Perhaps the most
realistic portrayal of this form of juvenile delinquency appeared in literature
rather than film. Theodore Weesner’s 1972 novel The Car Thief (chapters of which were published as early as 1967) served
as a dark and rather disturbing representation of the subject in the period.25
Weesner’s central character is Alex Housman, a 16 year old high school student
living in Detroit. Alex is white, sensitive, and of above-average intelligence,
the product of a working class broken home, lives with an alcoholic father on
Chevrolet Avenue, yearns for fellowship with a brother he is separated from,
and desires love from school girls he fears. As the novel opens on a day in
late October with streets clogged with slushy snow, Alex is about to steal a
1959 Buick Riviera, “Its upholstery was black, its windshield was tinted a thin
color of motor oil.” The Buick was also his fourteenth stolen car. And contrary
to notions of the joy rider as experiencing exhilaration, Alex is filled with
fear while driving the car.
the tediousness
of driving did not go away. The pressure kept growing until he felt it in his
jaws, and he began losing his strength of grip on the steering wheel. His
stomach was drawing tighter. It was a pressure, an anguish, which had over
taken him before, but he did not think of that, nor very clearly of anything. He
closed his eyes against the feeling and opened them. His jaws felt chilled. He
removed his foot from the accelerator, and as the sensation was seizing him, he
slammed his palms against the steering wheel, jarring it, as if a violent
striking there might cancel an explosion elsewhere.26
Alex takes his cars on rides in the
country outside of Detroit, hoping he can catch a glimpse of the brother he is
separated from in front of a tavern in which the latter now lives with his mother
and stepfather. Alternatively, Alex has a desire to lure young girls who attend
“country” high schools into taking a ride with him. And it is Eugenia Rodgers’
coat left in his stolen 1959 Buick that ultimately leads to his arrest at the
end of a school day, and the beginning of a rather horrific set of consequences
that first sends him to juvenile detention, then back to his high school where
he is branded as a no-good. Ostracism and a beating follow. Teachers and fellow
students are often brutal and rarely understanding or forgiving. As the story
winds down, Alex’s father, worn out by chronic alcoholism and life in general,
commits suicide. Clearly, auto thievery has resulted in nothing but pain and
grief, and none of the supposed thrills experienced by the middle class joy rider
as depicted in sociological studies. Alex shares none of the other of the
characteristics of the youthful auto thief of his generation. Weesner’s book
suggests that in the real world of a blue collar kid, there is little to
celebrate from disregarding the law, and much to fear.
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