Devil at My Heels: The Story of Louis Zamperini (3 page)

MY DAD ALWAYS
had work he needed me to do, and I always wanted to disappear when he did. One day with my buddy Johnny—a blond, square-headed fellow—I hopped a freight train and ended up
in San Diego. We slept in a wash under a bridge. In the morning I saw a steer wandering in the ankle-deep water. You know how kids are; we thought we’d have our own rodeo. Johnny jumped on and got dumped off. I jumped on and the steer bucked and ran, then tossed me onto a tree stump. When a tree doesn’t get cut clear across, it leaves a fringe; that fringe nearly cut off my kneecap. I wrapped two handkerchiefs around it tight, to hold it all together.

We tried to hitchhike home, but nobody would stop. Fortunately, we were right near a gas station, so Johnny cornered a guy and said, “I’ve got a real problem. My buddy’s kneecap is cut bad. He lives in Torrance and we’re trying to get home.” The guy took us to Long Beach. I called home from there, and my dad picked us up. My mother—ever forgiving—and our neighbor the nurse put hydrogen peroxide, iodine, and oils of salt on my wound and bandaged me.

But as soon as I healed, I took off again. On one trip Johnny and I slept in a boxcar going north. Two hoboes slept at the other end. Just before daylight they tried to roll us. Because the wheels clicked so loudly on the tracks, I didn’t notice the bums until they literally had their hands on our wallets. I jumped up and hollered: “John!” He scrambled up and we lit into them. They were older and went all out, but we knew how to fight and beat them badly. Then we tossed them off the train, going maybe thirty miles an hour. I’m sure they had bruises to remember, but I couldn’t have cared less.

Another time Johnny and I hopped a train heading south and crouched between two cars. When night came we watched a tramp lie down in a boxcar, his arm dangling over the rails. I did the same, but as I maneuvered into position, the train lurched sharply around a bend. I managed to cling to the brake arm; the snoring bum had no warning. The motion dislodged him, and I watched him drop to the tracks, where the wheels cut him in two. I got no sleep that night.

MY BROTHER, PETE,
was our high school track team’s star miler, and he always tried to interest me in running. My attitude was that school activities were for children. I only showed up for basketball games because I’d discovered—I couldn’t believe it!—that our
Gramercy Street house key fit the gym-door lock. Instead of paying the small fee to see a game, my gang and I got in for free until someone snitched and changed the locks.

That pretty much did it for my troublemaking. The principal, my parents, and the chief of police had had their fill. According to the school disciplinary system, each student started the year with a hundred merits. If he lost twenty, they called him into the office. I’d lost them all and was probably in the hole another fifteen. My punishment: the deficit would carry over to ninth grade, making me ineligible for sports or any other school activity I wanted to pursue. When they told me I almost laughed in their faces. What did I care?

My only serious concern was that I didn’t want to be labeled a mental case. It’s hard to believe, especially now, but in those days kids with mental problems could be sterilized because people thought the problem was hereditary. Fortunately, everyone knew I was just a pain in the butt, not crazy.

What I didn’t know was that my brother, who’d grown tired of the police coming to our house and was always worried about my direction in life, had come up with a plan to get me out of trouble. He and my mother met with the principal, asking him to reconsider the demerits. “We’re trying to get Louie interested in sports,” he said. “It might keep him off the street, give him something to do.”

“That’s true,” said the principal.

“But,” said Pete, “if I got him to run, and the demerits made him ineligible…”

The principal frowned, but Pete pressed his advantage. “If he gets a break, if he gets a chance to find that he has some other way to draw attention and get recognition, it might help.”

The principal relented, and in February 1932, when I was fifteen—because I was a January baby I was in the smaller class that the California school system started each winter, so kids born midyear didn’t fall behind an entire year—I entered the ninth grade with a clean slate.

Of course, I had no intention of running unless someone forced me to.

