“Nothing. Seen G.H. or Jack yet?”
“Naw. You?”
“Naw. Say, got a cigarette?”
“Yeah.”
Bigger took out his pack and gave Gus a cigarette; he lit his and held the match for Gus. They leaned their backs against the red-brick wall of a building, smoking, their cigarettes slanting white across their black chins. To the east Bigger saw the sun burning a dazzling yellow. In the sky above him a few big white clouds drifted. He puffed silently, relaxed, his mind pleasantly vacant of purpose. Every slight movement in the street evoked a casual curiosity in him. Automatically, his eyes followed each car as it whirred over the smooth black asphalt. A woman came by and he watched the gentle sway of her body until she disappeared into a doorway. He sighed, scratched his chin and mumbled,
“Kinda warm today.”
“Yeah,” Gus said.
“You get more heat from this sun than from them old radiators at home.”
“Yeah; them old white landlords sure don’t give much heat.”
“And they always knocking at your door for money.”
“I’ll be glad when summer comes.”
“Me too,” Bigger said.
He stretched his arms above his head and yawned; his eyes moistened. The sharp precision of the world of steel and stone dissolved into blurred waves. He blinked and the world grew hard again, mechanical, distinct. A weaving motion in the sky made him turn his eyes upward; he saw a slender streak of billowing white blooming against the deep blue. A plane was writing high up in the air.
“Look!” Bigger said.
“What?”
“That plane writing up there,” Bigger said, pointing.
“Oh!”
They squinted at a tiny ribbon of unfolding vapor that spelled out the word: USE…. The plane was so far away that at times the strong glare of the sun blanked it from sight.
“You can hardly see it,” Gus said.
“Looks like a little bird,” Bigger breathed with childlike wonder.
“Them white boys sure can fly,” Gus said.
“Yeah,” Bigger said, wistfully. “They get a chance to do everything.”
Noiselessly, the tiny plane looped and veered, vanishing and appearing, leaving behind it a long trail of white plumage, like coils of fluffy paste being squeezed from a tube; a plume-coil that grew and swelled and slowly began to fade into the air at the edges. The plane wrote another word: SPEED….
“How high you reckon he is?” Bigger asked.
“I don’t know. Maybe a hundred miles; maybe a thousand.”
“I could fly one of them things if I had a chance,” Bigger mumbled reflectively, as though talking to himself.
Gus pulled down the corners of his lips, stepped out from the wall, squared his shoulders, doffed his cap, bowed low and spoke with mock deference:
“Yessuh.”
“You go to hell,” Bigger said, smiling.
“Yessuh,” Gus said again.
“I could fly a plane if I had a chance,” Bigger said.
“If you wasn’t black and if you had some money and if they’d let you go to that aviation school, you could fly a plane,” Gus said.
For a moment Bigger contemplated all the “its” that Gus had mentioned. Then both boys broke into hard laughter, looking at each other through squinted eyes. When their laughter subsided, Bigger said in a voice that was half-question and half-statement:
“It’s funny how the white folks treat us, ain’t it?”
“It better be funny,” Gus said.
“Maybe they right in not wanting us to fly,” Bigger said. “’Cause if I took a plane up I’d take a couple of bombs along and drop ’em as sure as hell….”
They laughed again, still looking upward. The plane sailed and dipped and spread another word against the sky: GASOLINE….
“Use Speed Gasoline,” Bigger mused, rolling the words slowly from his lips. “God, I’d like to fly up there in that sky.”
“God’ll let you fly when He gives you your wings up in heaven,” Gus said.
They laughed again, reclining against the wall, smoking, the lids of their eyes drooped softly against the sun. Cars whizzed past on rubber tires. Bigger’s face was metallically black in the strong sunlight. There was in his eyes a pensive, brooding amusement, as of a man who had been long confronted and tantalized by a riddle whose answer seemed always just on the verge of escaping him, but prodding him irresistibly on to seek its solution. The silence irked Bigger; he was anxious to do something to evade looking so squarely at this problem.
“Let’s play ‘white,’ ” Bigger said, referring to a game of play-acting in which he and his friends imitated the ways and manners of white folks.
“I don’t feel like it,” Gus said.
“General!” Bigger pronounced in a sonorous tone, looking at Gus expectantly.
“Aw, hell! I don’t want to play,” Gus whined.
“You’ll be court-martialed,” Bigger said, snapping out his words with military precision.
“Nigger, you nuts!” Gus laughed.
“General!” Bigger tried again, determinedly.
