Native Son

by Richard Wright

  His fingers on the brick began to ache; he had been gripping it for some minutes with all the strength of his body. He was conscious of something warm and sticky on his hand and his sense of it covered him, all over; it cast a warm glow that enveloped the surface of his skin. He wanted to drop the brick, wanted to be free of this warm blood that crept and grew powerful with each passing moment. Then a dreadful thought rendered him incapable of action. Suppose Bessie was not as she had sounded when the brick hit her? Suppose, when he turned on the flashlight, he would see her lying there staring at him with those round large black eyes, her bloody mouth open in awe and wonder and pain and accusation? A cold chill, colder than the air of the room, closed about his shoulders like a shawl whose strands were woven of ice. It became unbearable and something within him cried out in silent agony; he stooped until the brick touched the floor, then loosened his fingers, bringing his hand to his stomach where he wiped it dry upon his coat. Gradually his breath subsided until he could no longer hear it and then he knew for certain that Bessie was not breathing. The room was filled with quiet and cold and death and blood and the deep moan of the night wind.

  But he had to look. He lifted the flashlight to where he thought her head must be and pressed the button. The yellow spot sprang wide and dim on an empty stretch of floor; he moved it over a circle of crumpled bedclothes. There! Blood and lips and hair and face turned to one side and blood running slowly. She seemed limp; he could act now. He turned off the light. Could he leave her here? No. Somebody might find her.

  Avoiding her, he stepped to the far side of the pallet, then turned in the dark. He centered the spot of light where he thought the window must be. He walked to the window and stopped, waiting to hear someone challenge his right to do what he was doing. Nothing happened. He caught hold of the window, hoisted it slowly up and the wind blasted his face. He turned to Bessie again and threw the light upon the face of death and blood. He put the flashlight in his pocket and stepped carefully in the dark to her side. He would have to lift her in his arms; his arms hung loose and did not move; he just stood. But he had to move her. He had to get her to the window. He stooped and slid his hands beneath her body, expecting to touch blood, but not touching it. Then he lifted her. feeling the wind screaming a protest against him. He stepped to the window and lifted her into it; he was working fast now that he had started. He pushed her as far out in his arms as possible, then let go. The body hit and bumped against the narrow sides of the air-shaft as it went down into blackness. He heard it strike the bottom.

  He turned the light upon the pallet, half-expecting her to still be there; but there was only a pool of warm blood, a faint veil of vapor hovering in the air above it. Blood was on the pillows too He took them and threw them out of the window, down the air-shaft. It was over.

  He eased the window down. He would take the pallet into another room; he wished he could leave it here, but it was cold and he needed it. He rolled the quilts and blanket into a bundle and picked it up and went into the hall. Then he stopped abruptly, his mouth open. Good God! Goddamn, yes, it was in her dress pocket! Now, he was in for it. He had thrown Bessie down the air-shaft and the money was in the pocket of her dress! What could he do about it? Should he go down and get it? Anguish gripped him. Naw! He did not want to see her again. He felt that if he should ever see her face again he would be overcome with a sense of guilt so deep as to be unbearable. That was a dumb thing to do, he thought. Throwing her away with all that money in her pocket. He sighed and went through the hall and entered another room. Well, he would have to do without money; that was all. He spread the quilts upon the floor and rolled himself into them. He had seven cents between him and starvation and the law and the long days ahead.

  He closed his eyes, longing for a sleep that would not come. During the last two days and nights he had lived so fast and hard that it was an effort to keep it all real in his mind. So close had danger and death come that he could not feel that it was he who had undergone it all. And, yet, out of it all, over and above all that had happened, impalpable but real, there remained to him a queer sense of power. He had done this. He had brought all this about. In all of his life these two murders were the most meaningful things that had ever happened to him. He was living, truly and deeply, no matter what others might think, looking at him with their blind eyes. Never had he had the chance to live out the consequences of his actions; never had his will been so free as in this night and day of fear and murder and flight.