A FEW WEEKS
into the semester the school held an interclass track meet. My class wanted to compete. I was one of four boys in a roomful of girls. The other boys were either fat or sickly. That left me. The girls talked fast and overrode my objections. On Friday, feeling green and foolish and just to get the girls off my back, I showed up for the meet, half ready to run.

I hid behind the bleachers until my event, the 660-yard race, was announced. Then I lined up with the others and waited. When the gun sounded, I took off, barefoot, arms flapping.

On the sidelines the head coach exploded with laughter. When he caught his breath he told Bob Lewellen, the local printer and Boy Scout leader as well as part-time assistant coach, who stood beside him, “That kid will
never
make a runner, that’s for sure.” He turned to Pete and asked, “Who is that?”

“That’s my kid brother.”

“Well,” said Lewellen, “he may not have any qualifications—no chest, no legs, no form—but he’s got guts, and that’s what counts. Has he signed up for track?”

“No,” said Pete. “They had to beg him to show up today. I bet wild horses couldn’t make him run again. But it would be swell if he would.”

I came in last. The pain was almost intolerable, and I don’t mean mental pain. I’d rather have had someone cut me with a knife than bear the misery I felt from being out of shape because of drinking, smoking, and dissipating myself. I stumbled off the track, hid behind the bleachers, and thought, Never again. Never.

A week later our team met rival Narbonne High for the season’s first interscholastic track meet. My brother said, “This is a big meet for us. Torrance against Narbonne. You’ve got to run.”

“I’d rather be dead,” I told Pete.

“You’ve
got
to,” he insisted.

We argued, but in a way Pete was right. Torrance didn’t have anyone to run the 660. Narbonne had three boys. I signed up, lined up,
and took off. A hundred yards from the tape, two Narbonne runners led. Their third guy was back a ways, and I lagged behind
him
. I didn’t care whether I beat him or not; I was just doing my brother a favor. Then I heard the kids from my school hollering, “Come on, Louie!”

I hadn’t realized anybody at Torrance other than my buddies and the principal knew my name. Suddenly I felt a surge of adrenaline and beat Narbonne’s last guy by about a foot.

That night Pete said, “You could be a runner.” He knew I had drive, and the beginnings of a final kick.

“Yeah, but the pain,” I whined.

“That will go away when you train. You’ll get in shape.”

“I don’t know….”

Pete locked his eyes on mine. “Do you want to be a bum all your life? Or do you want to amount to something? You can become a runner.”

I knew in my heart that I was already a bum. A teenaged bum. I pictured myself standing in a soup line. I thought of what I’d seen on a sidewalk by the Columbia Steel mill in Torrance: the cleanup guys on a real hot day hauling heavy steel, sweating, dirty, filthy. I thought, Boy, I hope I never end up like that. But the truth hit me: I figured the best job I could get would be the worst job over there.

That night I had to make a decision: Give up suffering on the track and continue with my delinquent life, or decide that, if nothing else, the recognition from running—forget winning—might be worth it. I had to admit that even the small bit of attention I got by coming in third tasted pretty sweet.

I continued to smoke and drink but reluctantly stuck with running. Pete made me train after school. Much to my disgust he ran behind me with a switch and whacked my butt to keep me moving. I protested but it worked. My running improved. In subsequent races I came in second, third again, and finally won. I couldn’t believe it! Then I won another and another and made the all-city finals. I came in fifth but was number one in my school. I got a little bronze button to pin on my sweater. I felt like the button was made of gold.

WHEN SCHOOL LET
out, my parents wanted me to do work around the house, and it just bugged me no end. I got itchy feet again.

Johnny and I jumped a freight train for Northern California. I still remember the balmy summer night, lying on top of a catwalk, looking up at the stars while we rolled through the San Joaquin Valley.

We didn’t have more than a few dollars, so we stole food from orchards. By the time we got to San Francisco we were hungry and miserable, and the weather had turned bad. Summer rain can be cold up north. I snatched a can of beans from a nearby hobo camp and ran for it. We ate them cold, our bodies drenched.

