Native Son (44 page)
Authors: Richard Wright
“O.K., boys; take ’im out.”
They led him to the curb. Already a solidly packed crowd stood all over the sidewalks, the streets, on lawns, and behind the lines of the policemen. He heard a white boy yell,
“There’s the nigger that killed Miss Mary!”
They led him through the gate, down the walk, up the steps; he stood a second facing the front door of the Dalton home, the same door before which he had stood so humbly with his cap in his hand a little less than a week ago. The door opened and he was led down the hall to the rear stairs and up to the second floor, to the door of Mary’s room. It seemed that he could not breathe. What did they bring him here for? His body was once more wet with sweat. How long could he stand this without collapsing again? They led him into the room. It was crowded with armed policemen and newspapermen ready with their bulbs. He looked round; the room was just as he had seen it
that
night. There was the bed upon which he had smothered Mary. The clock with the glowing dial stood on the small dresser. The same curtains were at the windows and the shades were still far up, as far up as they had been that night when he had stood near them and had seen Mrs. Dalton in flowing white grope her way slowly into the dark blue room with her hands lifted before her. He felt the eyes of the men upon him and his body stiffened, flushing hot with shame and anger. The man with the golden star on his chest came to him and spoke in a soft low tone.
“Now, Bigger, be a good boy. Just relax and take it easy. We want you to take your time and show us just what happened that night, see? And don’t mind the boys’ taking pictures. Just go through the motions you went through that night….”
Bigger glared; his whole body tightened and he felt that he was going to rise another foot in height.
“Come on,” the man said. “Nobody’s going to hurt you. Don’t be afraid.”
Outrage burned in Bigger.
“Come on. Show us what you did.”
He stood without moving. The man caught his arm and tried to lead him to the bed. He jerked back violently, his muscles flexed taut. A hot band of fire encircled his throat. His teeth clamped so hard that he could not have spoken had he tried. He backed against a wall, his eyes lowered in a baleful glare.
“What’s the matter, boy?”
Bigger’s lips pulled back, showing his white teeth. Then he blinked his eyes; the flashlights went off and he knew in the instant of their flashing that they had taken his picture showing him with his back against a wall, his teeth bared in a snarl.
“Scared, boy? You weren’t scared that night you were in here with that girl, were you?”
Bigger wanted to take enough air into his lungs to scream, “Yes! I was scared!” But who would believe him? He would go to his death without ever trying to tell men like these what he had felt that night. When the man spoke again, his tone had changed.
“Come on, now, boy. We’ve treated you pretty nice, but we can get tough if we have to, see? It’s up to
you
! Get over there by that bed and show us how you raped and murdered that girl!”
“I didn’t rape her,” Bigger said through stiff lips.
“Aw, come on. What you got to lose now? Show us what you did.”
“I don’t want to.”
“You
have
to!”
“I
don’t
have to.”
“Well, we’ll
make
you!”
“You can’t make me do nothing but die!”
And as he said it, he wished that they would shoot him so that he could be free of them, forever. Another white man with a golden star upon his chest walked over.
“Drop it. We got our case.”
“You think we ought to?”
“Sure. What’s the use?”
“O.K., boys. Take ’im back to the car.”
They clamped the steel handcuffs on his wrists and led him down the hall. Even before the front door was opened, he heard the faint roar of voices. As far as he could see through the glass panels, up and down the street, were white people standing in the cold wind and sunshine. They took him through the door and the roar grew louder; as soon as he was visible the roar reached a deafening pitch and continued to rise each second. Surrounded by policemen, he was half-dragged and half-lifted along the narrow lane of people, through the gate, toward the waiting car.
“You black ape!”
“Shoot that bastard!”
He felt hot spittle splashing against his face. Somebody tried to leap at him, but was caught by the policemen and held back. As he stumbled along a high bright object caught his eyes; he looked up. Atop a building across the street, above the heads of the people, loomed a flaming cross. At once he knew that it had something to do with him. But why should they burn a cross? As he gazed at it he remembered the sweating face of the black preacher in his cell that morning talking intensely and solemnly of Jesus, of there being a cross for him, a cross for everyone, and of how the lowly Jesus had carried the cross, paving the way, showing how to die, how to love and live the life eternal. But he had never seen a cross burning like that one upon the roof. Were white people wanting him to love Jesus, too? He heard the wind whipping the flames. No! That was not right; they ought not burn a cross. He stood in front of the car, waiting for them to push him in, his eyes wide with astonishment, his impulses deadlocked, trying to remember something.
“He’s looking at it!”
“He sees it!”
