Native Son

by Richard Wright

  “Bessie was by last night,” Buddy said.

  “Yeah?”

  “She said she saw you in Ernie’s Kitchen Shack with some white folks.”

  “Yeah. I was driving ’em last night.”

  “She was talking about you and her getting married.”

  “Humph!”

  “How come gals that way, Bigger? Soon’s a guy get a good job, they want to marry?”

  “Damn if I know.”

  “You got a good job now. You can get a better gal than Bessie,” Buddy said.

  Although he agreed with Buddy, he said nothing.

  “I’m going to tell Bessie!” Vera called.

  “If you do, I’ll break your neck,” Bigger said.

  “Hush that kind of talk in here,” the mother said.

  “Oh, yeah,” Buddy said. “I met Jack last night. He said you almost murdered old Gus.”

  “I ain’t having nothing to do with that gang no more,” Bigger said emphatically.

  “But Jack’s all right,” Buddy said.

  “Well, Jack, but none of the rest.”

  Gus and G.H. and Jack seemed far away to Bigger now, in another life, and all because he had been in Dalton’s home for a few hours and had killed a white girl. He looked round the room, seeing it for the first time. There was no rug on the floor and the plastering on the walls and ceiling hung loose in many places. There were two worn iron beds, four chairs, an old dresser, and a drop-leaf table on which they ate. This was much different from Dalton’s home. Here all slept in one room; there he would have a room for himself alone. He smelt food cooking and remembered that one could not smell food cooking in Dalton’s home; pots could not be heard rattling all over the house. Each person lived in one room and had a little world of his own. He hated this room and all the people in it, including himself. Why did he and his folks have to live like this? What had they ever done? Perhaps they had not done anything. Maybe they had to live this way precisely because none of them in all their lives had ever done anything, right or wrong, that mattered much.

  “Fix the table, Vera. Breakfast’s ready,” the mother called.

  “Yessum.”

  Bigger sat at the table and waited for food. Maybe this would be the last time he would eat here. He felt it keenly and it helped him to have patience. Maybe some day he would be eating in jail. Here he was sitting with them and they did not know that he had murdered a white girl and cut her head off and burnt her body. The thought of what he had done, the awful horror of it, the daring associated with such actions, formed for him for the first time in his fear-ridden life a barrier of protection between him and a world he feared. He had murdered and had created a new life for himself. It was something that was all his own, and it was the first time in his life he had had anything that others could not take from him. Yes; he could sit here calmly and eat and not be concerned about what his family thought or did. He had a natural wall from behind which he could look at them. His crime was an anchor weighing him safely in time; it added to him a certain confidence which his gun and knife did not. He was outside of his family now, over and beyond them; they were incapable of even thinking that he had done such a deed. And he had done something which even he had not thought possible.

  Though he had killed by accident, not once did he feel the need to tell himself that it had been an accident. He was black and he had been alone in a room where a white girl had been killed, therefore he had killed her. That was what everybody would say anyhow, no matter what he said. And in a certain sense he knew that the girl’s death had not been accidental. He had killed many times before, only on those other times there had been no handy victim or circumstance to make visible or dramatic his will to kill His crime seemed natural; he felt that all of his life had been leading; to something like this. It was no longer a matter of dumb wonder as to what would happen to him and his black skin; he knew now The hidden meaning of his life—a meaning which others did not see and which he had always tried to hide—had spilled out. No; it was no accident, and he would never say that it was. There was in him a kind of terrified pride in feeling and thinking that some day he would be able to say publicly that he had done it. It was as though he had an obscure but deep debt to fulfil to himself in accepting the deed.