During “dinner” I spotted a passenger train pulling out, heading south. I could see the people inside, warm and cheerful. When the dining car rolled slowly by I noticed everyone dressed for the meal, sitting at tables covered with white cloths. They drank from crystal glasses, ate from covered platters, and looked so satisfied. I’d never
been
in a dining car, let alone on a passenger train. I turned to Johnny and said, “Boy, are we dopes.”

He tapped at the bottom of the can to get the last few beans.

“Look at those people, riding in style,” I said. “That’s the life. Someday I’m going to be in one of those cars. Someday I’m going to have the works.”

Johnny said he wished he had more beans.

I shut up then because I didn’t want Johnny to think I’d gone soft. But inside I knew: whatever it took, I would improve myself. I wanted to never again be cold, hungry, dirty, and on the outside looking in.

“Let’s go home,” I said.

WE FINALLY FOUND
a southbound train, climbed into an open boxcar, and hid in the corner from the railroad dicks. One came by, did a quick inspection, but didn’t see us. He slammed, locked, and sealed the door.

We woke up the next morning to find the interior hotter than blazes. And we weren’t moving. I tried the door, but it was still locked. I noticed a trapdoor in the ceiling, but I had no idea how to get
it open until I spotted a broken steel-ladder rung, the kind that goes up the side of a boxcar, in the corner. Johnny held me on his shoulders while I worked at prying the trapdoor open with the edge of the rung. It took hours, and even then it wasn’t cracked all the way. I had to force my head out, which cut my big ears and scraped my chest. But I made it, dropped over the side, and opened the door to let Johnny out.

Turned out we were sidetracked near Tulare and had to walk two miles to the little town just to get some water. We also found a small restaurant. In those days you could get a T-bone steak for about thirty-five cents. We pooled our resources and dug in, then walked back to the freight yard and hopped another southbound train.

Too late, we realized a railroad dick was aboard. We found a load of corrugated culverts, about twenty inches wide and thirty feet long, stacked up pyramid-style, and squeezed inside the uppermost one. I lay silent and still, listening as the guy poked around. I thought we were high enough that he wouldn’t bother to look, but he was thorough. He ran the butt of his .38 revolver along the corrugated metal, and the sound inside the pipe was deafening. Then he stuck his gun in our faces and demanded we immediately leap from the train. Even though we were moving about thirty miles an hour, we jumped without hesitation and rolled into a landing.

After hiking along the track for about three miles, we came to a small switching yard. I saw a flatbed with mining cars stacked on it three high. Three hoboes reclined in the lower car. What morons, I thought; they could easily be detected. Johnny and I climbed into the top car. An hour later we both had to take a leak, and we let it go on the perforated metal floor. Almost immediately we heard yelling and cussing from below.

The dampened hoboes were still grumbling when we entered a tunnel. The ceiling was only about two feet above our heads. We ducked low and were suddenly engulfed by a huge cloud of steam that washed back from the engine. Johnny and I pulled our jackets over our heads to protect ourselves from the scalding heat. Now I knew why the hoboes stayed in the lower “accommodation.” Afterward Johnny and I looked each other over and agreed that we’d been done medium
rare. Before we could move out, the train entered another tunnel. After another steam bath we scrambled down to the second car.

At the Los Angeles freight yard we hiked to the Pacific Electric depot and hopped a Big Red Car to Torrance. By then Johnny, too, had come to the conclusion that running away from home and responsibility was pretty dumb. The world, we’d discovered, doesn’t love you like your family loves you.

My parents welcomed me home with open arms and big smiles—more than I deserved—and I didn’t complain. I let my dad know I was ready to do any kind of work he wanted me to do. I started by painting the house.

That night in bed I turned to Pete and told him, “You win. I’m going all out to be a runner.”

It was the first wise decision of my life.

T
hat summer I cut out my bad habits and trained fanatically. Instead of hitchhiking to the beach, I ran the four miles from Torrance to Redondo. Then I ran two miles along the beach and four miles back to Torrance. I even ran to the store for my mother. On weekends I’d head for the mountains and run around lakes, chase deer, jump over rattlesnakes and fallen trees and streams. I’ve always been a loner, so the solitude never bothered me. I just ran like crazy. I felt really free and piled up mile upon mile.