The eyes and faces about him were not at all the way the black preacher’s had been when he had prayed about Jesus and His love, about His dying upon the cross. The cross the preacher had told him about was bloody, not flaming; meek, not militant. It had made him feel awe and wonder, not fear and panic. It had made him want to kneel and cry, but this cross made him want to curse and kill. Then he became conscious of the cross that the preacher
had hung round his throat; he felt it nestling against the skin of his chest, an image of the same cross that blazed in front of his eyes high upon the roof against the cold blue sky, its darting tongues of fire lashed to a hissing fury by the icy wind.
“Burn ’im!”
“Kill ’im!”
It gripped him: that cross was not the cross of Christ, but the cross of the Ku Klux Klan. He had a cross of salvation round his throat and they were burning one to tell him that they hated him! No! He did not want that! Had the preacher trapped him? He felt betrayed. He wanted to tear the cross from his throat and throw it away. They lifted him into the waiting car and he sat between two policemen, still looking fearfully at the fiery cross. The sirens screamed and the cars rolled slowly through the crowded streets and he was feeling the cross that touched his chest, like a knife pointed at his heart. His fingers ached to rip it off; it was an evil and black charm which would surely bring him death now. The cars screamed up State Street, then westward on Twenty-sixth Street, one behind the other. People paused on the sidewalks to look. Ten minutes later they stopped in front of a huge white building; he was led up steps, down hallways and then halted in front of a cell door. He was pushed inside; the handcuffs were unlocked and the door clanged shut. The men lingered, looking at him curiously.
With bated breath he tore his shirt open, not caring who saw him. He gripped the cross and snatched it from his throat. He threw it away, cursing a curse that was almost a scream.
“I don’t want it!”
The men gasped and looked at him, amazed.
“Don’t throw that away, boy. That’s your
cross
!”
“I can die without a cross!”
“Only God can help you now, boy. You’d better get your soul right!”
“I ain’t got no soul!”
One of the men picked up the cross and brought it back.
“Here, boy; keep this. This is
God’s
cross!”
“I don’t care!”
“Aw, leave ’im alone!” one of the men said.
They left, dropping the cross just inside the cell door. He picked it up and threw it away again. He leaned weakly against the bars, spent. What were they trying to do to him? He lifted his head, hearing footsteps. He saw a white man coming toward him, then a black man. He straightened and stiffened. It was the old preacher who had prayed over him that morning. The white man began to unlock the door.
“I don’t want you!” Bigger shouted.
“Son!” the preacher admonished.
“I don’t want you!”
“What’s the matter, son?”
“Take your Jesus and go!”
“But, son! Yuh don’t know whut yuh’s sayin’! Lemme pray fer yuh!”
“Pray for yourself!”
The white guard caught the preacher by the arm and, pointing to the cross on the floor, said,
“Look, Reverend, he threw his cross away.”
The preacher looked and said:
“Son, don’t spit in Gawd’s face!”
“I’ll spit in your face if you don’t leave me alone!” Bigger said.
“The Reds’ve been talking to ’im,” the guard said, piously touching his fingers to his forehead, his chest, his left shoulder, and then his right; making the sign of the cross.
“That’s a goddamn lie!” Bigger shouted. His body seemed a flaming cross as words boiled hysterically out of him. “I told you I don’t want you! If you come in here, I’ll kill you! Leave me alone!”
Quietly, the old black preacher stopped and picked up the cross. The guard inserted the key in the lock and the door swung in. Bigger ran to it and caught the steel bars in his hands and swept the door forward, slamming it shut. It smashed the old black preacher squarely in the face, sending him reeling backwards upon the concrete. The echo of steel crashing against steel resounded throughout the long quiet corridor, wave upon wave, dying somewhere far away.
“You’d better leave ’im alone now,” the guard said. “He seems pretty wild.”
The preacher rose slowly and gathered his hat, Bible, and the cross from the floor. He stood a moment with his hand nursing his bruised face.
“Waal, son. Ah’ll leave yuh t’ yo’ Gawd,” he sighed, dropping the cross back inside the cell.
The preacher walked away. The guard followed. Bigger was alone. His emotions were so intense that he really saw and heard nothing. Finally, his hot and taut body relaxed. He saw the cross, snatched it up and held it for a long moment in fingers of steel. Then he flung it again through the bars of the cell. It hit the wall beyond with a lonely clatter.
Never again did he want to feel anything like hope. That was what was wrong; he had let that preacher talk to him until somewhere in him he had begun to feel that maybe something could happen. Well, something
had
happened: the cross the preacher had hung round his throat had been burned in front of his eyes.
When his hysteria had passed, he got up from the floor. Through blurred eyes he saw men peering at him from the bars of other cells. He heard a low murmur of voices and in the same instant his consciousness recorded without bitterness—like a man stepping out of his house to go to work and noticing that the sun is shining—the fact that even here in the Cook County Jail Negro and white were segregated into different cell-blocks. He lay on the cot with closed eyes and the darkness soothed him some. Occasionally his muscles twitched from the hard storm of passion that had swept him. A small hard core in him resolved never again to trust anybody or anything. Not even Jan. Or Max. They were all right, maybe; but whatever he thought or did from now on would have to come from him and him alone, or not at all. He wanted no more crosses that might turn to fire while still on his chest.