  Now that the ice was broken, could he not do other things? What was there to stop him? While sitting there at the table waiting for his breakfast, he felt that he was arriving at something which had long eluded him. Things were becoming clear; he would know how to act from now on. The thing to do was to act just like others acted, live like they lived, and while they were not looking, do what you wanted. They would never know. He felt in the quiet presence of his mother, brother, and sister a force, inarticulate and unconscious, making for living without thinking, making for peace and habit, making for a hope that blinded. He felt that they wanted and yearned to see life in a certain way; they needed a certain picture of the world; there was one way of living they preferred above all others; and they were blind to what did not fit. They did not want to see what others were doing if that doing did not feed their own desires. All one had to do was be bold, do something nobody thought of. The whole thing came to him in the form of a powerful and simple feeling; there was in everyone a great hunger to believe that made him blind, and if he could see while others were blind, then he could get what he wanted and never be caught at it. Now, who on earth would think that he, a black timid Negro boy, would murder and burn a rich white girl and would sit and wait for his breakfast like this? Elation filled him.

  He sat at the table watching the snow fall past the window and many things became plain. No, he did not have to hide behind a wall or a curtain now; he had a safer way of being safe, an easier way. What he had done last night had proved that. Jan was blind. Mary had been blind. Mr. Dalton was blind. And Mrs. Dalton was blind; yes, blind in more ways than one. Bigger smiled slightly. Mrs. Dalton had not known that Mary was dead while she had stood over the bed in that room last night. She had thought that Mary was drunk, because she was used to Mary’s coming home drunk. And Mrs. Dalton had not known that he was in the room with her; it would have been the last thing she would have thought of. He was black and would not have figured in her thoughts on such an occasion. Bigger felt that a lot of people were like Mrs. Dalton, blind….

  “Here you are, Bigger,” his mother said, setting a plate of grits on the table.

  He began to eat, feeling much better after thinking out what had happened to him last night. He felt he could control himself now.

  “Ain’t you-all eating?” he asked, looking round.

  “You go on and eat. You got to go. We’ll eat later,” his mother said.

  He did not need any money, for he had the money he had gotten from Mary’s purse; but he wanted to cover his tracks carefully.

  “You got any money, Ma?”

  “Just a little, Bigger.”

  “I need some.”

  “Here’s a half. That leaves me exactly one dollar to last till Wednesday.”

  He put the half-dollar in his pocket. Buddy had finished dressing and was sitting on the edge of the bed. Suddenly, he saw Buddy, saw him in the light of Jan. Buddy was soft and vague; his eyes were defenseless and their glance went only to the surface of things. It was strange that he had not noticed that before. Buddy, too, was blind. Buddy was sitting there longing for a job like his. Buddy, too, went round and round in a groove and did not see things. Buddy’s clothes hung loosely compared with the way Jan’s hung. Buddy seemed aimless, lost, with no sharp or hard edges, like a chubby puppy. Looking at Buddy and thinking of Jan and Mr. Dalton, he saw in Buddy a certain stillness, an isolation, meaninglessness.

  “How come you looking at me that way, Bigger?”

  “Hunh?”

  “You looking at me so funny.”

  “I didn’t know it. I was thinking.”

  “What?”

  “Nothing.”

  His mother came into the room with more
plates of food and he saw how soft and shapeless she was. Her eyes were tired and sunken and darkly ringed from a long lack of rest. She moved about slowly, touching objects with her fingers as she passed them, using them for support. Her feet dragged over the wooden floor and her face held an expression of tense effort. Whenever she wanted to look at anything, even though it was near her, she turned her entire head and body to see it and did not shift her eyes. There was in her heart, it seemed, a heavy and delicately balanced burden whose weight she did not want to assume by disturbing it one whit. She saw him looking at her.

  “Eat your breakfast, Bigger.”

  “I’m eating.”

  Vera brought her plate and sat opposite him. Bigger felt that even though her face was smaller and smoother than his mother’s, the beginning of the same tiredness was already there. How different Vera was from Mary! He could see it in the very way Vera moved her hand when she carried the fork to her mouth; she seemed to be shrinking from life in every gesture she made. The very manner in which she sat showed a fear so deep as to be an organic part of her; she carried the food to her mouth in tiny bits, as if dreading its choking her, or fearing that it would give out too quickly.

  “Bigger!” Vera wailed.

