Native Son

  “Listen, here’s the dope, see? The gal where I’m working, the daughter of the old man who’s rich, a millionaire, has done run off with a Red, see?”

  “Eloped?”

  “Hunh? Er…. Yeah; eloped.”

  “With a Red?”

  “Yeah; one of them Communists.”

  “Oh! What’s wrong with her?”

  “Aw; she’s crazy. Nobody don’t know she’s gone, so last night I took the money from her room, see?”

  “Oh!”

  “They don’t know where she is.”

  “But what you going to do?”

  “They don’t know where she is,” he said again.

  “What you mean?”

  He sucked his cigarette; he saw her looking at him, her black eyes wide with eager interest. He liked that look. In one way, he hated to tell her, because he wanted to keep her guessing. He wanted to take as long as possible in order to see that look of complete absorption upon her face. It made him feel alive and gave him a heightened sense of the value of himself.

  “I got an idea,” he said.

  “Oh, Bigger, tell me!”

  “Don’t talk so loud!”

  “Well, tell me!”

  “They don’t know where the girl is. They might think she’s kidnapped, see?” His whole body was tense and as he spoke his lips trembled.

  “Oh, that was what you was so excited about when I told you about Loeb and Leopold….”

  “Well, what you think?”

  “Would they really think she’s kidnapped?”

  “We can make ’em think it.”

  She looked into her empty glass. Bigger beckoned the waitress and ordered two more drinks. He took a deep swallow and said,

  “The gal’s gone, see? They don’t know where she is. Don’t nobody know. But they might think somebody did if they was told, see?”

  “You mean…. You mean we could say we did it? You mean write to ’em….”

  “….and ask for money, sure,” he said. “And get it, too. You see, we cash in, ’cause nobody else is trying to.”

  “But suppose she shows up?”

  “She won’t.”

  “How you know?”

  “I just know she won’t.”

  “Bigger, you know something about that girl. You know where she is?”

  “That’s all right about where she is. I know we won’t have to worry about her showing up, see?”

  “Oh, Bigger, this is crazy!”

  “Then, hell, we won’t talk about it no more!”

  “Oh, I don’t mean that.”

  “Then what do you mean?”

  “I mean we got to be careful.”

  “We can get ten thousand dollars.”

  “How?”

  “We can have ’em leave the money somewhere. They’ll think they can get the girl back….”

  “Bigger, you know where that girl is?” she said, giving her voice a tone of half-question and half-statement.

  “Naw.”

  “Then it’ll be in the papers. She’ll show up.”

  “She won’t.”

  “How you know?”

  “She just won’t.”

  He saw her lips moving, then heard her speak softly, leaning toward him.

  “Bigger, you ain’t done nothing to that girl, is you?”

  He stiffened with fear. He felt suddenly that he wanted something in his hand, something solid and heavy: his gun, a knife, a brick.

  “If you say that again, I’ll slap you back from this table!”

  “Oh!”

  “Come on, now. Don’t be a fool.”

  “Bigger, you oughtn’t’ve done it….”

  “You going to help me? Say yes or no.”

  “Gee, Bigger….”

  “You scared? You scared after letting me take that silver from Mrs. Heard’s home? After letting me get Mrs. Macy’s radio? You scared now?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You wanted me to tell you; well, I told you. That’s a woman, always. You want to know something, then you run like a rabbit.”

  “But we’ll get caught.”

  “Not if we do right.”

  “But how could we do it, Bigger?”

  “I’ll figure it out.”

  “But I want to know.”

  “It’ll be easy.”

  “But how?”

  “I can fix it so you can pick up the money and nobody’ll bother you.”

  “They catch people who do things like that.”

  “If you scared they will catch you.”

  “How could I pick up the money?”

  “We’ll tell ’em where to leave it.”

  “But they’ll have police watching.”

  “Not if they want the gal back. We got a club over ’em, see? And I’ll be watching, too. I work in the house where they live. If they try to doublecross us, I’ll let you know.”

  “You reckon we could do it?”

  “We could have ’em throw the money out of a car. You could be in some spot to see if they send anybody to watch. If you see anybody around, then you don’t touch the money, see? But they want the gal; they won’t watch.”

  There was a long silence.

  “Bigger, I don’t know,” she said.

  “We could go to New York, to Harlem, if we had money. New York’s a real town. We could lay low for awhile.”

  “But suppose they mark the money?”

  “They won’t. And if they do, I’ll tell you. You see, I’m right there in the house.”

  “But if we run off, they’ll think we did it. They’ll be looking for us for years, Bigger….”

  “We won’t run right away. We’ll lay low for awhile.”

  “I don’t know, Bigger.”

  He felt satisfied; he could tell by the way she looked that if he pushed her hard enough she would come in with him. She was afraid and he could handle her through her fear. He looked at his watch; it was getting late. He ought to go back and have a look at that furnace.

  “Listen, I got to go.”

  He paid the waitress and they went out. There was another way to bind her to him. He drew forth the roll of bills, peeled off one for himself, and held out the rest of the money toward her.

