“Free! I’m free! I’m free at last! Great googamoogoa, I am free at last!”
Those were the joyful words my heart cried out as my feet carried me swiftly across ditches and over fences, through streams and thorn-spiked thickets. I ran, floating on a cloud, unaware of how high I was stepping, or of much of anything else around me. There was room in my head for only one word, one thought-freedom.. Nothing else was worth thinking about.
Then a gasping, wheezing moan penetrated the sounds of the woods and reached my ears. Slowing down to a trot, I looked back over my shoulder, and saw the Wolf and Simpson pounding hard on my trail, but faltering badly.
“Wait for us, Rube!” the Wolf huffed and puffed as he caught up with me. “Slow down, man, and wait for us!”
“Don’t-don’t slow me down now, Wolf,” I sputtered angrily. “It took me six years to get this far,” I said, picking up the pace once more, “and we’ve got to get out of these goddamned woods before the sun comes up. So if you’re coming, man, you better come on—because I’m making it!”
Tired and winded as they were, they didn’t stop to argue. They knew I was right. The downfall of all inmates who had ever chosen to flee that madhouse at Jamesburg had been the woods, the daytime, and the farmers—not to mention the state police, the dogs, and the shotguns.
As we were scrambling out of that window in our bid to escape, I had figured it to be close to eleven o’clock. I had also figured that we had roughly three or four more hours before we were missed. We had now been running about an hour.
“Goddammit,” I muttered to myself, and put on a new burst of speed. Four hours wasn’t enough time for people traveling on foot. But what the hell, it was the best we could hope for.
As my pounding feet propelled me through strands of grasping, tugging brier patches, my thoughts flew to conversations I’d had with other inmates who had tried escaping in the past, only to be caught wandering around hopelessly in the woods, rambling in circles, lost in the chaparral as it were, not knowing what to do; glad, even, when they were finally apprehended—rescued, actually. They’d been scared to death by the farmers and their dogs. I was determined not to become another celebrated statistic.
We ran on and on and on, and eventually we came to a dusty dirt road, pitted with holes and rough stones. I trotted along its shoulder, keeping a sharp lookout for houses, cars, and small hamlets. These were the stumbling blocks which had to be avoided at all costs: it was almost impossible to pass a farmhouse without some canine setting off enough racket to wake up the dead, let alone the farmer and his household.
As we ran, I wondered how we could manage to stay clear of the thousand-and-one pitfalls that could send us back to Jamesburg in chains. Suddenly I felt a hand grab my shoulder. I spun around and fired, my fist snaking out and catching the Werewolf flush on his chin. He went down like a dead man. When I saw who it was I had hit, I bent down and helped him up.
“God-god-god-goddammit, Wolf!” I sputtered heatedly. “Say something when you come up behind me. Don’t grab me like that, man!”
The Wolf shook the cobwebs out of his head and looked at me with a sickly grin. “You won’t have to worry about that happening anymore,” he said. “Goddamn, but you hit hard!”
“Now, what did you want?” I demanded impatiently, nervously glancing around. I didn’t like this standing still, and I guess it showed in the tone of my voice, because the Wolf looked over at his partner and hesitated.
“Why don’t we steal a car from one of these farms?” he said, looking off across the field. “Then we could get out of these woods in no time, you know what I mean?” It sounded good to me. I would have liked nothing better than to be able to ride all the way to Paterson. But the only way we could steal a car would be to get close to one of those farmhouses, and that meant tangling with the dogs and with some farmer’s ever-loving shotgun. Once these backwoods farmers got wind of our trail in the woods, they would hunt us down just like we were chicken thieves, and they wouldn’t mind busting a cap or two in our black asses, either. So I decided against Wolfs idea, shook my head, and trotted off down the road again.
But Wolf was not to be so easily discouraged. He put on a burst of speed, leaving his partner behind, and puffed up alongside me.
“Why not, man?” he demanded.
“Because I want to get home, motherfucker,” I snapped at him, impatient with this bullshit. “But don’t let me stop you from doing it,” I said. “Just give me time enough to get out of sight. If you want to risk fucking with these farmers, that’s your business. But I’m walking!”
