to talk to my mother in any way I wanted to but I could never say anything like that to my father. My sister was just the opposite: she could say anything to my father but not to my mother. I could curse at my mother. When she wanted me to do something sometimes I’d say, “Hell, I’ll do it some other time.” But I always got along swell with her and we never had any trouble. My mother didn’t like me to hang out with this gang I was running with. One reason she gave me money was to get rid of me and keep me away from these kids. She was always mad when I went in swimming. I’d go in swimming and my hair’d be wet when I got home and she’d raise hell. She’d tell me not to go swimming in three languages, but finally it got so that she couldn’t keep me out and I didn’t listen to her so she’d sigh and say, “Well, go ahead and don’t bother me.”