Native Son

by Richard Wright

  “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.

  “I don’t know, Mr. Max.”

  “Bigger, I know my face is white,” Max said. “And I know that almost every white face you’ve met in your life had it in for you, even when that white face didn’t know it. Every white man considers it his duty to make a black man keep his distance. He doesn’t know why most of the time, but he acts that way. It’s the way things are, Bigger. But I want you to know that you can trust me.”

  “It ain’t no use, Mr. Max.”

  “You want me to handle your case?”

  “You can’t help me none. They got me.”

  Bigger knew that Max was trying to make him feel that he accepted the way he looked at things and it made him as self-conscious as when Jan had taken his hand and shaken it that night in the car. It made him live again in that hard and sharp consciousness of his color and feel the shame and fear that went with it, and at the same time it made him hate himself for feeling it. He trusted Max. Was Max not taking upon himself a thing that would make other whites hate him? But he doubted if Max could make him see things in a way that would enable him to go to his death. He doubted that God Himself could give him a picture for that now. As he felt at present, they would ha
ve to drag him to the chair, as they had dragged him down the steps the night they captured him. He did not want his feelings tampered with; he feared that he might walk into another trap. If he expressed belief in Max, if he acted on that belief, would it not end just as all other commitments of faith had ended? He wanted to believe; but was afraid. He felt that he should have been able to meet Max halfway; but, as always, when a white man talked to him, he was caught out in No Man’s Land. He sat slumped in his chair with his head down and he looked at Max only when Max’s eyes were not watching him.

  “Here; take a cigarette, Bigger.” Max lit Bigger’s and then lit his own; they smoked awhile. “Bigger, I’m your lawyer. I want to talk to you honestly. What you say is in strictest confidence….”

  Bigger stared at Max. He felt sorry for the white man. He saw that Max was afraid that he would not talk at all. And he had no desire to hurt Max. Max leaned forward determinedly. Well, tell him. Talk. Get it over with and let Max go.

  “Aw, I don’t care what I say or do now….”

  “Oh, yes, you do!” Max said quickly.

  In a fleeting second an impulse to laugh rose up in Bigger, and left. Max was anxious to help him and he had to die.

  “Maybe I do care,” Bigger drawled.

  “If you don’t care about what you say or do, then why didn’t you re-enact that crime out at the Dalton home today?”

  “I wouldn’t do nothing for them.”

  “Why?”

  “They hate black folks,” he said.

  “Why, Bigger?”

  “I don’t know, Mr. Max.”

  “Bigger, don’t you know they hate others, too?”

  “Who they hate?”

  “They hate trade unions. They hate folks who try to organize. They hate Jan.”

  “But they hate black folks more than they hate unions,” Bigger said. “They don’t treat union folks like they do me.”

  “Oh, yes, they do. You think that because your color makes it easy for them to point you out, segregate you, exploit you. But they do that to others, too. They hate me because I’m trying to help you. They’re writing me letters, calling me a ‘dirty Jew.’ ”

  “All I know is that they hate me,” Bigger said grimly.

  “Bigger, the State’s Attorney gave me a copy of your confession. Now, tell me, did you tell him the truth?”

  “Yeah. There wasn’t nothing else to do.”

  “Now, tell me this, Bigger. Why did you do it?”

  Bigger sighed, shrugged his shoulders and sucked his lungs full of smoke.

  “I don’t know,” he said; smoke eddied slowly from his nostrils.

  “Did you plan it?”

  “Naw.”

  “Did anybody help you?”

  “Naw.”

  “Had you been thinking about doing something like that for a long time?”

  “Naw.”

  “How did it happen?”

  “It just happened, Mr. Max.”

  “Are you sorry?”

  “What’s the use of being sorry? That won’t help me none.”

  “You can’t think of any reason why you did it?”

  Bigger was staring straight before him, his eyes wide and shining. His talking to Max had evoked again in him that urge to talk, to tell, to try to make his feelings known. A wave of excitement flooded him. He felt that he ought to be able to reach out with his bare hands and carve from naked space the concrete, solid reasons why he had murdered. He felt them that strongly. If he could do that, he would relax; he would sit and wait until they told him to walk to the chair; and he would walk.

  “Mr. Max, I don’t know. I was all mixed up. I was feeling so many things at once.”

  “Did you rape her, Bigger?”

  “Naw, Mr. Max. I didn’t. But nobody’ll believe me.”

  “Had you planned to before Mrs. Dalton came into the room?”

  Bigger shook his head and rubbed his hands nervously across his eyes. In a sense he had forgotten Max was in the room. He was trying to feel the texture of his own feelings, trying to tell what they meant.

  “Oh, I don’t know. I was feeling a little that way. Yeah, I reckon I was. I was drunk and she was drunk and I was feeling that way.”

  “But, did you rape her?”

  “Naw. But everybody’ll say I did. What’s the use? I’m black. They say black men do that. So it don’t matter if I did or if I didn’t.”

  “How long had you known her?”

  “A few hours.”