When school started I knew I was in good shape, but I had no idea how good, or how fast I could run in competition. In September I entered a two-mile cross-country race at UCLA with over a hundred runners from all over the state. As a sophomore, I was in class C, the youngest runners. I hoped I wouldn’t come in last, but during the race I felt like my feet never touched the ground. I won by a quarter mile and broke the course records for all
three
classes: A, B, and C. My time was 9:57, equivalent to collegiate standards.

Afterward I asked the officials if maybe I’d unintentionally cut some corners, but they assured me that I’d completed the full course. Though few people today remember, that is still the most thrilling
race I’ve ever run, and I realized my promise to Pete—and to myself—could actually come true.

I could be a runner. A real runner.

I APPLIED MYSELF
with similar diligence at school. Serious studying was a new experience for me, and my progress was shaky. At times, faced with a difficult arithmetic problem or English composition, I longed to slam my books shut and head for the hills to run it off. But I held on, if only because I had to make good grades to stay on the track team. I didn’t want to cause any problem that might get in the way of the recognition that running and winning had brought.

Most days I felt as if I’d transferred to a new school. Classmates nodded when they passed in the halls, or stopped to talk. At times I even thought I caught a whiff of respect: Louis Zamperini, the wop hoodlum from nowhere, had made a success of himself.

While I clung furiously to my change of heart, my character remained pretty much the same. I still kept mostly to myself. I still had a temper. I still wanted to do almost everything my way. But I had begun to accept the physical pain of training; Pete kept pushing but no longer needed to encourage me with the switch. He was a strict coach and lectured me when he thought I needed it.

“You’ve got to develop self-discipline, Toots,” he would say. “I can’t always be around. You need to take care of yourself on weekends.”

I’d rather have had an ice cream sundae, but I did what he told me. I didn’t want to let Pete down. I also knew, however much I struggled against it, that running was the right course to follow.

To stay on the straight and narrow I made a secret pact with myself to train every day for a year, no matter what the weather. If I missed working out at school, or the track was muddy, I’d put on my running shoes at night and trot around my block five or six times, about a mile and a half. That winter we had two sandstorms and I had to tie a wet handkerchief across my face and mouth just to go out. I also kept box
ing, to develop my chest muscles. In the end I was probably even more disciplined than Pete wanted me to be.

By February 1933, I was ready. The Torrance High track uniforms were wool, weighed too much, and itched terribly. I told my mother I wanted to run as if I had no clothes on. She bought me a silk shirt and made my shorts from an old pleated black satin dress. Inside, she sewed what she claimed was a teeny piece of felt from the cloth of the cloak of Saint Teresa. They probably made millions of those, but I didn’t object. I wore leather shoes by Riddell. They had a steel plate inside, for screwing in cleats, and each was as heavy as three of today’s running shoes.

As a sophomore, I entered the class B 1,320-yard competition, three quarters of a mile. My spindly legs still embarrassed me, so I warmed up behind the bleachers where the crowd couldn’t spot me. But once the race started, I forgot my worries and ran as hard as I could. I kept winning.

I really wanted to run the mile and set my sights on the class A race. I won in 4:58, breaking the school record held by my brother. He was probably more excited about my win than I was. Later that spring, at my first race in the Los Angeles Coliseum, I broke the state record for the class B 1,320, with a time of 3:17. It was an easy race; I wasn’t pushed. Afterward the Torrance paper boasted about me, and it felt very different from my other exploits that, although anonymous, had once made the local headlines.

Pete continued to coach me and even got permission to run alongside me in races when no competition existed, forcing me to extend myself. He was wise. When I complained about the pain and exhaustion of the final lap in a mile race—which took about a minute—Pete gave me some advice that’s stuck with me to this day: “Isn’t one minute of pain worth a lifetime of glory?”