Gus looked wearily at Bigger, then straightened, saluted and answered:
“Yessuh.”
“Send your men over the river at dawn and attack the enemy’s left flank,” Bigger ordered.
“Yessuh.”
“Send the Fifth, Sixth, and Seventh Regiments,” Bigger said, frowning. “And attack with tanks, gas, planes, and infantry.”
“Yessuh!” Gus said again, saluting and clicking his heels.
For a moment they were silent, facing each other, their shoulders thrown back, their lips compressed to hold down the mounting impulse to laugh. Then they guffawed, partly at themselves and partly at the vast white world that sprawled and towered in the sun before them.
“Say, what’s a ‘left flank’?” Gus asked.
“I don’t know,” Bigger said. “I heard it in the movies.”
They laughed again. After a bit they relaxed and leaned against the wall, smoking. Bigger saw Gus cup his left hand to his ear, as though holding a telephone receiver; and cup his right hand to his mouth, as though talking into a transmitter.
“Hello,” Gus said.
“Hello,” Bigger said. “Who’s this?”
“This is Mr. J. P. Morgan speaking,” Gus said.
“Yessuh, Mr. Morgan,” Bigger said; his eyes filled with mock adulation and respect.
“I want you to sell twenty thousand shares of U.S. Steel in the market this morning,” Gus said.
“At what price, suh?” Bigger asked.
“Aw, just dump ’em at any price,” Gus said with casual irritation. “We’re holding too much.”
“Yessuh,” Bigger said.
“And call me at my club at two this afternoon and tell me if the President telephoned,” Gus said.
“Yessuh, Mr. Morgan,” Bigger said.
Both of them made gestures signifying that they were hanging up telephone receivers; then they bent double, laughing.
“I bet that’s just the way they talk,” Gus said.
“I wouldn’t be surprised,” Bigger said.
They were silent again. Presently, Bigger cupped his hand to his mouth and spoke through an imaginary telephone transmitter.
“Hello.”
“Hello,” Gus answered. “Who’s this?”
“This is the President of the United States speaking,” Bigger said.
“Oh, yessuh, Mr. President,” Gus said.
“I’m calling a cabinet meeting this afternoon at four o’clock and you, as Secretary of State, must be there.”
“Well, now, Mr. President,” Gus said, “I’m pretty busy. They raising sand over there in Germany and I got to send ’em a note….”
“But this is important,” Bigger said.
“What you going to take up at this cabinet meeting?” Gus asked.
“Well, you see, the niggers is raising sand all over th
e country,” Bigger said, struggling to keep back his laughter. “We’ve got to do something with these black folks….”
“Oh, if it’s about the niggers, I’ll be right there, Mr. President,” Gus said.
They hung up imaginary receivers and leaned against the wall and laughed. A street car rattled by. Bigger sighed and swore.
“Goddammit!”
“What’s the matter?”
“They don’t let us do nothing.”
“Who?”
“The white folks.”
“You talk like you just now finding that out,” Gus said.
“Naw. But I just can’t get used to it,” Bigger said. “I swear to God I can’t. I know I oughtn’t think about it, but I can’t help it. Every time I think about it I feel like somebody’s poking a red-hot iron down my throat. Goddammit, look! We live here and they live there. We black and they white. They got things and we ain’t. They do things and we can’t. It’s just like living in jail. Half the time I feel like I’m on the outside of the world peeping in through a knothole in the fence….”
“Aw, ain’t no use feeling that way about it. It don’t help none,” Gus said.
“You know one thing?” Bigger said.
“What?”
“Sometimes I feel like something awful’s going to happen to me,” Bigger spoke with a tinge of bitter pride in his voice.
“What you mean?” Gus asked, looking at him quickly. There was fear in Gus’s eyes.
“I don’t know. I just feel that way. Every time I get to thinking about me being black and they being white, me being here and they being there, I feel like something awful’s going to happen to me….”
“Aw, for Chrissakes! There ain’t nothing you can do about it. How come you want to worry yourself? You black and they make the laws….”
“Why they make us live in one corner of the city? Why don’t they let us fly planes and run ships….”
Gus hunched Bigger with his elbow and mumbled good-naturedly, “Aw, nigger, quit thinking about it. You’ll go nuts.”
The plane was gone from the sky and the white plumes of floating smoke were thinly spread, vanishing. Because he was restless and had time on his hands, Bigger yawned again and hoisted his arms high above his head.
“Nothing ever happens,” he complained.
“What you want to happen?”
“Anything,” Bigger said with a wide sweep of his dingy palm, a sweep that included all the possible activities of the world.