  He had killed twice, but in a true sense it was not the first time he had ever killed. He had killed many times before, but only during the last two days had this impulse assumed the form of actual killing. Blind anger had come often and he had either gone behind his curtain or wall, or had quarreled and fought. And yet, whether in running away or in fighting, he had felt the need of the clean satisfaction effacing this thing in all its fulness, of fighting it out in the wind and sunlight, in front of those whose hate for him was so unfathomably deep that, after they had shunted him off into a corner of the city to rot and die, they could turn to him, as Mary had that night in the car, and say: “I’d like to know how your people live.”

  But what was he after? What did he want? What did he love and what did he hate? He did not know. There was something he knew and something he felt; something the world gave him and something he himself had; something spread out in front of him and something spread out in back; and never in all his life, with this black skin of his had the two worlds, thought and feeling, will and mind, aspiration and satisfaction, been together; never had he felt a sense of wholeness. Sometimes, in his room or on the sidewalk, the world seemed to him a strange labyrinth even when the streets were straight and the walls were square; a chaos which made him feel that something in him should be able to understand it, divide it, focus it. But only under the stress of hate was the conflict resolved. He had been so conditioned in a cramped environment that hard words or kicks alone knocked him upright and made him capable of action—action that was futile because the world was too much for him. It was then that he closed his eyes and struck out blindly, hitting what or whom he could, not looking or caring what or who hit back.

  And, under it all, and this made it hard for him, he did not want to make believe that it was solved, make believe that he was happy when he was not. He hated his mother for that way of hers which was like Bessie’s. What his mother had was Bessie’s whiskey, and Bessie’s whiskey was his mother’s religion. He did not want to sit on a bench and sing, or lie in a corner and sleep. It was when he read the newspapers or magazines, went to the movies, or walked along the streets with crowds, that he felt what he wanted: to merge himself with others and be a part of this world, to lose himself in it so he could find himself, to be allowed a chance to live like others, even though he was black.

  He turned restlessly on his hard pallet and groaned. He had been caught up in a whirl of thought and feeling which had swept him onward and when he opened his eyes he saw that daylight stood outside of a dirty window just above his head. He jumped up and looked out. The snow had stopped falling and the city, white, still, was a vast stretch of roof-tops and sky. He had been thinking about it for hours here in the dark and now there it was, all white, still. But what he had thought about it had made it real with a reality it did not have now in the daylight. When lying in the dark thinking of it, it seemed to have something which left it when it was looked at. Why should not this cold white world rise up as a beautiful dream in which he could walk and be at home, in which it would be easy to tell what to do and what not to do? If only someone had gone before and lived or suffered or died—made it so that it could be understood! It was too stark, not redeemed, not made real with the reality that was the warm blood of life. He felt that there was something missing, some road which, if he had once found it, would have led him to a sure and quiet knowledge. But why think of that now? A chance for that was gone forever. He had committed murder twice and had created a new world for h
imself.

  He left the room and went down to a window on the first floor and looked out. The street was quiet and no cars were running. The tracks were buried under snow. No doubt the blizzard had tied up traffic all over the city.

  He saw a little girl pick her way through the snow and stop at a corner newsstand; a man hurried out of a drug store and sold the girl a paper. Could he snatch a paper while the man was inside? The snow was so soft and deep he might get caught trying to get away. Could he find an empty building in which to hide after he had snatched the paper? Yes; that was just the thing. He looked carefully up and down the street; no one was in sight. He went through the door and the wind was like a branding-iron on his face. The sun came out, suddenly, so strong and full that it made him dodge as from a blow; a million bits of sparkle pained his eyes. He went to the newsstand and saw a tall black headline. HUNT BLACK IN GIRL’S DEATH. Yes; they had the story. He walked on and looked for a place to hide after he had snatched the paper. At the corner of an alley he saw an empty building with a gaping window on the first floor. Yes; this was a good place. He mapped out a careful plan of action; he did not want it said that he had done all the things he had and then had got caught stealing a three-cent newspaper.

