The Unadjusted Girl, With Cases and Standpoint for Behavior AnalysisThomas, William Isaac
Science
The Unadjusted Girl, With Cases and Standpoint for Behavior Analysis
Thomas, William Isaac
Female juvenile delinquents -- Case studies; Young women
One day he take me out with his cousin Jim and his wife Rosie. She’s
bad; she goes on the streets. She say, “Why don’t you do what he wants
you? Look at me! I have good clothes,” and she showed me a diamond pin.
“I get that by doing bad business.” I say, “I go to my mother if he not
want to take care of me, or I go to work, and Frank go to work and we
have rooms. We buy a little furniture. We not need things so fine.” And
my husband, he say, “What you look like with this kind of clothes.” I
say, “My mother buy me this suit, it good enough.”
One day he comes in, he bring me a little short dress and red garters
and big red bows for my hair. He say, “You put on.” I say, “No, I not
put on. I shamed.” Then he slap me and beat me and put pistol to my face
and I go way from him and I go down to Carmine Street to Mary, who is a
good woman and some relation to him, and I tell her about it. She say,
“My God! Is he so bad?” She send for him and say, “What you mean when
you get a good girl? What for you want to put her in this bad life?” And
he say, “Oh, I don’t want to; I just crazy,” and he say, “Come home, I
not ask you any more.”
We go home and his cousin Jim is there and we have coffee to drink and
he put something in the coffee. And by and by my head go round and I
stupid and he say, “Come out in the air”, and I go out and get on the
car and we go some place on the Battery in a house and he leave me
there. Pretty soon a man come and he say, “Why you not undressed?” and I
say, “I not undress. I not bad girl. I married. I not want to be bad.”
And he say, “Then you get out of my house. I not want to get into
trouble,” and I go back. I afraid to go home because I get married
without my brother seeing the man I marry.
Then Frank say, “I got work in a barber-shop, come.” We go down to
Houston and Mott Street and there he get ticket and money and then we go
to Gran Central, and get on train. This was Wednesday of the next week
when we married. It was six o’clock and we rode and it gets to be nine
o’clock and I say, “Where we go? How long it takes?” He say, “We going
to Chicago!” Then I cry, “Now I know you put me in the bad life.” He
say, “You make noise on train, I kill you.” We get to Chicago and he
take me to a house where a man live, his name is Nino Sacco. There he
show me razors and pistols and say, “You do not do what I tell you, you
be dead.” One day I get out, but that man Sacco, he come after me and
take me back. Another time I get out of the house, but every time they
catch me and take me back. Then I get sick and cannot do business, and
they say, “She no good”, and my husband he write to my brother and say,
“You want your sister back, you be on Bleecker Street in drug store, and
I give you back your sister. You bring $100 and I give you your sister.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account