Native Son Part 48

"Naw. I didn't want to. n.o.body but poor folks get happy in church."

"But you are poor, Bigger."

Again Bigger's eyes lit with a bitter and feverish pride.

"I ain't that poor," he said.

"But Bigger, you said that if you were where people did not hate you and you did not hate them, you could be happy. n.o.body hated you in church. Couldn't you feel at home there?"

"I wanted to be happy in this world, not out of it. I didn't want that kind of happiness. The white folks like for us to be religious, then they can do what they want to with us."

"A little while ago you spoke of G.o.d 'getting you' for killing those women. Does that mean you believe in Him?"

"I don't know."

"Aren't you afraid of what'll happen to you after you die?"

"Naw. But I don't want to die."

"Didn't you know that the penalty for killing that white woman would be death?"

"Yeah; I knew it. But I felt like she was killing me, so I didn't care."

"If you could be happy in religion now, would you want to be?"

"Naw. I'll be dead soon enough. If I was religious, I'd be dead now."

"But the church promises eternal life?"

"That's for whipped folks."

"You don't feel like you've had a chance, do you?"

"Naw; but I ain't asking n.o.body to be sorry for me. Naw; I ain't asking that at all. I'm black. They don't give black people a chance, so I took a chance and lost. But I don't care none now. They got me and it's all over."

"Do you feel, Bigger, that somehow, somewhere, or sometime or other you'll have a chance to make up for what you didn't get here on earth?"

"h.e.l.l, naw! When they strap me in that chair and turn on the heat, I'm through, for always."

"Bigger, I want to ask you something about your race. Do you love your people?"

"I don't know, Mr. Max. We all black and the white folks treat us the same."

"But Bigger, your race is doing things for you. There are Negroes leading your people."

"Yeah; I know. I heard about 'em. They all right, I guess."

"Don't you know any of 'em?"

"Naw."

"Bigger, are there many Negro boys like you?"

"I reckon so. All of 'em I know ain't got nothing and ain't going nowhere."

"Why didn't you go to some of the leaders of your race and tell them how you and other boys felt?"

"Aw, h.e.l.l, Mr. Max. They wouldn't listen to me. They rich, even though the white folks treat them almost like they do me. They almost like the white people, when it comes to guys like me. They say guys like me make it hard for them to get along with white folks."

"Did you ever hear any of your leaders make speeches?"

"Yeah, sure. At election time."

"What did you think of them?"

"Aw, I don't know. They all the same. They wanted to get elected to office. They wanted money, like everybody else. Mr. Max, it's a game and they play it."

"Why didn't you play it?"

"h.e.l.l, what do I know? I ain't got nothing. n.o.body'll pay any attention to me. I'm just a black guy with nothing. I just went to grammar school. And politics is full of big shots, guys from colleges."

"Didn't you trust them?"

"I don't reckon they wanted anybody to trust 'em. They wanted to get elected to office. They paid you to vote."

"Did you ever vote?"

"Yeah; I voted twice. I wasn't old enough, so I put my age up so I could vote and get the five dollars."

"You didn't mind selling your vote?"

"Naw; why should I?"

"You didn't think politics could get you anything?"

"It got me five dollars on election day."

"Bigger, did any white people ever talk to you about labor unions?"

"Naw; n.o.body but Jan and Mary. But she oughtn't done it.... But I couldn't help what I did. And Jan. I reckon I did him wrong by signing 'Red' to that ransom note."

"Do you believe he's your friend now?"

"Well, he ain't against me. He didn't turn against me today when they was questioning him. I don't think he hates me like the others. I suppose he's kind of hurt about Miss Dalton, though."

"Bigger, did you think you'd ever come to this?"

"Well, to tell the truth, Mr. Max, it seems sort of natural-like, me being here facing that death chair. Now I come to think of it, it seems like something like this just had to be."

They were silent. Max stood up and sighed. Bigger watched to see what Max was thinking, but Max's face was white and blank.

