Native Son Part 19

When he kissed her this time she responded a little. To let her know that he wanted her he allowed her to draw his tongue into her mouth.

"I'm tired tonight," she sighed.

"Who you you been seeing?" been seeing?"

"n.o.body."

"What you doing tired?"

"If you want to talk that way you can leave right now. I didn't ask you who you been seeing to make you stay away this long, did I?"

"You all on edge tonight."

"You could have just said, 'h.e.l.lo, dog!'"

"Really, honey. I was busy."

"You was setting there at that table with them white folks like you was a lawyer or something. You wouldn't even look at me when I spoke to you."

"Aw, forget it. Let's talk about something else."

He attempted to kiss her again and she s.h.i.+ed away.

"Come on, honey."

"Who you you been with?" been with?"

"n.o.body. I swear. I been working. And I been thinking hard about you. I been missing you. Listen, I got a room all my own where I'm working. Some nights you can stay there with me, see? Gee, I been missing you awful, honey. Soon's I got time I came right over."

He stood looking at her in the dim light of the room. She was teasing him and he liked it. At least it took him away from that terrible image of Mary's head lying on the b.l.o.o.d.y newspaper. He wanted to kiss her again, but deep down he did not really mind her standing off from him; it made him hunger more keenly for her. She was looking at him wistfully, half-leaning against a wall, her hands on her hips. Then suddenly he knew how to draw her out, to drive from her mind all thought of her teasing him. He reached into his pocket and drew forth the roll of bills. Smiling, he held it in his palm and spoke as though to himself: "Well, I reckon somebody else might like this if you don't."

She came a step forward.

"Bigger! Gee! Where you get all that money from?"

"Wouldn't you like to know?"

"How much is it?"

"What you care?"

She came to his side.

"How much is it, really?"

"What you want to know for?"

"Let me see it. I'll give it back to you."

"I'll let you see it, but it'll have to stay in my my hand, see?" hand, see?"

He watched the expression of coyness on her face change to one of amazement as she counted the bills.

"Lord, Bigger! Where you get this money from?"

"Wouldn't you like to know?" he said, slipping his arm about her waist.

"Is it yours?"

"What in h.e.l.l you reckon I'm doing with it?"

"Tell me where you get it from, honey."

"You going to be sweet to me?"

He felt her body growing gradually less stiff; but her eyes were searching his face.

"You ain't got into nothing, is you?"

"You going to be sweet to me?"

"Oh, Bigger!"

"Kiss me, honey."

He felt her relax completely; he kissed her and she drew him to the bed. They sat down. Gently, she took the money from his hand.

"How much is it?" he asked.

"Don't you know?"

"Naw."

"Didn't you count count it?" it?"

"Naw."

"Bigger, where you get this money from?"

"Maybe I'll tell you some day," he said, leaning back and resting his head on the pillow.

"You into something."

"How much is there?"

"A hundred and twenty-five dollars."

"You going to be sweet to me?"

"But, Bigger, where where you get this money from?" you get this money from?"

"What do that matter?"

"You going to buy me something?"

"Sure."

"What?"

"Anything you want."

They were silent for a moment. Finally, his arm about her waist felt her body relax into a softness he knew and wanted. She rested her head on the pillow; he put the money in his pocket and leaned over her.

"Gee, honey. I been wanting you bad."

"For real?"

"Honest to G.o.d."

He placed his hands on her b.r.e.a.s.t.s just as he had placed them on Mary's last night and he was thinking of that while he kissed her. He took his lips away for breath and heard Bessie say: "Don't stay away so long from me, hear, honey?"

"I won't."

"You love me?"

"Sure."

He kissed her again and he felt her arm lifting above his head and he heard the click as the light went out. He kissed her again, hard.

"Bessie?"

"Hunh?"

"Come on, honey."

They were still a moment longer; then she rose. He waited. He heard her clothes rustling in the darkness; she was undressing. He got up and began to undress. Gradually, he began to see in the darkness; she was on the other side of the bed, her dark body like a shadow in the denser darkness surrounding her. He heard the bed creak as she lay down. He went to her, folding her in his arms, mumbling.

"Gee, kid."

He felt two soft palms holding his face tenderly and the thought and image of the whole blind world which had made him ashamed and afraid fell away as he felt her as a fallow field beneath him stretching out under a cloudy sky waiting for rain, and he slept in her body, rising and sinking with the ebb and flow of her blood, being willingly dragged into a warm night sea to rise renewed to the surface to face a world he hated and wanted to blot out of existence, clinging close to a fountain whose warm waters washed and cleaned his senses, cooled them, made them strong and keen again to see and smell and touch and taste and hear, cleared them to end the tiredness and to reforge in him a new sense of time and s.p.a.ce;-after he had been tossed to dry upon a warm sunlit rock under a white sky he lifted his hand slowly and heavily and touched Bessie's lips with his fingers and mumbled, "Gee, kid."

"Bigger."

He took his hand away and relaxed. He did not feel that he wanted to step forth and resume where he had left off living; not just yet. He was lying at the bottom of a deep dark pit upon a pallet of warm wet straw and at the top of the pit he could see the cold blue of the distant sky. Some hand had reached inside of him and had laid a quiet finger of peace upon the restless tossing of his spirit and had made him feel that he did not need to long for a home now. Then, like the long withdrawing sound of a receding wave, the sense of night and sea and warmth went from him and he lay looking in the darkness at the shadowy outline of Bessie's body, hearing his and her breathing.

"Bigger?"

"Hunh?"

"You like your job?"

"Yeah. Why?"

"I just asked."

"You swell."

"You mean that?"

"Sure."

"Where you working?"

"Over on Drexel."

"Where?"

"In the 4600 block."

"Oh!"

"What?"

"Nothing."

"But, what?"

"Oh, I just happen to think of something."

"Tell me. What is it?"

"It ain't nothing, Bigger, honey."

What did she mean by asking all these questions? He wondered if she had detected anything in him. Then he wondered if he were not letting fear get the better of him by thinking always in terms of Mary and of her having been smothered and burnt. But he wanted to know why she had asked where he worked.

"Come on, honey. Tell me what you thinking."

"It ain't nothing much, Bigger. I used to work over in that section, not far from where the Loeb folks lived."

"Loeb?"

"Yeah. One of the families of one of the boys that killed that Franks boy. Remember?"

"Naw; what you mean?"

"You remember hearing people talk about Loeb and Leopold."

"Oh!"