  “Hunh?”

  “You stop now,” Vera said, laying aside her fork and slapping her hand through the air at him.

  “What?”

  “Stop looking at me, Bigger!”

  “Aw, shut up and eat your breakfast!”

  “Ma, make ’im stop looking at me!”

  “I ain’t looking at her, Ma!”

  “You is!” Vera said.

  “Eat your breakfast, Vera, and hush,” said the mother.

  “He just keeps watching me, Ma!”

  “Gal, you crazy!” said Bigger.

  “I ain’t no crazy’n you!”

  “Now, both of you hush,” said the mother.

  “I ain’t going to eat with him watching me,” Vera said, getting up and sitting on the edge of the bed.

  “Go on and eat your grub!” Bigger said, leaping to his feet and grabbing his cap. “I’m getting out of here.”

  “What’s wrong with you, Vera?” Buddy asked.

  “’Tend to your business!” Vera said, tears welling to her eyes.

  “Will you children please hush,” the mother wailed.

  “Ma, you oughtn’t let ’im treat me that way,” Vera said.

  Bigger picked up his suitcase. Vera came back to the table, drying her eyes.

  “When will I see you again, Bigger?” the mother asked.

  “I don’t know,” he said, slamming the door.

  He was halfway down the steps when he heard his name called.

  “Say, Bigger!”

  He stopped and looked back. Buddy was running down the steps. He waited, wondering what was wrong.

  “What you want?”

  Buddy stood before him, diffident, smiling.

  “I—I….”

  “What’s the matter?”

  “Shucks, I just thought….”

  Bigger stiffened with fright.

  “Say, what you so excited about?”

  “Aw, I reckon it ain’t nothing. I just thought maybe you was in trouble….”

  Bigger mounted the steps and stood close to Buddy.

  “Trouble? What you mean?” he asked in a frightened whisper.

  “I—I just thought you was kind of nervous. I wanted to help you, that’s all. I—I just thought….”

  “How come you think that?”

  Buddy held out a roll of bills in his hand.

  “You dropped it on the floor,” he said.

  Bigger stepped back, thunder-struck. He felt in his pocket for the money; it was not there. He took the money from Buddy and stuffed it hurriedly in his pocket.

  “Did Ma see it?”

  “Naw.”

  He gazed at Buddy in a long silence. He knew that Buddy was yearning to be with him, aching to share his confidence; but that could not happen now. He caught Buddy’s arm in a tight grip.

  “Listen, don’t tell nobody, see? Here,” he said, taking out the roll and peeling off a bill. “Here; take this and buy something. But don’t tell nobody.”

  “Gee! Thanks. I—I won’t tell. But can I help you?”

  “Naw; naw….”

  Buddy started back up the steps.

  “Wait,” Bigger said.

  Buddy came back and stood facing him, his eyes eager, shining. Bigger looked at him, his body as taut as that of an animal about to leap. But his brother would not betray him. He could trust Buddy. He caught Buddy’s arm again and squeezed it until Buddy flinched with pain.

  “Don’t you tell nobody, hear?”

  “Naw; naw…. I won’t….”

  “Go on back, now.”

  Buddy ran up the steps, out of sight. Bigger stood brooding in the shadows of the stairway. He thrust the feeling from him, not with shame, but with impatience. He had felt toward Buddy for an instant as he had felt toward Mary when she lay upon the bed with the white blur moving toward him in the hazy blue light of the room. But he won’t tell, he thought.

  He went down the steps and into the street. The air was cold and the snow had stopped. Overhead the sky was clearing a little. As he neared the corner drug store, which stayed open all night, he wondered if any of the gang was around. Maybe Jack or G.H. was hanging out and had not gone home, as they sometimes did. Though he felt he was cut off from them forever, he had a strange hankering for their presence. He wanted to know how he would feel if he saw them again. Like a man reborn, he wanted to test and taste each thing now to see how it went; like a man risen up well from a long illness, he felt deep and wayward whims.