"Well, Bigger," Max said. "We'll enter a plea of not guilty at the arraignment tomorrow. But when the trial comes up we'll change it to a plea of guilty and ask for mercy. They're rus.h.i.+ng the trial; it may be held in two or three days. I'll tell the judge all I can of how you feel and why. I'll try to get him to make it life in prison. That's all I can see under the circ.u.mstances. I don't have to tell you how they feel toward you, Bigger. You're a Negro; you know. Don't hope for too much. There's an ocean of hot hate out there against you and I'm going to try to sweep some of it back. They want your life; they want revenge. They felt they had you fenced off so that you could not do what you did. Now they're mad because deep down in them they believe that they made you do it. When people feel that way, you can't reason with 'em. Then, too, a lot depends upon what judge we have. Any twelve white men in this state will have already condemned you; we can't trust a jury. Well, Bigger, I'll do the best I can."

They were silent. Max gave him another cigarette and took one for himself. Bigger watched Max's head of white hair, his long face, the deep-grey, soft, sad eyes. He felt that Max was kind, and he felt sorry for him.

"Mr. Max, if I was you I wouldn't worry none. If all folks was like you, then maybe I wouldn't be here. But you can't help that now. They going to hate you for trying to help me. I'm gone. They got me."

"Oh, they'll hate me, yes," said Max. "But I can take it. That's the difference. I'm a Jew and they hate me, but I know why and I can fight. But sometimes you can't win no matter how you fight; that is, you can't win if you haven't got time. And they're pressing us now. But you need not worry about their hating me for defending you. The fear of hate keeps many whites from trying to help you and your kind. Before I can fight your battle, I've got to fight a battle with them." Max snuffed out his cigarette. "I got to go now," Max said. He turned and faced Bigger. "Bigger, how do you feel?"

"I don't know. I'm just setting here waiting for 'em to come and tell me to walk to that chair. And I don't know if I'll be able to walk or not."

Max averted his face and opened the door. A guard came and caught Bigger by the wrist.

"I'll see you in the morning, Bigger," Max called.

Back in his cell, Bigger stood in the middle of the floor, not moving. He was not stoop-shouldered now, nor were his muscles taut. He breathed softly, wondering about the cool breath of peace that hovered in his body. It was as though he were trying to listen to the beat of his own heart. All round him was darkness and there were no sounds. He could not remember when he had felt as relaxed as this before. He had not thought of it or felt it while Max was speaking to him; it was not until after Max had gone that he discovered that he had spoken to Max as he had never spoken to anyone in his life; not even to himself. And his talking had eased from his shoulders a heavy burden. Then he was suddenly and violently angry. Max had tricked him! But no. Max had not compelled him to talk; he had talked of his own accord, prodded by excitement, by a curiosity about his own feelings. Max had only sat and listened, had only asked questions. His anger pa.s.sed and fear took its place. If he were as confused as this when his time came, they really would would have to drag him to the chair. He had to make a decision: in order to walk to that chair he had to weave his feelings into a hard s.h.i.+eld of either hope or hate. To fall between them would mean living and dying in a fog of fear. have to drag him to the chair. He had to make a decision: in order to walk to that chair he had to weave his feelings into a hard s.h.i.+eld of either hope or hate. To fall between them would mean living and dying in a fog of fear.

He was balanced on a hair-line now, but there was no one to push him forward or backward, no one to make him feel that he had any value or worth-no one but himself. He brushed his hands across his eyes, hoping to untangle the sensations fluttering in his body. He lived in a thin, hard core of consciousness; he felt time slipping by; the darkness round him lived, breathed. And he was in the midst of it, wanting again to let his body taste of that short respite of rest he had felt after talking with Max. He sat down on the cot; he had to grasp this thing.