“Walking!” The Wolf was incredulous. “All the way to Paterson? Man, you gotta be out of your mind!”
“All the way to Paterson,” I said, more to myself than to him, liking the way it sounded. “All the way to Paterson,” I whispered again, and increased my speed. “All the way to Paterson,” my feet echoed in return, skimming over the dusty road.
All the way to Paterson.
We ran for miles, and time became a thief, stealing away rapidly. The night was warm, brightly lit by a brilliant moon and erratically twinkling stars. The darkness was filled with strange sounds, alive with moving shadows that overlapped the road and made bizarre patterns whenever the slight breeze riffled the leaves on the forest’s trees.
The steady pounding of our feet was muffled by the spongy sand that hugged the shores of the road. So far, I thought I knew where we were going, but now I saw that about a mile or two up ahead was a crossroads that would either take us out of these woods, or lead us right back to Jamesburg.
When we reached the intersection, we had to choose which direction to take. It was a hard decision to make. In the darkness I could feel my partners’ eyes watching me curiously as I walked up one road and down the other, trying to single out the right one. We all knew from common knowledge that only one of these roads would lead us to freedom, while the other three deceptively wound their way back in the direction from which we had just come.
I was stumped. I had never been this far away from the institution before and I was just about to surrender the choice to Fate and let come what may when I spied, thirty or forty yards down the road, a white guideline painted in the center.
“This is it!” I shouted to my partners, pointing to my discovery and motioning for them to come on. I took off at a fast trot, my logic being that the white stripe would lead us to a main highway-and freedom, I hoped.
Hours upon endless hours we ran. We slowed down occasionally to catch our breath, but we never stopped to rest. Time was still against us. Already the dawn was breaking, sweeping away our cover of darkness, and the daylight would bring the state police, the farmers, and their shotguns. This knowledge, coupled with my willingness to die before allowing myself to be caught, only made me run harder. But soon the pace began to take its toll.
My heavy legs began trembling painfully. Spasms ripped through my chest, causing my breath to come in gulps, but I pushed on anyway, running the white line and searching the road ahead for cars and farmers. I knew that the police had to be out looking for us by this time, and the only hope we had was to gain more distance. Even so, we had to leap off the road at times to keep from being spotted.
Finally, after what seemed like a million years, we reached the main highway and, dead-tired, gathered around a directional sign. I wanted to die on the spot. The arrow was pointing in the direction of Newark, which was our destination, but which. it said was twenty miles to the north-back the way we had just come. I stomped my foot, sputtered and fumed.
“Halt!” called out a sharp, authoritative voice. “Halt in the name of the Law!”
I spun around. A highway patrol car had crept up behind us, and a state trooper was barreling toward us with his pistol drawn. Throwing all caution to the wind, I dashed across the congested highway. Car and truck brakes screeched and screamed in protest, the vehicles swerving wildly out of control. I darted around a car that had skidded violently, narrowly missing me, and cut across the road toward an overpass on my right.
The Wolf and Simpson stayed hot on my heels. Reaching the overpass, with the state troopers right behind us, we struck out across it. Midway over the bridge, another police car came racing toward us from the opposite direction. Their sirens shrieking, the cops leaned out their windows, drew their pistols, and pointed them directly at us.
“Look out!” I shouted. Wheeling around, I saw state troopers heading for. us from that direction too. We were trapped. I ran over to the guard rail and looked down. The turnpike twenty-five feet below looked up. Heavy traffic zoomed by. I hesitated one second, then leaped the railing, and found myself falling through empty air. Down; down, and down I fell, falling forever, it seemed.
The concrete of the highway rushed up and greeted me with tooth-shattering impact. Luckily I was unhurt, and was quickly up and running again. My ears filled with the squealing confusion we had created by jumping into the early morning traffic. As I sped across the highway toward an open field, trying to make. it to the other side, I heard the whip-like, crackling snarl of a bullet just miss my head, and the pop-pop-popping reports of more pistol shots. They were all close, the snapping sounds drilling me as if the slugs were. burrowing into. my skull. Bullets ricocheted from the ground all around me, searching, but we galloped onwards–on our way to America.