His inflamed senses cooled slowly. He opened his eyes. He heard a soft tapping on a near-by wall. Then a sharp whisper:
“Say, you new guy!”
He sat up, wondering what they wanted.
“Ain’t you the guy they got for that Dalton job?”
His hands clenched. He lay down again. He did not want to talk to them. They were not his kind. He felt that they were not here for crimes such as his. He did not want to talk to the whites because they were white and he did not want to talk to the Negroes because he felt ashamed. His own kind would be too curious about him. He lay a long while, empty of mind, and then he heard the steel door open. He looked and saw a white man with a tray of food. He sat up and the man brought the tray to the cot and placed it beside him.
“Your lawyer sent this, kid. You got a good lawyer,” the man said.
“Say, can I see a paper?” Bigger asked.
“Well, now,” the man said, scratching his head. “Oh, what the hell. Yeah; sure. Here, take mine. I’m through with it. And say, your lawyer’s bringing some clothes for you. He told me to tell you.”
Bigger did not hear him; he ignored the tray of food and opened out the paper. He paused, waiting to hear the door shut. When it clanged, he bent forward to read, then paused again, wondering about the man who had just left, amazed at how friendly he had acted. For a fleeting moment, while the man had been in his cell, he had not felt apprehensive, cornered. The man had acted straight, matter-of-fact. It was something he could not understand. He lifted the paper close and read: NEGRO KILLER SIGNS CONFESSIONS FOR TWO MURDERS. SHRINKS AT INQUEST WHEN CONFRONTED WITH BODY OF SLAIN GIRL. ARRAIGNED TOMORROW. REDS TAKE CHARGE OF KILLER’S DEFENSE. NOT GUILTY PLEA LIKELY. His eyes ran over the paper, looking for some clue that would tell him something of his fate.
…slayer will undoubtedly pay supreme penalty for his crimes…. there is no doubt of his guilt…. what is
doubtful is how many other crimes he has committed…. killer attacked at inquest….
Then:
Expressing opinions about Communists’ defending the Negro rapist and killer, Mr. David A. Buckley, State’s Attorney, said: “What else can you expect from a gang like that? I’m in favor of cleaning them out lock, stock, and barrel. I’m of the conviction that if you got to the bottom of Red activity in this country, you’d find the root of many an unsolved crime.”
When questioned as to what effect the Thomas trial would have upon the forthcoming April elections, in which he is a candidate to succeed himself, Mr. Buckley took his pink carnation from the lapel of his morning coat and waved the reporters away with a laugh.
A long scream sounded and Bigger dropped the paper, jumped to his feet, and ran to the barred door to see what was happening. Down the corridor he saw six white men struggling with a brown-skinned Negro. They dragged him over the floor by his feet and stopped directly in front of Bigger’s cell door. As the door swung in, Bigger backed to his cot, his mouth open in astonishment. The man was turning and twisting in the white men’s hands, trying desperately to free himself.
“Turn me loose! Turn me loose!” the man screamed over and over.
The men lifted him and threw him inside, locked the door, and left. The man lay on the floor for a moment, then scrambled to his feet and ran to the door.
“Give me my papers!” he screamed.
Bigger saw that the man’s eyes were blood-red; the corners of his lips were white with foam. Sweat glistened on his brown face. He clutched the bars with such frenzy that when he yelled his entire body vibrated. He seemed so agonized that Bigger wondered why
the men did not give him his belongings. Emotionally, Bigger sided with the man.
“You can’t get away with it!” the man yelled.
Bigger went to him and placed a hand on his shoulder.
“Say, what they got of yours?” he asked.
The man ignored him, shouting.
“I’ll report you to the President, you hear? Bring me my papers or let me out of here, you white bastards! You want to destroy all my evidence! You can’t cover up your crimes! I’ll publish them to the whole world! I know why you’re putting me in jail! The Professor told you to! But he’s not going to get away with it….”
Bigger watched, fascinated, fearful. He had the sensation that the man was too emotionally wrought up over whatever it was that he had lost. Yet the man’s emotions seemed real; they affected him, compelling sympathy.
“Come back here!” the man screamed. “Bring me my papers or I’ll tell the President and have you dismissed from office….”
What papers did they have of his? Bigger wondered. Who was the president the man yelled about? And who was the professor? Over the man’s screams Bigger heard a voice calling from another cell.
“Say, you new guy!”
Bigger avoided the frenzied man and went to the door.