Why had Max asked him all those questions? He knew that Max was seeking facts to tell the judge; but in Max's asking of those questions he had felt a recognition of his life, of his feelings, of his person that he had never encountered before. What was this? Had he done wrong? Had he let himself in for another betrayal? He felt as though he had been caught off his guard. But this, this-confidence? He had no right to be proud; yet he had spoken to Max as a man who had had something. He had told Max that he did not want religion, that he had not stayed in his place. He had no right to feel that, no right to forget that he was to die, that he was black, a murderer; he had no right to forget that, not even for a second. Yet he had. something. He had told Max that he did not want religion, that he had not stayed in his place. He had no right to feel that, no right to forget that he was to die, that he was black, a murderer; he had no right to forget that, not even for a second. Yet he had.

He wondered if it were possible that after all everybody in the world felt alike? Did those who hated him have in them the same thing Max had seen in him, the thing that had made Max ask him those questions? And what motive could Max have in helping? Why would Max risk that white tide of hate to help him? For the first time in his life he had gained a pinnacle of feeling upon which he could stand and see vague relations that he had never dreamed of. If that white looming mountain of hate were not a mountain at all, but people, people like himself, and like Jan-then he was faced with a high hope the like of which he had never thought could be, and a despair the full depths of which he knew he could not stand to feel. A strong counter-emotion waxed in him, urging him, warning him to leave this newly-seen and newly-felt thing alone, that it would lead him to but another blind alley, to deeper hate and shame.

Yet he saw and felt but one life, and that one life was more than a sleep, a dream; life was all life had. He knew that he would not wake up some time later, after death, and sigh at how simple and foolish his dream had been. The life he saw was short and his sense of it goaded him. He was seized with a nervous eagerness. He stood up in the middle of the cell floor and tried to see himself in relation to other men, a thing he had always feared to try to do, so deeply stained was his own mind with the hate of others for him. With this new sense of the value of himself gained from Max's talk, a sense fleeting and obscure, he tried to feel that if Max had been able to see the man in him beneath those wild and cruel acts of his, acts of fear and hate and murder and flight and despair, then he too too would hate, if would hate, if he he were were they they, just as now he he was hating was hating them them and and they they were hating were hating him him. For the first time in his life he felt ground beneath his feet, and he wanted it to stay there.

He was tired, sleepy, and feverish; but he did not want to lie down with this war raging in him. Blind impulses welled up in his body, and his intelligence sought to make them plain to his understanding by supplying images that would explain them. Why was all this hate and fear? Standing trembling in his cell, he saw a dark vast fluid image rise and float; he saw a black sprawling prison full of tiny black cells in which people lived; each cell had its stone jar of water and a crust of bread and no one could go from cell to cell and there were screams and curses and yells of suffering and n.o.body heard them, for the walls were thick and darkness was everywhere. Why were there so many cells in the world? But was this true? He wanted to believe, but was afraid. Dare he flatter himself that much? Would he be struck dead if he made himself the equal of others, even in fancy?

He was too weak to stand any longer. He sat again on the edge of the cot. How could he find out if this feeling of his was true, if others had it? How could one find out about life when one was about to die? Slowly he lifted his hands in the darkness and held them in mid-air, the fingers spread weakly open. If he reached out with his hands, and if his hands were electric wires, and if his heart were a battery giving life and fire to those hands, and if he reached out with his hands and touched other people, reached out through these stone walls and felt other hands connected with other hearts-if he did that, would there be a reply, a shock? Not that he wanted those hearts to turn their warmth to him; he was not wanting that much. But just to know that they were there and warm! Just that, and no more; and it would have been enough, more than enough. And in that touch, response of recognition, there would be union, ident.i.ty; there would be a supporting oneness, a wholeness which had been denied him all his life.

Another impulse rose in him, born of desperate need, and his mind clothed it in an image of a strong blinding sun sending hot rays down and he was standing in the midst of a vast crowd of men, white men and black men and all men, and the sun's rays melted away the many differences, the colors, the clothes, and drew what was common and good upward toward the sun....