At three o’clock on that cloudy afternoon we arrived in Newark, tired, nasty, smelling like wild apeshit—but we arrived. I was so hungry my poor stomach must have thought that my throat had been cut. Waving goodbye to my partners (it was the last time I would ever see the Wolf; Simpson was caught that same afternoon and sent back to Jamesburg in chains), I ambled off in the direction of Paterson, thirteen miles to the northwest, and I pursued that course at a brisk trot, going home, ever mindful of the police traps that could be lurking around every bend in the road.
Whenever an inmate had escaped successfully from New Jersey’s child-labor camp in the past, the first thing the institution did—after calling the state police—was to notify the fugitive’s parents and rush to his hometown themselves. In this way, the institution thoughtfully contrived to relinquish any legal responsibility for injuries which might befall the inmate during his escape. This notification of divorce also served as an officer’s protection against prosecution when the inmate was finally caught, or maybe, killed. That had been known to happen.
Anyway, what seemed like two centuries and thirteen million miles later, trudging very wearily, I finally reached Paterson. The skies were overcast; darkened by ominous storm clouds, and the street lamps spilled across the sidewalks into my shadow. One minute the rain seemed to be threatening; the next, the heavens opened up and poured buckets-full down upon the earth. Catching sight of a police car slowly approaching, I darted into an alley past rows of stinking, uncovered garbage cans, climbed over high picket fences, burrowed through thick binding hedges, and was chased (and almost bitten) by a dog as I swept across hundreds of backyards. Finally I reached an alleyway across the street from my house.
I carefully searched the streets for any unmarked police cars that might be prowling the gloomy shadows until I felt sure I was safe. Then I drifted back to my house, crept up on the porch, and looked in the window. The venetian blinds partially obscured my vision, but vaguely I could see my mother moving about in the kitchen, placing something on the table, and then leaving my view.
I entered the house and walked into the hallway. “Hi, Mom,” I said with forced casualness, not sure how she would react to my coming home.
“Hi there yourself, stranger,” she smiled, with the same forced casualness, trying to show me that she was unconcerned. She should have taken acting lessons, because I could see unmitigated relief flooding her face. “How are you? Are you all right?” she asked anxiously. “You’re not hurt or anything, are you?”
“No, ma’am,” I answered. “I’m all right.”
“Thank God!” she sighed, nearly giving up the ghost. “Now come sit down and eat before your food gets cold.”
I stood there for a long moment and looked at my mother, noticing how small and fragile she appeared since I had grown up. I examined her sweet face quizzically, and wondered how could she have known I would be coming home, when there was a fifty-fifty chance my father would turn me in if I did.
“Was this plate put here especially for me?” I asked suspiciously.
“Uh-huh,” she answered, humming, taking down some bath towels from the pantry.
“But—but—but—” I stammered. “How did you know I’d be home?” She looked at me with the smile of an angel. It tugged at my heart. It was a smile of gay and infinite tenderness.
“Oh, sit down and eat, Rubin,” she flipped at me affectionately, still smiling her angelic smile. “A mother knows and understands her children, and I know and understand you, child—even if you don’t understand yourself at times.” Then she went into the bathroom and closed the door.
I sat down and greased, devouring what food was on my plate and ready to destroy what was left on the stove, when my brother and sisters came into the kitchen. I understood then why the house had been empty when I arrived—they had all been out looking for me. Everybody was here except my father and Lloyd Junior, who was still in Korea.
But things just didn’t seem right to me. I could almost smell the aroma of suspicion and fear as it settled over the room, turning what should have been a jubilant moment into a cold-blooded wake. And that was a goddamn shame. My brother and sisters seemed to be afraid of me. When I looked at them, they dropped their eyes. When I dropped my eyes, they looked at me.
Damn!
It was a good thing my mother chose that moment to come out of the bathroom, because I was looking for my brother and sisters to bolt the room at any second.
“Rubin, the tub is full now,” my mother said. “Go in and take a bath. Scrub yourself good and throw those filthy clothes away.”
After bathing and dressing in some of my brother’s clothing, I went back into the kitchen. Mom was the only one there, and she was waiting for me with a suitcase in her hands.
“What’re you planning to do with yourself, Rubin?” she asked, looking me straight in the eye. “You’re not a little boy anymore, you know.”