  He went to the drug store and looked inside at the man leaning against a wall, smoking. Yes. Like this! He reached out and grabbed a paper and in the act of grabbing it he turned and looked at the man who was looking at him, a cigarette slanting whitely across his black chin. Even before he moved from his tracks, he ran; he felt his legs turn, start, then slip in snow. Goddamn! The white world tilted at a sharp angle and the icy wind shot past his face. He fell flat and the crumbs of snow ate coldly at his fingers. He got up, on one knee, then on both; when he was on his feet he turned toward the drug store, still clutching the paper, amazed and angry with himself for having been so clumsy. The drug store door opened. He ran.

  “Hey!”

  As he ducked down the alley he saw the man standing in the snow looking at him and he knew that the man would not follow.

  “Hey, you!”

  He scrambled to the window, pitched the paper in before him, caught hold and heaved himself upward onto the ledge and then inside. He landed on his feet and stood peering through the window into the alley; all was white and quiet. He picked up the paper and walked down the hallway to the steps and up to the third floor, using the flashlight and hearing his footsteps echo faintly in the empty building. He stopped, clutched his pocket in panic as his mouth flew open. Yes; he had it. He thought that he had dropped the gun when he had fallen in the snow, but it was still there. He saw on the top step of the stairs and opened out the paper, but for quite awhile he did not read. He listened to the creaking of the building caused by the wind sweeping over the city. Yes; he was alone; he looked down and read, REPORTERS FIND DALTON GIRL’S BONES IN FURNACE. NEGRO CHAUFFEUR DISAPPEARS. FIVE THOUSAND POLICE SURROUND BLACK BELT. AUTHORITIES HINT SEX CRIME. COMMUNIST LEADER PROVES ALIBI. GIRL’S MOTHER IN COLLAPSE. He paused and reread the line, AUTHORITIES HINT SEX CRIME. Those words excluded him utterly from the world. To hint that he had committed a sex crime was to pronounce the death sentence; it meant a wiping out of his life even before he was captured; it meant death before death came, for the white men who read those words would at once kill him in their hearts.

  The Mary Dalton kidnapping case was dramatically cracked wide open when a group of local newspaper reporters accidentally discovered several bones, later positively established as those of the missing heiress, in the furnace of the Dalton home late today….

  Search of the Negro’s home, 3721 Indiana Avenue, in the heart of the South Side, failed to reveal his whereabouts. Police expressed belief that Miss Dalton met her death at the hands of the Negro, perhaps in a sex crime, and that the white girl’s body was burned to destroy evidence.

  Bigger looked up. His right hand twitched. He wanted a gun in that hand. He got his gun from his pocket and held it. He read again:

  Immediately a cordon of five thousand police, augmented by more than three thousand volunteers, was thrown about the Black Belt. Chief of Police Glenman said this morning that he believed that the Negro was still in the city, since all roads leading in and out of Chicago were blocked by a record-breaking snowfall.

  Indignation rose to white heat last night as the news of the Negro’s rape and murder of the missing heiress spread through the city.

  Police reported that many windows in the Negro sections were smashed.

  Every street car, bus, el train and auto leaving the South Side is being stopped and searched. Police and vigilantes, armed with rifles, tear gas, flashlights, and photos of the killer, began at 18th Street this morning and are searching every Negro home under a blanket warrant from the Mayor. They are making a careful search of all abandoned buildings, which are said to be hideouts for Negro criminals.

  Maintaining that they feared for the lives of their children, a delegation of white parents called upon Superintendent of City Schools Horace Minton, and begged that all schools be closed until the Negro rapist and murderer was captured.

  Reports were current that several Negro men were beaten in various North and West Side neighborhoods.

  In the Hyde Park and Englewood districts, men organized vigilante groups and sent word to Chief of Police Glenman offering aid.

