Native Son (43 page)

“I’m willing to answer his questions if it will clear things up,” Mr. Dalton said quietly.

“Thank you, Mr. Dalton. Now, tell me, why is it that you charged the Thomas family eight dollars per week for one room in a tenement?”

“Well, there’s a housing shortage.”

“All over Chicago?”

“No. Just here on the South Side.”

“You own houses in other sections of the city?”

“Yes.”

“Then why don’t you rent those houses to Negroes?”

“Well…. Er…. I—I—I don’t think they’d like to live any other place.”

“Who told you that?”

“Nobody.”

“You came to that conclusion yourself?”

“Why, yes.”

“Isn’t it true you
refuse
to rent houses to Negroes if those houses are in other sections of the city?”

“Why, yes.”

“Why?”

“Well, it’s an old custom.”

“Do you think that custom is right?”

“I didn’t make the custom,” Mr. Dalton said.

“Do you think that custom is right?” Max asked again.

“Well, I think Negroes are happier when they’re together.”

“Who told you
that
?”

“Why, nobody.”

“Aren’t they more profitable when they’re together?”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“Mr. Dalton, doesn’t this policy of your company tend to keep Negroes on the South Side, in one area?”

“Well, it works that way. But I didn’t originate….”

“Mr. Dalton, you give millions to help Negroes. May I ask why you don’t charge them less rent for fire-traps and check that against your charity budget?”

“Well, to charge them less rent would be unethical.”

“
Unethical!
”

“Why, yes. I would be underselling my competitors.”

“Is there an agreement among realtors as to what Negroes should be charged for rent?”

“No. But there’s a code of ethics in business.”

“So, the profits you take from the Thomas family in rents, you give back to them to ease the pain of their gouged lives and to salve the ache of your own conscience?”

“That’s a distortion of fact, sir!”

“Mr. Dalton, why do you contribute money to Negro education?”

“I want to see them have a chance.”

“Have you ever employed any of the Negroes you helped to educate?”

“Why, no.”

“Mr. Dalton, do you think that the terrible conditions under which the Thomas family lived in one of your houses may in some way be related to the death of your daughter?”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“That’s all,” said Max.

After Mr. Dalton left the stand, Peggy came, then Britten, a host of doctors, reporters, and many policemen.

“We will now hear from Bigger Thomas!” the coroner called.

A wave of excited voices swept over the room. Bigger’s fingers gripped the arms of the chair. Max’s hand touched his shoulder. Bigger turned and Max whispered,

“Sit still.”

Max rose.

“Mr. Coroner?”

“Yes?”

“In the capacity of Bigger Thomas’ lawyer, I’d like to state that he does not wish to testify here.”

“His testimony would help to clear up any doubt as to the cause of the death of the deceased,” the coroner said.

“My client is already in police custody and it is his right to refuse….”

“All right. All right,” the coroner said.

Max sat down.

“Stay in your seat. It’s all right,” Max whispered to Bigger.

Bigger relaxed and felt his heart pounding. He longed for something to happen so that the white faces would stop staring at him. Finally, the faces turned away. The coroner strode to the table and lifted the kidnap note with a slow, long, delicate, and deliberate gesture.

“Gentlemen,” he said, facing the six men in the rows of chairs, “you have heard the testimony of the witnesses. I think, however, that you should have the opportunity to examine the evidence gathered by the Police Department.”

The coroner gave the kidnap note to one of the jurors who read it and passed it on to the others. All of the jurors examined the purse, the blood-stained knife, the blackened hatchet blade, the Communist pamphlets, the rum bottle, the trunk, and the signed confession.

“Owing to the peculiar nature of this crime, and owing to the fact that the deceased’s body was all but destroyed, I deem it imperative that you examine one additional piece of evidence. It will help shed light upon the actual manner of the death of the deceased,” the coroner said.

He turned and nodded in the direction of two white-coated attendants who stood at the rear door. The room was quiet. Bigger wondered how much longer it would last; he felt that he could not stand much more. Now and then the room blurred and a slight giddiness came over him; but his muscles would flex taut and it would pass. The hum of voices grew suddenly loud and the coroner rapped for order. Then a commotion broke out. Bigger heard a man’s voice saying,

“Move aside, please!”

He looked and saw the two white-coated attendants pushing
an oblong, sheet-covered table through the crowd and down the aisle. What’s this? Bigger wondered. He felt Max’s hand come on to his shoulder.