He stretched out full length upon the cot and groaned. Was he foolish in feeling this? Was it fear and weakness that made this desire come to him now that death was near? How could a notion that went so deep and caught up so much of him in one swoop of emotion be wrong? Could he trust bare, naked feeling this way? But he had; all his life he had hated on the basis of bare sensation. Why should he not accept this? Had he killed Mary and Bessie and brought sorrow to his mother and brother and sister and put himself in the shadow of the electric chair only to find out this? Had he been blind all along? But there was no way to tell now. It was too late....

He would not mind dying now if he could only find out what this meant, what he was in relation to all the others that lived, and the earth upon which he stood. Was there some battle everybody was fighting, and he had missed it? And if he had missed it, were not the whites to blame for it? Were they not the ones to hate even now? Maybe. But he was not interested in hating them now. He had to die. It was more important to him to find out what this new tingling, this new elation, this new excitement meant.

He felt he wanted to live now-not escape paying for his crime-but live in order to find out, to see if it were true, and to feel it more deeply; and, if he had to die, to die within it. He felt that he would have lost all if he had to die without fully feeling it, without knowing for certain. But there was no way now. It was too late....

He lifted his hands to his face and touched his trembling lips. Naw.... Naw.... He ran to the door and caught the cold steel bars in his hot hands and gripped them tightly, holding himself erect. His face rested against the bars and he felt tears roll down his cheeks. His wet lips tasted salt. He sank to his knees and sobbed: "I don't want to die.... I don't want to die...."

Having been bound over to the Grand Jury and indicted by it, having been arraigned and having pled not guilty to the charge of murder and been ordered to trial-all in less than a week, Bigger lay one sunless grey morning on his cot, staring vacantly at the black steel bars of the Cook County Jail.

Within an hour he would be taken to court where they would tell him if he was to live or die, and when. And with but a few minutes between him and the beginning of judgment, the obscure longing to possess the thing which Max had dimly evoked in him was still a motive. He felt he had had to have it now. How could he face that court of white men without something to sustain him? Since that night when he had stood alone in his cell, feeling the high magic which Max's talk had given him, he was more than ever naked to the hot blasts of hate. to have it now. How could he face that court of white men without something to sustain him? Since that night when he had stood alone in his cell, feeling the high magic which Max's talk had given him, he was more than ever naked to the hot blasts of hate.

There were moments when he wished bitterly that he had not felt those possibilities, when he wished that he could go again behind his curtain. But that was impossible. He had been lured into the open, and trapped, twice trapped; trapped by being in jail for murder, and again trapped by being stripped of emotional resources to go to his death.

In an effort to recapture that high moment, he had tried to talk with Max, but Max was preoccupied, busy preparing his plea to the court to save his life. But Bigger wanted to save his own own life. Yet he knew that the moment he tried to put his feelings into words, his tongue would not move. Many times, when alone after Max had left him, he wondered wistfully if there was not a set of words which he had in common with others, words which would evoke in others a sense of the same fire that smoldered in him. life. Yet he knew that the moment he tried to put his feelings into words, his tongue would not move. Many times, when alone after Max had left him, he wondered wistfully if there was not a set of words which he had in common with others, words which would evoke in others a sense of the same fire that smoldered in him.

He looked out upon the world and the people about him with a double vision: one vision pictured death, an image of him, alone, sitting strapped in the electric chair and waiting for the hot current to leap through his body; and the other vision pictured life, an image of himself standing amid throngs of men, lost in the welter of their lives with the hope of emerging again, different, unafraid. But so far only the certainty of death was his; only the unabating hate of the white faces could be seen; only the same dark cell, the long lonely hours, only the cold bars remained.

Had his will to believe in a new picture of the world made him act a fool and thoughtlessly pile horror upon horror? Was not his old hate a better defense than this agonized uncertainty? Was not an impossible hope betraying him to this end? On how many fronts could a man fight at once? Could he fight a battle within as well as without? Yet he felt that he could not fight the battle for his life without first winning the one raging within him.