  Glenman said this morning that the aid of such groups would be accepted. He stated that a woefully undermanned police force together with recurring waves of Negro crime made such a procedure necessary.

  Several hundred Negroes resembling Bigger Thomas were rounded up from South Side “hot spots”; they are being held for investigation.

  In a radio broadcast last night Mayor Ditz warned of possible mob violence and exhorted the public to maintain order. “Every effort is being made to apprehend this fiend,” he said.

  It was reported that several hundred Negro employees throughout the city had been dismissed from jobs. A well-known banker’s wife phoned this paper that she had dismissed her Negro cook, “for fear that she might poison the children.”

  Bigger’s eyes were wide and his lips were parted; he scanned the print quickly: “handwriting experts busy,” “Erlone’s fingerprints not found in Dalton home,” “radical still in custody”; and then a sentence leaped at Bigger, like a blow:

  Police are not yet satisfied with the account Erlone has given of himself and are of the conviction that he may be linked to the Negro as an accomplice; they feel that the plan of the murder and kidnapping was too elaborate to be the work of a Negro mind.

  At that moment he wanted to walk out into the street and up to a policeman and say, “No! Jan didn’t help me! He didn’t have a damn thing to do with it! I—I did it!” His lips twisted in a smile that was half-leer and half-defiance.

  Holding the paper in taut fingers, he read phrases: “Negro ordered to clean out ashes…. reluctant to respond…. dreading discovery…. smoke-filled basement…. tragedy of Communism and racial mixture…. possibility that kidnap note was work of Reds….”

  Bigger looked up. The building was quiet save for the continual creaking caused by the wind. He could not stay here. There was no telling when they were coming into this neighborhood. He could not leave Chicago; all roads were blocked, and all trains, buses and autos were being stopped and searched. It would have been much better if he had tried to leave town at once. He should have gone to some other place, perhaps Gary, Indiana, or Evanston. He looked at the paper and saw a black-and-white map of the South Side, around the borders of which was a shaded portion an inch deep. Under the map ran a line of small print:

  Shaded portion shows area already covered by police and vigilantes in search for Negro rapist and murderer. White portion shows area yet to be searched.

  He was trapped. He would have to get out of this building. But where could he go? Empty buildings would serve only as long as he stayed within the white portion of the map, and the white portion was shrinking rapidly. He remembe
red that the paper had been printed last night. That meant that the white portion was now much smaller than was shown here. He closed his eyes, calculating: he was at Fifty-third Street and the hunt had started last night at Eighteenth Street. If they had gone from Eighteenth Street to Twenty-eighth Street last night, then they would have gone from Twenty-eighth Street to Thirty-eighth Street since then. And by midnight tonight they would be at Forty-eighth Street, or right here.

  He wondered about empty flats. The paper had not mentioned them. Suppose he found a small, empty kitchenette flat in a building where many people lived? That was by far the safest thing.

  He went to the end of the hall and flashed the light on a dirty ceiling and saw a wooden stairway leading to the roof. He climbed and pulled himself up into a narrow passage at the end of which was a door. He kicked at the door several times, each kick making it give slightly until he saw snow, sunshine, and an oblong strip of sky The wind came stinging into his face and he remembered how weak and cold he was. How long could he keep going this way? He squeezed through and stood in the snow on the roof. Before him was a maze of white, sun-drenched roof-tops.

  He crouched behind a chimney and looked down into the street. At the corner he saw the newsstand from which he had stolen the paper; the man who had shouted at him was standing by it. Two black men stopped at the newsstand and bought a paper, then walked into a doorway. One of them leaned eagerly over the other’s shoulder. Their lips moved and they pointed their black fingers at the paper and shook their heads as they talked. Two more men joined them and soon there was a small knot of them standing in the doorway, talking and pointing at the paper. They broke up abruptly and went away. Yes; they were talking about him. Maybe all of the black men and women were talking about him this morning; maybe they were hating him for having brought this attack upon them.