“Take it easy, Bigger. This’ll soon be over.”

“What they doing?” Bigger asked in a tense whisper.

For a long moment Max did not answer. Then he said uncertainly,

“I don’t know.”

The oblong table was pushed to the front of the room. The coroner spoke in a deep, slow voice that was charged with passionate meaning:

“As Deputy Coroner, I have decided, in the interests of justice, to offer in evidence the raped and mutilated body of one Bessie Mears, and the testimony of police officers and doctors relating to the cause and manner of her death….”

The coroner’s voice was drowned out. The room was in an uproar. For two minutes the police had to pound their clubs against the walls to restore quiet. Bigger sat still as stone as Max rushed past him and stopped a few feet from the sheet-covered table.

“Mr. Coroner,” Max said. “This is outrageous! Your indecent exhibition of that girl’s dead body serves no purpose but that of an incitement to mob violence.….”

“It will enable the jury to determine the exact manner of the death of Mary Dalton, who was slain by the man who slew Bessie Mears!” the coroner said in a scream that was compounded of rage and vindictiveness.

“The confession of Bigger Thomas covers all the evidence necessary for this jury!” Max said. “You are criminally appealing to mob emotion….”

“That’s for the Grand Jury to determine!” the coroner said “And you cannot interrupt these proceedings any longer! If you persist in this attitude, you’ll be removed from this room! I have the legal right to determine what evidence is necessary….”

Slowly, Max turned and walked back to his seat, his lips a thin line, his face white, his head down.

Bigger was crushed, helpless. His lips dropped wide apart. He
felt frozen, numb. He had completely forgotten Bessie during the inquest of Mary. He understood what was being done. To offer the dead body of Bessie as evidence and proof that he had murdered Mary would make him appear a monster; it would stir up more hate against him. Bessie’s death had not been mentioned during the inquest and all of the white faces in the room were utterly surprised. It was not because he had thought any the less of Bessie that he had forgotten her, but Mary’s death had caused him the most fear; not her death in itself, but what it meant to him as a Negro. They were bringing Bessie’s body in now to make the white men and women feel that nothing short of a quick blotting out of his life would make the city safe again. They were using his having killed Bessie to kill him for his having killed Mary, to cast him in a light that would sanction any action taken to destroy him. Though he had killed a black girl and a white girl, he knew that it would be for the death of the white girl that he would be punished. The black girl was merely “evidence.” And under it all he knew that the white people did not really care about Bessie’s being killed. White people never searched for Negroes who killed other Negroes. He had even heard it said that white people felt it was good when one Negro killed another; it meant that they had one Negro less to contend with. Crime for a Negro was only when he harmed whites, took white lives, or injured white property. As time passed he could not help looking and listening to what was going on in the room. His eyes rested wistfully on the still oblong white draped form under the sheet on the table and he felt a deeper sympathy for Bessie than at any time when she was alive. He knew that Bessie, too, though dead, though killed by him, would resent her dead body being used in this way. Anger quickened in him: an old feeling that Bessie had often described to him when she had come from long hours of hot toil in the white folks’ kitchens, a feeling of being forever commanded by others so much that thinking and feeling for one’s self was impossible. Not only had he lived where they told him to live, not only had he done what they told him to do, not only had he done these things until he had killed to be quit of them; but even after obeying, after killing, they still ruled him. He was their property, heart
and soul, body and blood; what they did claimed every atom of him, sleeping and waking; it colored life and dictated the terms of death.

The coroner rapped for order, then rose and stepped to the table and with one sweep of his arm flung the sheet back from Bessie’s body. The sight, bloody and black, made Bigger flinch involuntarily and lift his hands to his eyes and at the same instant he saw blinding flashes of the silver bulbs flicking through the air. His eyes looked with painful effort to the back of the room, for he felt that if he saw Bessie again he would rise from his chair and sweep his arm in an attempt to blot out this room and the people in it. Every nerve of his body helped him to stare without seeing and to sit amid the noise without hearing.

A pain came to the front of his head, right above the eyes. As the slow minutes dragged, his body was drenched in cold sweat. His blood throbbed in his ears; his lips were parched and dry; he wanted to wet them with his tongue, but could not. The tense effort to keep out of his consciousness the terrible sight of Bessie and the drone of the voices would not allow him to move a single muscle. He sat still, surrounded by an invisible cast of concrete. Then he could hold out no longer. He bent forward and buried his face in his hands. He heard a far-away voice speaking from a great height….