Pete knew. He was the seventh-best college miler in the country and could have done even better. There is no doubt his dedication to me cost him personally. I knew that with Pete’s help I had a good chance to become a world-class athlete.

I researched how other runners trained, and I doubled their efforts. When I started to beat them, I knew the simple secret: hard work.

I had only one problem. I didn’t want anyone in my family to watch
me run except Pete. That may seem strange, I know, but I was still making the transition from juvenile delinquency to decent behavior. I wanted to wait until I had my foot firmly in the door before I let my parents, their hearts already all aglow, come to the meets. I was embarrassed by what I’d put them through and if there was even the slightest chance of failure, I didn’t want to have it happen right before their eyes. At the mere suggestion that my parents might come to a meet, I’d freeze and warn them to stay away. One afternoon, my mother came anyway. I didn’t notice until I’d already run two laps. I stopped dead in my tracks, trotted to the fence, and told her to leave.

“Hurry,” she said. “They’ll catch up.”

I wouldn’t budge until she relented. Then I won the race.

The more I ran, the better I got. I entered half-miles, 1,320s, and miles. My name began to crop up in local sportswriters’ columns. They called me “Leather Lung” and “Iron Man.” I relished the attention and my first encounters with fame. I became well known on campus. Party invitations rolled in; dates were available for school dances. Even so, I couldn’t resolve an inner conflict: because I’d always been such a rotten kid, I felt I didn’t deserve any of it. I got caught between wanting and needing the attention—not the fame, but for doing something besides getting in trouble—and hating the attention.

NOW THAT GIRLS
knew my name and admired my exploits they’d always say hello at school. The one girl I thought was really nice also talked to me, so I took typing class with her even though I wasn’t too keen on typing. When she took tennis, so did I. Soon we began dating.

One day a new girl, Rita, came to school. I’d never run into anyone like her. Rumors about her reputation flew. “She’s a hot pepper.” “She’s a firecracker.”

Rita acted very interested in me, always smiling and saying hi. I ignored her, certain she fooled around with everybody. Frankly, she really scared me. I’d kissed girls before, but only normal girls: sweet, unintrusive, reserved. I wanted to make the advances to someone I liked, to declare my interest. To me, Rita was too hot to handle.

And she couldn’t take a hint. At a school dance she forced me onto
the floor with her by threatening to embarrass me in front of everyone. Then she wanted us to go outside and get a drink of water. Reluctantly, I walked with her to the fountain, where she threw herself at me. I was too stunned to move. I’d never had a French kiss before. I couldn’t believe it! And frankly, it was repulsive. Then she pushed her body hard into mine. That did it. I made her stop and ushered her back inside.

I should have learned my lesson, but I didn’t. A few weeks later, to make my girlfriend jealous, I asked Rita on a date. In the middle of the dance we went to her car, where she tried to have sex with me. I pushed her away and got out.

Not only couldn’t I handle her unbridled aggressiveness, but I was in training. The coach had already warned us to use restraint during the track season. “You’ve got to be pure and give your all to your sport,” he explained. He wasn’t moralizing about abstinence as much as worrying that the emotional involvement that’s supposed to go hand in hand with the sex would make a mess of us and our training. He believed entanglements could quickly ruin any athlete.

He was right. When my first steady and I broke up for three weeks, I felt miserable and couldn’t perform well on the track. Training is tough enough, but when someone you love is mad at you, it’s almost impossible.

MY NEW STATURE
brought more than dates and recognition; I was elected junior-class president. I’d run but never believed I could win. I didn’t tell my parents about the election, though, preferring to have them find out by accident. A week later, when they questioned me proudly, I replied with an elaborately casual shrug. I’m pretty much the same today. Sure, I get excited inside, but I don’t want people to think my ego’s all swelled up. I just accept life. Maybe that’s why, years later, a friend of mine said, “Fame has never bothered Louie. He’s nothing if not down-to-earth.”

To be perfectly honest, one reason I did my best not to brag is that as a mischief-making kid I had trained myself never to crow about my exploits. Almost every victory was a secret. I guess I’ve just stayed that way.