  “Did you like her?”

  “Like her?”

  Bigger’s voice boomed so suddenly from his throat that Max started. Bigger leaped to his feet; his eyes widened and his hands lifted midway to his face, trembling.

  “No! No! Bigger….” Max said.

  “Like her? I hated her! So help me God, I hated her!” he shouted.

  “Sit down, Bigger!”

  “I hate her now, even though she’s dead! God knows, I hate her right now….”

  Max grabbed him and pushed him back into the chair.

  “Don’t get excited, Bigger. Here; take it easy!”

  Bigger quieted, but his eyes roved the room. Finally, he lowered his head and knotted his fingers. His lips were slightly parted.

  “You say you hated her?”

  “Yeah; and I ain’t sorry she’s dead.”

  “But what had she done to you? You say you had just met her.”

  “I don’t know. She didn’t do nothing to me.” He paused and ran his hand nervously across his forehead. “She…. It was… Hell, I don’t know. She asked me a lot of questions. She acted and talked in a way that made me hate her. She made me feel like a dog I was so mad I wanted to cry….” His voice trailed off in a plaintive whimper. He licked his lips. He was caught in a net of vague, associative memory: he saw an image of his little sister, Vera, sitting on the edge of a chair crying because he had shamed her by “looking” at her; he saw her rise and fling her shoe at him. He shook his head, confused. “Aw, Mr. Max, she wanted me to tell her how Negroes live. She got into the front seat of the car where I was….”

  “But, Bigger, you don’t hate people for that. She was being kind to you….”

  “Kind, hell! She wasn’t kind to me!”

  “What do you mean? She accepted you as another human being.”

  “Mr. Max, we’re all split up. What you say is kind ain’t kind at all. I didn’t know nothing about that woman. All I knew was that they kill us for women like her. We live apart. And then she comes and acts like that to me.”

  “Bigger, you should have tried to understand. She was acting toward you only as she knew how.”

  Bigger glared about the small room, searching for an answer. He knew that his actions did not seem logical and he gave up trying to explain them logically. He reverted to his feelings as a guide in answering Max.

  “Well, I acted toward her only as I know how. She was rich. She and her kind own the earth. She and her kind say black folks are dogs. They don’t let you do nothing but what they want….”

  “But, Bigger, this woman was trying to help you!”

  “She didn’t act like it.”

  “How should she have acted?”

  “Aw, I don’t know, Mr. Max. White folks and black folks is strangers. We don’t know what each other is thinking. Maybe she was trying to be kind; but she didn’t act like it. To me she looked and acted like all other white folks….”

  “But she’s not to be blamed for that, Bigger.”

  “She’s the same color as the rest of ’em,” he said defensively.

  “I don’t understand, Bigger. You say you hated her and yet you say you felt like having her when you were in the room and she was drunk and you were drunk….”

  “Yeah,” Bigger said, wagging his head and wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “Yeah; that’s funny, ain’t it?” He sucked at his cigarette. “Yeah; I reckon it was because I knew I oughtn’t’ve wanted to. I reckon it was because they
say we black men do that anyhow. Mr. Max, you know what some white men say we black men do? They say we rape white women when we got the clap and they say we do that because we believe that if we rape white women then we’ll get rid of the clap. That’s what some white men say. They believe that. Jesus, Mr. Max, when folks says things like that about you, you whipped before you born. What’s the use? Yeah; I reckon I was feeling that way when I was in the room with her. They say we do things like that and they say it to kill us. They draw a line and say for you to stay on your side of the line. They don’t care if there’s no bread over on your side. They don’t care if you die. And then they say things like that about you and when you try to come from behind your line they kill you. They feel they ought to kill you then. Everybody wants to kill you then. Yeah; I reckon I was feeling that way and maybe the reason was because they say it. Maybe that was the reason.”

  “You mean you wanted to defy them? You wanted to show them that you dared, that you didn’t care?”

  “I don’t know, Mr. Max. But what I got to care about? I knew that some time or other they was going to get me for something. I’m black. I don’t have to do nothing for ’em to get me. The first white finger they point at me, I’m a goner, see?”

  “But, Bigger, when Mrs. Dalton came into that room, why didn’t you stop right there and tell her what was wrong? You wouldn’t’ve been in all this trouble then….”

  “Mr. Max, so help me God, I couldn’t do nothing when I turned around and saw that woman coming to that bed. Honest to God, I didn’t know what I was doing….”

  “You mean you went blank?”

  “Naw; naw…. I knew what I was doing, all right. But I couldn’t help it. That’s what I mean. It was like another man stepped inside of my skin and started acting for me….”

  “Bigger, tell me, did you feel more attraction for Mary than for the women of your own race?”

  “Naw. But they say that. It ain’t true. I hated her then and I hate her now.”

  “But why did you kill Bessie?”

  “To keep her from talking. Mr. Max, after killing that white woman, it wasn’t hard to kill somebody else. I didn’t have to think much about killing Bessie. I knew I had to kill her and I did. I had to get away….”