I could tell by her tone and the expression on her face that she was deeply concerned. Not that I had ever thought any different, but this time her anxieties were a bit more pronounced. My heart went out to her like it never had before. There is no assurance like the reassurance of a mother’s love. And I knew that she was not in the habit of defying the law.
“I’m going to try and get into the paratroopers,” I explained to her. “I’m through getting into trouble, Momma.”
Her expression of relief made me more determined than ever to make something out of my worthless life. When she smiled, I felt good. When she was happy, I felt marvelous. It was just that way with us. She handed me the suitcase and thrust some money into my hand.
“Lillian’s waiting outside,” she said. “Go with her ... and take care of yourself ... please!”
There were tears in her eyes and there were a million things I wanted to say—a million things we should have said. But we knew each other, and when she looked at me for a long moment and smiled sadly, that said it all. It was all contained in that one smile: bigger than all of Texas, taller than the Empire State Building, more beautiful than a symphony by Beethoven. That said it all and that was saying a lot.
Lillian was waiting for me outside in a taxicab. I climbed in with my suitcase and we rode to the bus station. From there we took a bus to New York. I had no idea what my final destination was going to be, and I didn’t ask. This was my sister, my blood, my family; if I couldn’t trust her, then whom? So I went to sleep. I was tired.
It seemed as if I had just closed my eyes when Lillian shook me awake. We were at Pennsylvania Station, New York City. This was my first trip to the Big Apple—despite the fact that I’d lived only twelve miles away—but I wasn’t very impressed. The hustle and bustle of swarming humans, all going their own impersonal little ways, reminded me of a giant anthill alive with activity.
Lillian left me for a moment by a newsstand, and when she disappeared into the crowd of people, I became very uneasy and distrustful. But a short time later she was back with a train ticket in her hand. I was so ashamed I couldn’t look her in the face.
“This will get you to Philadelphia, Rubin. You’re going to stay with our Cousin Hazel,” she said, glancing quickly at her watch and grabbing me by the arm. “Come on, your train’s leaving in a few minutes.”
The words were scarcely out of her mouth before a loudspeaker blared from somewhere, “Silver Coach Express for Newark, Trenton, Philadelphia, and all points South, now leaving on Track Four!”
Lillian moved ahead of me, pulling me by the arm. “Come on,” she said. “That’s your train. Now hurry up!”
“Wait a minute, Lilly,” I said, holding back. “How do I get to this Hazel’s house? I don’t even know her.”
“Oh, yeah,” she said smiling sheepishly, but still pulling me up the flight of stairs to the platform. “I almost forgot. Mother called her while you were taking a bath, and Hazel will be at the Thirtieth Street Station when you get there. Now remember,” she added, “you’re to get off at the Thirtieth Street Station in Philly. You got that?” I nodded.
The train was ready to pull out when we reached the platform, so Lillian hustled me onto the steps of a slowly moving, car and walked alongside it. She held on to my hand, as if she couldn’t let go, and stared into my face with an odd curiosity.
My sister was a fair-complexioned, very attractive young woman with smooth, unblemished skin, and a smile that could have melted all the snow in Alaska. Meeting her eyes with a look of my own, I gazed deep into their hazel depths. The longer I looked at her, the more bewildered I became. Then a sharp, nagging suspicion began eating away at my mind, going away, then coming back again more strongly, festering until it became an awareness, a reality It was a phenomenon that would haunt me for the rest of my life.
People were actually afraid of me—even my own, family, even Lillian. Her eyes, her whole face was filled with puzzled questions, and just the fact that she didn’t know any of the answers painted me. She seemed to be asking, “Would you hurt me, Rubin?” Her sweet eyes begged me pitifully, “Would you hurt Momma? Would you hurt any of us?” I wanted to give her a loud, emphatic “Never!” but something held me back. I didn’t know what it was, and even now I can’t explain it. But that intangible something that had entered the hallowed archway of Jamesburg with me never left me again.