“He’s balmy!” a white man said. “Make ’em take ’im outta your cell. He’ll kill you. He went off his nut from studying too much at the university. He was writing a book on how colored people live and he says somebody stole all the facts he’d found. He says he’s got to the bottom of why colored folks are treated bad and he’s going to tell the President and have things changed, see? He’s
nuts
! He swears that his university professor had him locked up. The cops picked him up this morning in his underwear; he was in the lobby of the Post Office building, waiting to speak to the President….”
Bigger ran from the door to the cot. All of his fear of death, all his hate and shame vanished in face of his dread of this insane man turning suddenly upon him. The man still clutched the bars,
screaming. He was about Bigger’s size. Bigger had the queer feeling that his own exhaustion formed a hair-line upon which his feelings were poised, and that the man’s driving frenzy would suck him into its hot whirlpool. He lay on the cot and wrapped his arms about his head, torn with a nameless anxiety, hearing the man’s screams in spite of his need to escape them.
“You’re afraid of me!” the man shouted. “That’s why you put me in here! But I’ll tell the President anyhow! I’ll tell ’im you make us live in such crowded conditions on the South Side that one out of every ten of us is insane! I’ll tell ’im that you dump all the stale foods into the Black Belt and sell them for more than you can get anywhere else! I’ll tell ’im you tax us, but you won’t build hospitals! I’ll tell ’im the schools are so crowded that they breed perverts! I’ll tell ’im you hire us last and fire us first! I’ll tell the President and the League of Nations….”
The men in other cells began to holler.
“Pipe down, you nut!”
“Take ’im away!”
“Throw ’im out!”
“The hell with you!”
“You can’t scare me!” the man yelled. “I know you! They put you in here to watch me!”
The men set up a clamor. But soon a group of men dressed in white came running in with a stretcher. They unlocked the cell and grabbed the yelling man, laced him in a strait-jacket, flung him onto the stretcher and carted him away. Bigger sat up and stared before him, hopelessly. He heard voices calling from cell to cell.
“Say, what they got of his?”
“Nothing! He’s nuts!”
Finally, things quieted. For the first time since his capture, Bigger felt that he wanted someone near him, something physical to cling to. He was glad when he heard the lock in his door click. He sat up; a guard loomed over him.
“Come on, boy. Your lawyer’s here.”
He was handcuffed and led down the hall to a small room
where Max stood. He was freed of the steel links on his wrists and pushed inside; he heard the door shut behind him.
“Sit down, Bigger. Say, how do you feel?”
Bigger sat down on the edge of the chair and did not answer. The room was small. A single yellow electric globe dropped from the ceiling. There was one barred window. All about them was profound silence. Max sat opposite Bigger and Bigger’s eyes met his and fell. Bigger felt that he was sitting and holding his life helplessly in his hands, waiting for Max to tell him what to do with it; and it made him hate himself. An organic wish to cease to be, to stop living, seized him. Either he was too weak, or the world was too strong; he did not know which. Over and over he had tried to create a world to live in, and over and over he had failed. Now, once again, he was waiting for someone to tell him something; once more he was poised on the verge of action and commitment. Was he letting himself in for more hate and fear? What could Max do for him now? Even if Max tried hard and honestly, were there not thousands of white hands to stop Max? Why not tell him to go home? His lips trembled to speak, to tell Max to leave; but no words came. He felt that even in speaking in that way he would be indicating how hopeless he felt, thereby disrobing his soul to more shame.
“I bought some clothes for you,” Max said. “When they give ’em to you in the morning, put ’em on. You want to look your best when you come up for arraignment.”
Bigger was silent; he glanced at Max again, and then away.
“What’s on your mind, Bigger?”
“Nothing,” he mumbled.
“Now, listen, Bigger. I want you to tell me all about yourself….”
“Mr. Max, it ain’t no use in you doing nothing!” Bigger blurted.
Max eyed him sharply.
“Do you really feel that way, Bigger?”
“There ain’t no way else to feel.”
“I want to talk to you honestly, Bigger. I see no way out of this but a plea of guilty. We can ask for mercy, for life in prison….”
“I’d rather die!”
“Nonsense. You want to live.”
“For what?”
“Don’t you want to fight this thing?”
“What can I do? They got me.”
“You don’t want to die that way, Bigger.”
“It don’t matter which way I die,” he said; but his voice choked.
“Listen, Bigger, you’re facing a sea of hate now that’s no different from what you’ve faced all your life. And because it’s that way, you’ve
got
to fight. If they can wipe you out, then they can wipe others out, too.”
“Yeah,” Bigger mumbled, resting his hands upon his knees and staring at the black floor. “But I can’t win.”
“First of all, Bigger. Do you trust me?”
Bigger grew angry.
“You can’t help me, Mr. Max,” he said, looking straight into Max’s eyes.
“But do you trust me, Bigger?” Max asked again.
Bigger looked away. He felt that Max was making it very difficult for him to tell him to leave.