MILE RACES BECAME
easier and easier. As a high school junior I ran 4:28 and 4:29 without being pushed. Because Torrance High’s oval was sandy, my times would have been better on a professional track. I needed a real test, and soon enough I got it.

On May 19, 1934, the best milers in Southern California assembled at the Los Angeles Coliseum for a big meet. Among the runners was Virgil Hooper. He held the state record of 4:49.2 and had already run a 4:24. They expected him to win, with close competition from Bob Jordan, of Whittier High, and two Indians from the Sherman Institute: Elmo Lomachutzkeoma and Abbot Lewis. They’d all run 4:30 or better.

For days Pete and I talked only about the race. We visualized it over and over again, trying to dope out the action in advance. Pete was by then student-body president at Compton College and had broken the state college mile record in his first meet against UCLA, thereby almost assuring himself a scholarship to the University of Southern California. We both worried about Hooper and strategized about when I should start my final kick for the finish line.

The morning of the meet I felt awful. My head ached, my stomach churned. I wasn’t really sick, just nervous, like usual. Whenever Pete tried to reassure me—“Aw, Toots, it’ll be a cinch”—I’d snap back, “No race is a cinch.” He didn’t like it, but he had to agree.

Before a race I always liked to be alone, but that morning I was too anxious to go off by myself and focus. Instead, I made excuses for my imminent failure, saying I was from a “little ol’ town” and here were these big competitors—high school seniors, whereas I was just a junior—running in the Coliseum.

Pete finally had enough of my complaining.

“What’s the matter?” he teased. “You scared?”

I blew up. “I’m not scared. I just don’t feel good. You don’t understand.”

“You’re just chicken.”

I wanted to throw the kitchen table at him. Instead, I turned to my mother and said, “I’ll go out there and run. And if I drop dead, my legs will still keep running.”
I caught Pete grinning.

But at the Coliseum I balked again. So many runners had entered that we had to start in two lines, the second about three yards behind the first. I drew the third lane of the second row, a handicap of maybe two seconds and a few extra yards. That made me mad. What chance would I have against Hooper now?

The heck with it, I decided, and walked off the track.

Pete rushed over. “What’s the matter?”

“I’m not running. Look where they put—”

Pete let me have it before I could finish. “Now I
know
you’re chicken. I was kidding before, but now you’re proving it.”

“I am not.”

“Then get back on the track.”

I stood my ground. Then a coach came over and said, “You can make that up. Easily.” I spun around and got back in line.

The gun sounded and I took off. I had a plan: to run the first three laps in 3:17, the same time as my 1,320 state record, and then take off. But because I’d started in the second row, right away I got caught in the pack and couldn’t break through. Runners crowded in front and stretched out to the sides. All I could do was stick to my pace and look for an opening.

Meanwhile, Elmo and Abbot, the two Indian boys, blistered the track with an amazing 58-second first lap and a 2:01 half mile. I had moved up, but I didn’t try to catch them. I just ran my race. If they were that good, I figured, then they deserved to win, but as they rounded the first turn of the third lap both boys wilted and I passed them.

My brother had called out my time at the quarter mile and the half mile. When I heard him yell, “Three-seventeen!” after the third lap, I moved out and passed everyone. Hooper had a boil on his neck, which hampered his style, and had dropped out. I was all alone—or so I thought. With two hundred yards to go I felt someone touch my heel. Gaylord Mercer, a dark horse from Glendale High, had closed the gap. His lead leg hit my trailing leg and startled me so much that I shot out like a rabbit and made for the finish line, beating him by about twenty yards. They timed my last lap at 64 seconds.
Pete couldn’t find the words as he pinned the medal on my shirt. Apparently I had broken what they then called the World’s Inter-scholastic Mile record that had stood for eighteen years. My time of 4:21.2 would stand for another twenty. Even more amazing, the radio announcer who interviewed me one minute after the finish was stunned to see me breathing gently through my nose.