“The jury will retire to the next room.”

Bigger lifted his head and saw the six men rise and file out through a rear door. The sheet had been pulled over Bessie’s body and he could not see her. The voices in the room grew loud and the coroner rapped for order. The six men filed slowly back to their chairs. One of them gave the coroner a slip of paper. The coroner rose, lifted his hand for silence and read a long string of words that Bigger could not understand. But he caught phrases:

“…the said Mary Dalton came to her death in the bedroom of her home, located at 4605 Drexel Boulevard, from suffocation and strangulation due to external violence, said violence received when the deceased was choked by the hands of one, Bigger Thomas, during the course of criminal rape….

“…we, the Jury, believe that the said occurrence was murder and recommend that the said Bigger Thomas be held to the Grand Jury on a charge of murder, until released by due process of law….”

The voice droned on, but Bigger did not listen. This meant that he was going to jail to stay there until tried and executed. Finally, the coroner’s voice stopped. The room was full of noise. Bigger heard men and women walking past him. He looked about like a man waking from a deep sleep. Max had hold of his arm.

“Bigger?”

He turned his head slightly.

“I’ll see you tonight. They’re taking you to the Cook County Jail. I’ll come there and talk things over with you. We’ll see what can be done. Meanwhile, take it easy. As soon as you can, lie down and get some sleep, hear?”

Max left him. He saw two policemen wheeling Bessie’s body back through the door. The two policemen who sat to either side of him took his arms and locked his wrists to theirs. Two more policemen stood in front of him and two more stood in back.

“Come on, boy.”

Two policemen walked ahead, making a path for him in the dense crowd. As he passed white men and women they were silent, but as soon as he was some few feet away, he heard their voices rise. They took him out of the front door, into the hall. He thought that they were going to take him back upstairs and he made a motion to go in the direction of the elevator, but they jerked him back roughly.

“This way!”

They led him out of the front door of the building, to the street. Yellow sunshine splashed the sidewalks and buildings. A huge throng of people covered the pavement. The wind blew hard. Out of the shrill pitch of shouts and screams he caught a few distinct words:

“…turn ’im loose….”

“…give ’im what he gave that girl….”

“…let us take care of ’im….”

“…burn that black ape….”

A narrow aisle was cleared for him across the width of the pavement to a waiting car. As far as he could see there were blue-coated white men with bright silver stars shining on their chests. They wedged him tightly into the back seat of the car, between the two policemen to whom he was handcuffed. The motor throbbed. Ahead, he saw a car swing out from the curb and roll with screaming siren down the street through the sunshine. Another followed it. Then four more. At last the car in which he sat fell in line behind them. Back of him he heard other cars pulling out from the curb, with throbbing motors and shrieking sirens. He looked at the passing buildings out of the side window, but could not recognize any familiar landmarks. To each side of him were peering white faces with open mouths. Soon, however, he knew that he was heading southward. The sirens screamed so loud that he seemed to be riding a wave of sound. The cars swerved onto State Street. At Thirty-fifth Street the neighborhood became familiar. At Thirty-seventh Street he knew that two blocks to his left was his home. What were his mother and brother and sister doing now? And where were Jack and G.H. and Gus? The rubber tires sang over the flat asphalt. There was a policeman at every corner, waving the cars on. Where were they taking him? Maybe they were going to keep him in a jail on the South Side? Maybe they were taking him to the Hyde Park Police Station? They reached Forty-seventh Street and rolled east ward, toward Cottage Grove Avenue. They came to Drexel Boulevard and swung north again. He stiffened and leaned forward. Mr. Dalton lived on this street. What were they going to do with him? The cars slowed and stopped directly in front of the Dalton gate. What were they bringing him here for? He looked at the big brick house, drenched in sunshine, still, quiet. He looked into the faces of the two policemen who sat to either side of him; they were staring silently ahead. Upon the sidewalks, to the front and rear of him, were long lines of policemen with drawn guns. White faces filled the apartment windows all round him. People were pouring out of doors, running toward the Dalton home. A
policeman with a golden star upon his chest came to the door of the car, opened it, glanced at him briefly, then turned to the driver.