Native Son (24 page)

“I don’t want no playing from you now.”

“I’m scared, Bigger,” she whimpered.

She tried to get up; he knew she had seen the mad light in his eyes. Fear sheathed him in fire. His words came in a thick whisper.

“Keep still, now. I ain’t playing. Pretty soon they’ll be after me, maybe. And I ain’t going to let ’em catch me, see? I ain’t going to let ’em! The first thing they’ll do in looking for me is to come to you. They’ll grill you about me and you, you drunk fool, you’ll tell! You’ll tell if you ain’t in it, too. If you ain’t in it for your life, you’ll tell.”

“Naw; Bigger!” she whimpered tensely. At that moment she was too scared even to cry.

“You going to do what
I
say?”

She wrenched herself free and rolled across the bed and stood up on the other side. He ran round the bed and followed her as she backed into a corner. His voice hissed from his throat:

“I ain’t going to leave you behind to snitch!”

“I ain’t going to snitch! I
swear
I ain’t.”

He held his face a few inches from hers. He had to bind her to him.

“Yeah; I killed the girl,” he said. “Now, you know. You got to help me. You in it as deep as me! You done spent some of the money….”

She sank to the bed again, sobbing, her breath catching in her throat. He stood looking down at her, waiting for her to quiet. When she had control of herself, he lifted her and stood her upon her feet. He reached under the pillow and brought out the bottle and took out the stopper and put his hand round her and tilted her head.

“Here; take a shot.”

“Naw.”

“
Drink….
”

He carried the bottle to her lips; she drank a small swallow. When he attempted to put the bottle away, she took it from him.

“That’s enough, now. You don’t want to get sloppy drunk.”

He turned her loose and she lay back on the bed, limp, whimpering. He bent to her.

“Listen, Bessie.”

“Bigger, please! Don’t do this to me!
Please!
All I do is work, work like a dog! From morning till night. I ain’t got no happiness. I ain’t never had none. I ain’t got nothing and you do this to me. After how good I been to you. Now you just spoil my whole life. I’ve done everything for you I know how and you do this to me.
Please
, Bigger….” She turned her head away and stared at the floor. “Lord, don’t let this happen to me! I ain’t done nothing for this to come to me! I just work! I ain’t had no happiness, no nothing. I just work. I’m black and I work and don’t bother nobody….”

“Go on,” Bigger said, nodding his head affirmatively; he knew the truth of all she spoke without her telling it. “Go on and see what that gets you.”

“But I don’t want to do it, Bigger. They’ll catch us. God
knows
they will.”

“I ain’t going to leave you here to snitch on me.”

“I won’t tell. Honest, I won’t. I cross my heart and swear by God, I won’t. You can run away….”

“I ain’t got no money.”

“You
have
got money. I paid rent out of what you gave me and I bought some liquor. But the rest is there.”

“That ain’t enough. I got to have some real dough.”

She cried again. He got the knife and stood over her.

“I can stop it all right now,” he said.

She started up, her mouth opening to scream.

“If you scream, I’ll
have
to kill you. So help me God!”

“Naw; naw! Bigger, don’t!
Don’t!
”

Slowly, his arm relaxed and hung at his side; she fell to sobbing again. He was afraid that he would have to kill her before it was all over. She would not do to take along, and he could not leave her behind.

“All right,” he said. “But you better do the right thing.”

He put the knife on the dresser and got the flashlight from his overcoat pocket and then stood over her with the letter and flashlight in his hand.

“Come on,” he said. “Get your coat on.”

“Not tonight, Bigger! Not tonight….”

“It won’t be tonight. But I got to show you what to do.”

“But it’s cold. It’s snowing….”

“Sure. And nobody’ll see us. Come
on
!”

She pulled up; he watched her struggle into her coat. Now and then she paused and looked at him, blinking back her tears. When she was dressed, he put on his coat and cap and led her to the street. The air was thick with snow. The wind blew hard. It was a blizzard. The street lamps were faint smudges of yellow. They walked to the corner and waited for a car.

“I’d rather do anything but this,” she said.

“Stop now. We’re in it.”