  “Here,” he said. “Get you something and save the rest for me.”

  “Oh!”

  She looked at the money and hesitated.

  “Don’t you want it?”

  “Yeah,” she said, taking the roll.

  “If you string along with me you’ll get plenty more.”

  They stopped in front of her door; he stood looking at her.

  “Well,” he said. “What you think?”

  “Bigger, honey. I—I don’t know,” she said plaintively.

  “You wanted me to tell you.”

  “I’m scared.”

  “Don’t you trust me?”

  “But we ain’t never done nothing like this before. They’ll look everywhere for us for something like this. It ain’t like coming to where I work at night when the white folks is gone out of town and stealing something. It ain’t….”

  “It’s up to you.”

  “I’m scared, Bigger.”

  “Who on earth’ll think we did it?”

  “I don’t know. You really think they don’t know where the girl is?”

  “I know they don’t.”

  “You know?”

  “Naw.”

  “She’ll turn up.”

  “She won’t. And, anyhow, she’s a crazy girl. They might even think she’s in it herself, just to get money from her family. They might think the Reds is doing it. They won’t think we did. They don’t think we got enough guts to do it. They think niggers is too scared….”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Did I ever tell you wrong?”

  “Naw; but we ain’t never done nothing like this before.”

  “Well, I ain’t wrong now.”

  “When do you want to do it?”

/>   “Soon as they begin to worry about the gal.”

  “You really reckon we could?”

  “I told you what I think.”

  “Naw; Bigger! I ain’t going to do it. I think you….”

  He turned abruptly and walked away from her.

  “Bigger!”

  She ran over the snow and tugged at his sleeve. He stopped, but did not turn round. She caught his coat and pulled him about. Under the yellow sheen of a street lamp they confronted each other, silently. All about them was the white snow and the night; they were cut off from the world and were conscious only of each other. He looked at her without expression, waiting. Her eyes were fastened fearfully and distrustfully upon his face. He held his body in an attitude that suggested that he was delicately balanced upon a hair-line, waiting to see if she would push him forward or draw him back. Her lips smiled faintly and she lifted her hand and touched his face with her fingers. He knew that she was fighting out in her feelings the question of just how much he meant to her. She grabbed his hand and squeezed it, telling him in the pressure of her fingers that she wanted him.

  “But, Bigger, honey…. Let’s don’t do that. We getting along all right like we is now….”

  He drew his hand away.

  “I’m going,” he said.

  “When I’ll see you, honey?”

  “I don’t know.”

  He started off again and she overtook him and encircled him with her arms.

  “Bigger, honey….”

  “Come on, Bessie. What you going to do?”

  She looked at him with round, helpless black eyes. He was still poised, wondering if she would pull him toward her, or let him fall alone. He was enjoying her agony, seeing and feeling the worth of himself in her bewildered desperation. Her lips trembled and she began to cry.

  “What you going to do?” he asked again.

  “If I do it, it’s ’cause you want me to,” she sobbed.

  He put his arm about her shoulders.

  “Come on, Bessie,” he said. “Don’t cry.”

  She stopped and dried her eyes; he looked at her closely. She’ll do it, he thought.

  “I got to go,” he said.

  “I ain’t going in right now.”

  “Where you going?”

  He found that he was afraid of what she did, now that she was working with him. His peace of mind depended upon knowing what she did and why.

  “I’m going to get a pint.”

  That was all right; she was feeling as he knew she always felt.

  “Well, I’ll see you tomorrow night, hunh?”

  “O.K., honey. But be careful.”

  “Look, Bessie, don’t you worry none. Just trust me. No matter what happens, they won’t catch us. And they won’t even know you had anything to do with it.”

  “If they start after us, where could we hide, Bigger? You know we’s black. We can’t go just anywhere.”

  He looked round the lamp-lit, snow-covered street.

  “There’s plenty of places,” he said. “I know the South Side from A to Z. We could even hide out in one of those old buildings, see? Like I did last time. Nobody ever looks into ’em.”

  He pointed across the street to a black, looming empty apartment building.

  “Well,” she sighed.

  “I’m going,” he said.

  “So long, honey.”

  He walked toward the car line; when he looked back he saw her still standing in the snow; she had not moved. She’ll be all right, he thought. She’ll go along.

  Snow was falling again; the streets were long paths leading through a dense jungle, lit here and there with torches held high in invisible hands. He waited ten minutes for a car and none came. He turned the corner and walked, his head down, his hands dug into his pockets, going to Dalton’s.

  He was confident. During the last day and night new fears had come, but new feelings had helped to allay those fears. The moment when he had stood above Mary’s bed and found that she was dead the fear of electrocution had entered his flesh and blood. But at home at the breakfast table with his mother and sister and brother, seeing how blind they were; and overhearing Peggy and Mrs. Dalton talking in the kitchen, a new feeling had been born in him, a feeling that all but blotted out the fear of death. As long as he moved carefully and knew what he was about, he could handle things, he thought. As long as he could take his life into his own hands and dispose of it as he pleased, as long as he could decide just when and where he would run to, he need not be afraid.