  He peered through the frosted glass; yes, G.H. was there. He opened the door and went in. G.H. sat at the fountain, talking to the soda-jerker. Bigger sat next to him. They did not speak. Bigger bought two packages of cigarettes and shoved one of them to G.H., who looked at him in surprise.

  “This for me?” G.H. asked.

  Bigger waved his palm and pulled down the corners of his lips.

  “Sure.”

  G.H. opened the pack.

  “Jesus, I sure needed one. Say, you working now?”

  “Yeah.”

  “How you like it?”

  “Swell.”

  “Jack was telling me you saw the gal in the movie you suppose to drive around. Did you?”

  “Sure.”

  “How is she?”

  “Aw, we like that,” Bigger said, crossing his fingers. He was trembling with excitement; sweat was on his forehead. He was excited and something was impelling him to become more excited. It was like a thirst springing from his blood. The door opened and Jack came in.

  “Say, how is it, Bigger?”

  Bigger wagged his head.

  “Honky dory,” he said. “Here; gimme another pack of cigarettes,” he told the clerk. “This is for you, Jack.”

  “Jesus, you in clover, sure ’nough,” Jack said, glimpsing the thick roll of bills.

  “Where’s Gus?” Bigger asked.

  “He’ll be along in a minute. We been hanging out at Clara’s all night.”

  The door opened again; Bigger turned and saw Gus step inside. Gus paused.

  “Now, you-all don’t fight,” Jack said.

  Bigger bought another package of cigarettes and tossed it toward Gus. Gus caught it and stood, bewildered.

  “Aw, come on, Gus. Forget it,” Bigger said.

  Gus came forward slowly; he opened the package and lit one.

  “Bigger, you sure is crazy,” Gus said with a shy smile.

  Bigger knew that Gus was glad that the fight was over. Bigger was not afraid of them now; he sat with his feet propped upon his suitcase, looking from one to the other with a quiet smile.

  “Lemme have a dollar,” Jack said.

  Bigger peeled off a dollar bill for each of them.

  “Don’t say I never give you nothing,” he said
, laughing.

  “Bigger, you sure is one more crazy nigger,” Gus said again, laughing with joy.

  But he had to go; he could not stay here talking with them. He ordered three bottles of beer and picked up his suitcase.

  “Ain’t you going to drink one, too?” G.H. asked.

  “Naw; I got to go.”

  “We’ll be seeing you!”

  “So long!”

  He waved at them and swung through the door. He walked over the snow, feeling giddy and elated. His mouth was open and his eyes shone. It was the first time he had ever been in their presence without feeling fearful. He was following a strange path into a strange land and his nerves were hungry to see where it led. He lugged his suitcase to the end of the block, and stood waiting for a street car. He slipped his fingers into his vest pocket and felt the crisp roll of bills. Instead of going to Dalton’s, he could take a street car to a railway station and leave town. But what would happen if he left? If he ran away now it would be thought at once that he knew something about Mary, as soon as she was missed. No; it would be far better to stick it out and see what happened. It might be a long time before anyone would think that Mary was killed and a still longer time before anyone would think that he had done it. And when Mary was missed, would they not think of the Reds first?

  The street car rumbled up and he got on and rode to Forty-seventh Street, where he transferred to an east-bound car. He looked anxiously at the dim reflection of his black face in the sweaty windowpane. Would any of the white faces all about him think that he had killed a rich white girl? No! They might think he would steal a dime, rape a woman, get drunk, or cut somebody; but to kill a millionaire’s daughter and burn her body? He smiled a little, feeling a tingling sensation enveloping all his body. He saw it all very sharply and simply: act like other people thought you ought to act, yet do what you wanted. In a certain sense he had been doing just that in a loud and rough manner all his life, but it was only last night when he had smothered Mary in her room while her blind mother had stood with outstretched arms that he had seen how clearly it could be done. Although he was trembling a little, he was not really afraid. He was eager, tremendously excited. I can take care of them, he thought, thinking of Mr. and Mrs. Dalton.