I had never gone out looking for friends or buddies, nor would I accept any who made friendly overtures. I trusted no one, nor any material thing. I never could talk, and when incarcerated at Jamesburg, I had stopped trying. But I knew that all it would have taken to bring a sweet smile to Lillian’s lips, erasing that half-tortured expression from her beautiful face, would be a word, a touch, a tender look. I wanted to give her all three of them and a kiss to boot, but I couldn’t.
And so, in the instant before Lillian came to the end of the platform and had to let go of my hand, I ached. I ached because I couldn’t even open my mouth to ease the pain of someone that I loved dearly. The treacherous years of living in Jamesburg had done their job of emotional homicide to perfection: they had killed my poor heart dead.
Near a window at the back of the train, I found an empty seat and sat down. I put the suitcase on the floor in front of me and propped, my feet up on it.
“Clat-clat ... clat-clat,” the wheels of the train on the tracks said as they moved away from the tall buildings into the open country. “Clat-clat ... clat-clat,” said the wheels of the train.
Philadelphia-Philadelphia, I thought in time to the sound. A new town, new people, and perhaps a new life.
“Clat-clat ... clat-clat.”
“Jamesburg-Jamesburg,” I whispered aloud.
I started thinking about that stinking rat hole.
People feared me only for the way I looked. Until I had been sent to Jamesburg, I hadn’t acquired much hatred for white authority, nor had I distinguished people by the color of their skin. While it could be said that I had displayed my fair share of naked aggression, it could not be said that I had ever fought with racial prejudice dominating my emotions. I fought simply because I loved to fight, and in jail, that jungle of violence that bred either punks or young savages, I had found a fighting heaven.
I had never actually gone looking for a fight, but if one happened to come my way, you wouldn’t find me with my ass in the wind. At Jamesburg I had learned to fight better than most, and I learned with a dedication toward perfection. I made it a point to be the best at whatever I tried to do.
There were no fence-straddlers at Jamesburg. A man sitting on a fence at high noon casts a shadow on both sides, and an inmate was either a “touch-off” or somebody’s “wife,” a duke or a dip. And there were always those who were eager to find out which.
If I had wanted, or tried, to be a faggot and somebody’s wife, I would no doubt have been the hottest flame in the State of New Jersey. It’s not what a man says that makes him what he is, it’s what he does, and my conduct was in complete harmony with the opinions I couldn’t express verbally: whenever anyone saw me in action, fighting and kicking and biting and scratching, there was no need for me to open my mouth—they all knew exactly what I was trying to say. It was the only way I had of releasing my pent-up frustrations; it was my way of crying without tears.
But what really burned me during my stay at the State Home for Boys were the atrocities committed by the officers. It was bad enough that we inmates were beating, starving, and fucking each other in the ass, without the sadistic officers doing likewise. There’s no justification for an inmate to pick on someone weaker than himself, but at least we were all in the same boat and things were a bit more balanced between us. But for a correction officer, a representative of the state, to use his position and his badge to force young kids into degrading sexual acts, well—as far as I was concerned, there wasn’t a tree high enough to hang the dirty sonofabitch!. I didn’t like it then, and I don’t like it now. I hate that kind of animal. I would ruin such a man now—and I ruined quite a few then.
The conductor’s singsong voice jarred me away from my reverie. “Thirtieth Street Station,” he called as he walked through the car. “Coming up. Next stop, Thirtieth Street Station—”
I waited for the train to grind to its squeaking halt, then picked up my suitcase and made my way off. I didn’t know who to look for, or who might be coming to meet me, so the only thing I could do was stand on the platform and hope that someone would recognize me. All I saw was a thinning swarm of ant-like people disappearing through a maze of exits.
“Rubin—”
I spun around, and found myself facing a coffee-skinned young woman, not much older than myself, who would have enhanced any cover of Ebony magazine. Her black hair hung down over her shoulders, framing a face of pure mahogany beauty, and her clothes accentuated her lovely sophistication. Her long, blood-red brocade dress made her black hair seem startling.
I stood there, speechless, and she took my silence—correctly—for openmouthed astonishment. She smiled, showing a row of pearly white teeth, and it was like the sun coming over a mountain.
“You are Rubin Carter, aren’t you?” she asked.
I could only manage a stupefied nod.
She laughed softly, a delightful tinkle that sent a sharp thrill streaking through me. Then she stepped in closer and sweetly kissed my cheek.