  He felt that he had his destiny in his grasp. He was more alive than he could ever remember having been; his mind and attention were pointed, focused toward a goal. For the first time in his life he moved consciously between two sharply defined poles: he was moving away from the threatening penalty of death, from the deathlike times that brought him that tightness and hotness in his chest; and he was moving toward that sense of fullness he had so often but inadequately felt in magazines and movies.

  The shame and fear and hate which Mary and Jan and Mr. Dalton and that huge rich house had made rise so hard and hot in him had now cooled and softened. Had he not done what they thought he never could? His being black and at the bottom of the world was something which he could take with a new-born strength. What his knife and gun had once meant to him, his knowledge of having secretly murdered Mary now meant. No matter how they laughed at him for his being black and clownlike, he could look them in the eyes and not feel angry. The feeling of being always enclosed in the stifling embrace of an invisible force had gone from him.

  As he turned into Drexel Boulevard and headed toward Dalton’s, he thought of how restless he had been, how he was consumed always with a body hunger. Well, in a way he had settled that tonight; as time passed he would make it more definite. His body felt free and easy now that he had lain with Bessie. That she would do what he wanted was what he had sealed in asking her to work with him in this thing. She would be bound to him by ties deeper than marriage. She would be his; her fear of capture and death would bind her to him with all the strength of her life; even as what he had done last night had bound him to this new path with all the strength of his own life.

  He turned off the sidewalk and walked up the Dalton driveway went into the basement and looked through the bright cracks of the furnace door. He saw a red heap of seething coals and heard the upward hum of the draft. He pulled the lever, hearing the rattle of coal against tin and seeing the quivering embers grow black. He shut off the coal and stooped and opened the bottom door of the furnace. Ashes were piling up. He would have to take the shovel and clean them out in the morning and make sure that no unburnt bones were left. He had closed the door and started to the rear of the furnace, going to his room, when he heard Peggy’s voice.

  “Bigger!”

  He stopped and before answering he felt a keen sensation of excitement flush over all his skin. She was standing at the head of the stairs, in the door leading to the kitchen.

  “Yessum.”

  He went to the bottom of the steps and looked upward.

  “Mrs. Dalton wants you to pick up the trunk at the station….”

  “The trunk?”

  He waited for Peggy to answer his surprised question. Perhaps he should not have asked it in that way?

  “They called up and said that no one had claimed it. And Mr. Dalton got a wire from Detroit. Mary never got there.”

  “Yessum.”

  She came all the way down the stairs and looked round the basement, as though seeking some missing detail. He stiffened; if she saw something that would make her ask him about Mary he would take the iron shovel and let her have it straight across her head and then take the car and make a quick getaway.

  “Mr. Dalton’s worried,” Peggy said. “You know, Mary didn’t pack the new clothes she bought to take with her on the trip. And poor Mrs. Dalton’s been pacing the floor and phoning Mary’s friends all day.”

  “Don’t nobody know where she is?” Bigg
er asked.

  “Nobody. Did Mary tell you to take the trunk like it was?”

  “Yessum,” he said, knowing that this was the first hard hurdle. “It was locked and standing in a corner. I took it down and put it right where you saw it this morning.”

  “Oh, Peggy!” Mrs. Dalton’s voice called.

  “Yes!” Peggy answered.

  Bigger looked up and saw Mrs. Dalton at the head of the stairs, standing in white as usual and with her face tilted trustingly upward.

  “Is the boy back yet?”

  “He’s down here now, Mrs. Dalton.”

  “Come in the kitchen a moment, will you, Bigger?” she asked.

  “Yessum.”

  He followed Peggy into the kitchen. Mrs. Dalton had her hands clasped tightly in front of her and her face was still tilted, higher now, and her white lips were parted.

  “Peggy told you about picking up the trunk?”

  “Yessum. I’m on my way now.”

  “What time did you leave here last night?”

  “A little before two, mam.”

  “And she told you to take the trunk down?”

  “Yessum.”

  “And she told you not to put the car up?”

  “Yessum.”

  “And it was just where you left it last night when you came this morning?”

  “Yessum.”

  Mrs. Dalton turned her head as she heard the inner kitchen door open; Mr. Dalton stood in the doorway.

  “Hello, Bigger.”

  “Good day, suh.”

  “How are things?”

  “Fine, suh.”

  “The station called about the trunk a little while ago. You’ll have to pick it up.”

  “Yessuh. I’m on my way now, suh.”

  “Listen, Bigger. What happened last night?”

  “Well, nothing, suh. Miss Dalton told me to take the trunk down so I could take it to the station this morning; and I did.”

  “Was Jan with you?”

  “Yessuh. All three of us went upstairs when I brought ’em in in the car. We went to the room to get the trunk. Then I took it down and put it in the basement.”

  “Was Jan drunk?”

  “Well, I don’t know, suh. They was drinking….”

  “And what happened?”

  “Nothing, suh. I just took the trunk to the basement and left. Miss Dalton told me to leave the car out. She said Mr. Jan would take care of it.”