His mother and Vera and Buddy had come to visit him and again he had lied to them, telling them that he was praying, that he was at peace with the world and men. But that lie had only made him feel more shame for himself and more hate for them; it had hurt because he really yearned for that certainty of which his mother spoke and prayed, but he could not get it on the terms on which he felt he had to have it. After they had left, he told Max not to let them come again.

A few moments before the trial, a guard came to his cell and left a paper.

"Your lawyer sent this," he said and left.

He unfolded the Tribune Tribune and his eyes caught a headline: TROOPS GUARD NEGRO KILLER'S TRIAL. Troops? He bent forward and read: PROTECT RAPIST FROM MOB ACTION. He went down the column: and his eyes caught a headline: TROOPS GUARD NEGRO KILLER'S TRIAL. Troops? He bent forward and read: PROTECT RAPIST FROM MOB ACTION. He went down the column: Fearing outbreaks of mob violence, Gov. H. M. O'Dorsey ordered out two regiments of the Illinois National Guard to keep public peace during the trial of Bigger Thomas, Negro rapist and killer, it was announced from Springfield, the capital, this morning.

His eyes caught phrases: "sentiment against killer still rising," "public opinion demands death penalty," "fear uprising in Negro sector," and "city tense."

Bigger sighed and stared into s.p.a.ce. His lips hung open and he shook his head slowly. Was he not foolish in even listening when Max talked of saving his life? Was he not heightening the horror of his own end by straining after a flickering hope? Had not this voice of hate been sounding long before he was born; and would it not still sound long after he was dead?

He read again, catching phrases: "the black killer is fully aware that he is in danger of going to the electric chair," "spends most of his time reading newspaper accounts of his crime and eating luxurious meals sent to him by Communist friends," "killer not sociable or talkative," "Mayor lauds police for bravery," and "a vast ma.s.s of evidence a.s.sembled against killer."

Then: In relation to the Negro's mental condition, Dr. Calvin H. Robinson, a psychiatric attache of the police department, declared: "There is no question but that Thomas is more alert mentally and more cagy than we suspect. His attempt to blame the Communists for the murder and kidnap note and his staunch denial of having raped the white girl indicate that he may be hiding many other crimes."Professional psychologists at University of Chicago pointed out this morning that white women have an unusual fascination for Negro men. "They think," said one of the professors who requested that his name not be mentioned in connection with the case, "that white women are more attractive than the women of their own race. They just can't help themselves."It was said that Boris A. Max, the Negro's Communistic lawyer, will enter a plea of not guilty and try to free his client through a long drawn-out jury trial.

Bigger dropped the paper, stretched out upon the cot and closed his eyes. It was the same thing over and over again. What was the use of reading it?

"Bigger!"

Max was standing outside of the cell. The guard opened the door and Max walked in.

"Well, Bigger, how do you feel?"

"All right, I reckon," he mumbled.

"We're on our way to court."

Bigger rose and looked vacantly round the cell.

"Are you ready?"

"Yeah," Bigger sighed. "I reckon I am."

"Listen, son. Don't be nervous. Just take it easy."

"Will I be setting near you?"

"Sure. Right at the same table. I'll be there throughout the entire trial. So don't be scared."

A guard led him outside the door. The corridor was lined with policemen. It was silent. He was placed between two policemen and his wrists were shackled to theirs. Black and white faces peered at him from behind steel bars. He walked stiffly between the two policemen; ahead of him walked six more; and he heard many more walking in back. They led him to an elevator that took him to an underground pa.s.sage. They walked through a long stretch of narrow tunnel; the sound of their feet echoed loudly in the stillness. They reached another elevator and rode up and walked along a hallway crowded with excited people and policemen. They pa.s.sed a window and Bigger caught a quick glimpse of a vast crowd of people standing behind closely formed lines of khaki-clad troops. Yes, those were the troops and the mob the paper had spoken of.

He was taken into a room. Max led the way to a table. After the handcuffs were unlocked, Bigger sat, flanked by policemen. Softly, Max laid his right hand upon Bigger's knee.