“Bigger, honey, I’d run off with you. I’d work for you, baby. We don’t have to do this. Don’t you believe I love you?”

“Don’t try that on me now.”

The car came; he helped her on and sat down beside her and looked past her face at the silent snow flying white and wild outside the window. He brought his eyes farther round and looked at her; she was staring with blank eyes, like a blind woman waiting for some word to tell her where she was going. Once she cried and he gripped her shoulder so tightly that she stopped, more absorbed in the painful pressure of steel-like fingers than in her fate. They got off at Thirty-sixth Place and walked over to Michigan Avenue. When they reached the corner, Bigger stopped and made her stop by gripping her arm again. They were in front of the high, white, empty building with black windows.

“Where we going?”

“Right here.”

“Bigger,” she whimpered.

“Come on, now. Don’t start that!”

“But I don’t
want
to.”

“You
got
to.”

He looked up and down the street, past ghostly lamps that shed a long series of faintly shimmering cones of yellow against the snowy night. He took her to the front entrance which gave into a vast pool of inky silence. He brought out the flashlight and focused the round spot on a rickety stairway leading upward into a still blacker darkness. The planks creaked as he led her up. Now and then he felt his shoes sink into a soft, cushy substance. Cobwebs brushed his face. All round him was the dank smell of rotting timber. He stopped abruptly as something with dry whispering feet flitted across his path, emitting as the rush of its flight died a thin, piping wail of lonely fear.

“Ooow!”

Bigger whirled and centered the spot of light on Bessie’s face. Her lips were drawn back, her mouth was open, and her hands were lifted midway to white-rimmed eyes.

“What you trying to do?” he asked. “Tell the whole world we in here?”

“Oh, Bigger!”

“Come on!”

After a few feet he stopped and swung the light. He saw dusty walls, walls almost like those of the Dalton home. The doorways were wider than those of any house in which he had ever lived. Some rich folks lived here once, he thought. Rich white folks. That was the way most houses on the South Side were, ornate, old, stinking; homes once of rich white people, now inhabited by Negroes or standing dark and empty with yawning black windows. He remembered that bombs had been thrown by whites into houses like these when Negroes had first moved into the South Side. He swept the disc of yellow and walked gingerly down a hall and into a room at the front of the house. It was feebly lit from the street lamps outside; he switched off the flashlight and looked round. The room had six large windows. By standing close to any of them, the streets in all four directions were visible.

“See, Bessie….”

He turned to look at her and found that she was not there. He called tensely:

“Bessie!”

There was no answer; he bounded to the doorway and switched on the flashlight. She was leaning against a wall, sobbing. He went to her, caught her arm and yanked her back into the room.

“Come on! You got to do better than this.”

“I’d rather have you kill me right now,” she sobbed.

“Don’t you say that again!”

She was silent. His black open palm swept upward in a swift narrow arc and smacked solidly against her face.

“You want me to wake you up?”

She bent her head to her knees; he caught hold of her arm again and dragged her to the window. He spoke like a man who had been running and was out of breath:

“Now, look. All you got to do is come here tomorrow night, see? Ain’t nothing going to bother you. I’m seeing to everything. Don’t you worry none. You just do what I say. You come here and just watch. About twelve o’clock a car’ll come along. It’ll be blinking its headlights, see? When it comes, you just raise this flashlight and blink it three times, see? Like this. Remember that. Then watch that car. It’ll throw out a package. Watch that package, ’cause the money’ll be in it. It’ll go into the snow. Look and see if anybody’s about. If you see nobody, then go and get the package and go home. But don’t go straight home. Make sure nobody’s watching you, nobody’s following you, see? Ride three or four street cars and transfer fast. Get off about five blocks from home and look behind you as you walk, see? Now, look. You can see up and down Michigan and Thirty-sixth. You can see if anybody’s watching. I’ll be in the white folks’ house all day tomorrow. If they put anybody out to watch, I’ll let you know not to come.”

“Bigger….”

“Come on, now.”

“Take me home.”

“You going to do it?”

She did not answer.

“You already in it,” he said. “You got part of the money.”

“I reckon it don’t make no difference,” she sighed.

“It’ll be easy.”