“Hi, I’m Hazel,” she purred, and my face must have been stained with disbelief, because she laughed again and said, “Believe it or not, baby, we’re first cousins—and I’m the married one. So you can just get that leering gleam out of your eyes.” She laughed again. “Did you enjoy your trip?”
“It was all right,” I answered slyly, knowing that she had read my mind. She just put her arm around my waist and steered me toward the nearest exit.
When we reached the street, Hazel was carrying my suitcase, laughing and talking as if we were sweethearts instead of cousins. Her casual attitude had the effect of erasing everything that had happened to me during that hectic day, and as we strolled through a parking lot, she stopped and pointed to a sleek, canary-yellow Pontiac.
“How do you dig my new chariot?” she asked with a smile.
How did I dig it? Now that was the world’s most understated question, if I had ever heard one. Why, this car was my fantasy, this woman the embodiment of all my romanticizing. I had been dreaming about such fine things for six long miserable years. I walked slowly around the shiny car and caressed it lovingly. “It’s real pretty,” I said with a passion. “Almost as pretty as you are!” I blurted, and probably would have blushed, if I wasn’t so dark.
“Aha,” she chuckled impishly, her white teeth gleaming in the darkness. “Flattery will get you everywhere, cousin! But right now, I’d better get you home.”
When we reached the house in West Philadelphia, David, her husband, greeted us at the door. He was a tall, dark-skinned man with unusually big eyes, and by no stretch of the imagination could he be called handsome, or even good-looking. But there was an air about him, a kind of niceness that I had found lacking in most people, and when he smiled that great big smile of his, I couldn’t help but like him. The minute he opened his mouth I knew we were friends forever: he stuttered as badly as I did.
“Hi, there cou-cou-cousin,” he grinned broadly. “Co-co-come on in and si-si-sit down!”
We stepped into the living room, and then I was afraid to move any farther. The room was breathtaking. Soft blue lights glowed dully off the ceiling and accentuated the texture of a thick-piled golden carpet that ran from one wall to the other. A smattering of sofas, easy chairs, and mahogany inlaid tables and stands complemented the room. I found myself staring at the biggest console television set I had ever seen. I imagined it must have been there to project cinemascope movies. But in a few short moments, David and Hazel had me feeling as if I had always belonged there.
Hazel made some coffee (which I didn’t drink), and then we all sat down to talk. David and I stuttered and sputtered so much that we must have sounded like two angry machine guns firing across the room at each other, but I had never felt so relaxed, and I’m sure I talked more in those few hours than I had at any time in my life.
Eventually, my cousins got around to the subject of my going into the Army. Both of them were against the idea, especially Hazel. “Rubin,” she said anxiously, “this isn’t a personal Carter war. We didn’t start the damn thing, and it’s not up to us to finish it off single-handedly either! There’s too goddamned many Carters still in Korea now, as far as I’m concerned.
“Aunt Maude’s two sons are there,” she went on; “Uncle Prince has his two boys there; your sister’s husband is in the fighting; David was wounded in Korea; and God knows how many more Carters are there. Aunt Bert has enough to worry about with your brother Lloyd over there, and now you want to go. Ohhhhh,” she cried, “how I wish there was some way to make you men understand how we women feel—”
I was surprised at the agitation in her voice, the frustration, the hurt, but most of all I was surprised at her tears—how the mere thought shook her up. She didn’t change my mind, but I went to bed thinking about it, and woke up resolved to leave Philly as soon as I could. A few more nights of Hazel’s type of persuasion, I knew, would make it virtually impossible for me to leave.
Two days later David took me down to the induction center. After showing my birth certificate, I told the recruiting officer that I was born in New Jersey but had lived in Philadelphia all of my life. This knocked out the possibility of them finding out I had a police record. Rubin Carter hadn’t been in Philadelphia long enough to take a leak, let alone start shitting around and building up a criminal record at City Hall.
After I had signed endless forms, the induction officer sent us to the Schuylkill Arsenal in North Philly, where I underwent a complete physical examination and took innumerable written tests. When we finally reached home late that night, I collapsed on the sofa from sheer exhaustion, and that was where I woke up the following morning.