“It won’t. I’ll get caught. But it don’t make no difference. I’m lost anyhow. I was lost when I took up with you. I’m lost and it don’t matter….”

“Come on.”

He led her back to the car stop. He said nothing as they waited in the whirling snow. When he heard the car coming, he took her purse from her, opened it and put the flashlight inside. The car stopped; he helped her on, put seven cents in her trembling hand and stood in the snow watching her black face through the window white with ice as the car moved off slowly through the night.

He walked to Dalton’s through the snow. His right hand was in his coat pocket, his fingers about the kidnap note. When he reached the driveway, he looked about the street carefully. There was no one. He looked at the house; it was white, huge, silent. He walked up the steps and stood in front of the door. He waited a moment to see what would happen. So deeply conscious was he of violating dangerous taboo, that he felt that the very air or sky would suddenly speak, commanding him to stop. He was sailing fast into the face of a cold wind that all but sucked his breath from him; but he liked it. Around him were silence and night and snow falling, falling as though it had fallen from the beginning of time and would always fall till the end of the world. He took the letter out of his pocket and slipped it under the door. Turning, he ran down the steps and round the house. I done it! I done it now! They’ll see it tonight or in the morning…. He went to the basement door, opened it and looked inside; no one was there. Like an enraged beast, the furnace throbbed with heat, suffusing a red glare over everything. He stood in front of the cracks and watched the restless embers. Had Mary burned completely? He wanted to poke round in the coals to see, but dared not; he flinched from it even in thought. He pulled the lever for more coal, then went to his room.

When he stretched out on his bed in the dark he found that his whole body was trembling. He was cold and hungry. While lying there shaking, a hot bath of fear, hotter than his blood, engulfed him, bringing him to his feet. He stood in the middle of the floor, seeing vivid images of his gloves, his pencil, and paper. How on earth had he forgotten them? He had to burn them. He would do it right now. He pulled on the light and went to his overcoat and got the gloves and pencil and paper and stuffed them into his shirt. He went to the door, listened a moment, then went into the hall and down the stairs to the furnace. He stood a moment before the gleaming cracks. Hurriedly, he opened the door and dumped the gloves and pencil and paper in; he watched them smoke, blaze; he closed the door and heard them burn in a furious whirlwind of draft.

A strange sensation enveloped him. Something tingled in his stomach and on his scalp. His knees wobbled, giving way. He stumbled to the wall and leaned against it weakly. A wave of numbness spread fanwise from his stomach over his entire body, including his head and eyes, making his mouth gap. Strength ebbed from him. He sank to his knees and pressed his fingers to the floor to keep from tumbling over. An organic sense of dread seized him. His teeth chattered and he felt sweat sliding down his armpits and back. He groaned, holding as still as possible. His vision was blurred; but gradually it cleared. Again he saw the furnace. Then he realized that he had been on the verge of collapse. Soon the glare and drone of the fire came to his eyes and ears. He closed his mouth and gritted his teeth; the peculiar paralyzing numbness was leaving.

When he was strong enough to stand without support, he rose to his feet and wiped his forehead on his sleeve. He had strained himself from a too long lack of sleep and food; and the excitement was sapping his energy. He should go to the kitchen and ask for his dinner. Surely, he should not starve like this. He mounted the steps to the door and knocked timidly; there was no answer. He turned the knob and pushed the door in and saw the kitchen flooded with light. On a table were spread several white napkins under which was something that looked like plates of food. He stood gazing at it, then went to the table and lifted the corners of the napkins. There
were sliced bread and steak and fried potatoes and gravy and string beans and spinach and a huge piece of chocolate cake. His mouth watered. Was this for him? He wondered if Peggy was around. Ought he try to find her? But he disliked the thought of looking for her; that would bring attention to himself, something which he hated. He stood in the kitchen, wondering if he ought to eat, but afraid to do so. He rested his black fingers on the edge of the white table and a silent laugh burst from his parted lips as he saw himself for a split second in a lurid objective light: he had killed a rich white girl and had burned her body after cutting her head off and had lied to throw the blame on someone else and had written a kidnap note demanding ten thousand dollars and yet he stood here afraid to touch food on the table, food which undoubtedly was his own.