Then their eyes were riveted; a slate-colored pigeon swooped down to the middle of the steel car tracks and began strutting to and fro with ruffled feathers, its fat neck bobbing with regal pride. A street car rumbled forward and the pigeon rose swiftly through the air on wings stretched so taut and sheer that Bigger could see the gold of the sun through their translucent tips. He tilted his head and watched the slate-colored bird flap and wheel out of sight over the edge of a high roof.
“Now, if I could only do that,” Bigger said.
Gus laughed.
“Nigger, you nuts.”
“I reckon we the only things in this city that can’t go where we want to go and do what we want to do.”
“Don’t think about it,” Gus said.
“I can’t help it.”
“That’s why you feeling like something awful’s going to happen to you,” Gus said. “You think too much.”
“What in hell can a man do?” Bigger asked, turning to Gus.
“Get drunk and sleep it off.”
“I can’t. I’m broke.”
Bigger crushed his cigarette and took out another one and offered the package to Gus. They continued smoking. A huge truck swept past, lifting scraps of white paper into the sunshine; the bits settled down slowly.
“Gus?”
“Hunh?”
“You know where the white folks live?”
“Yeah,” Gus said, pointing eastward. “Over across the ‘line’; over there on Cottage Grove Avenue.”
“Naw; they don’t,” Bigger said.
“What you mean?” Gus asked, puzzled. “Then, where do they live?”
Bigger doubled his fist and struck his solar plexus.
“Right down here in my stomach,” he said.
Gus looked at Bigger searchingly, then away, as though ashamed.
“Yeah; I know what you mean,” he whispered.
“Every time I think of ’em, I feel ’em,” Bigger said.
“Yeah; and in your chest and throat, too,” Gus said.
“It’s like fire.”
“And sometimes you can’t hardly breathe….”
Bigger’s eyes were wide and placid, gazing into space.
“That’s when I feel like something awful’s going to happen to me….” Bigger paused, narrowed his eyes. “Naw; it ain’t like something going to happen to me. It’s…. It’s like I was going to do something I can’t help….”
“Yeah!” Gus said with uneasy eagerness. His eyes were full of a look compounded of fear and admiration for Bigger. “Yeah; I know what you mean. It’s like you going to fall and don’t know where you going to land….”
Gus’s voice trailed off. The sun slid behind a big white cloud and the street was plunged in cool shadow; quickly the sun edged forth again and it was bright and warm once more. A long sleek black car, its fenders glinting like glass in the sun, shot past them at high speed and turned a corner a few blocks away. Bigger pursed his lips and sang:
“Zoooooooooom!”
“They got everything,” Gus said.
“They own the world,” Bigger said.
“Aw, what the hell,” Gus said. “Let’s go in the poolroom.”
“O.K.”
They walked toward the door of the poolroom.
“Say, you taking that job you told us about?” Gus asked.
“I don’t know.”
“You talk like you don’t want it.”
“Oh, hell, yes! I want the job,” Bigger said.
They looked at each other and laughed. They went inside. The poolroom was empty, save for a fat, black man who held a half smoked, unlit cigar in his mouth and leaned on the front counter. To the rear burned a single green-shaded bulb.
“Hi, Doc,” Bigger said.
“You boys kinda early this morning,” Doc said.
“Jack or G.H. around yet?” Bigger asked.
“Naw,” Doc said.
“Let’s shoot a game,” Gus said.
“I’m broke,” Bigger said.
“I got some money.”
“Switch on the light. The balls are racked,” Doc said.
Bigger turned on the light. They lagged for first shot. Bigger won. They started playing. Bigger’s shots were poor; he was thinking of Blum’s, fascinated with the idea of the robbery, and a little afraid of it.
“Remember what we talked about so much?” Bigger asked in a flat, neutral tone.
“Naw.”
“Old Blum.”
“Oh,” Gus said. “We ain’t talked about that for a month. How come you think of it all of a sudden?”
“Let’s clean the place out.”
“I don’t know.”
“It was your plan from the start,” Bigger said.
Gus straightened and stared at Bigger, then at Doc who was looking out of the front window.
“You going to tell Doc? Can’t you never learn to talk low?”
“Aw, I was just asking you, do you want to try it?”
“Naw.”
“How come? You scared ’cause he’s a white man?”
“Naw. But Blum keeps a gun. Suppose he beats us to it?”
“Aw, you scared; that’s all. He’s a white man and you scared.”
“The hell I’m scared,” Gus, hurt and stung, defended himself.
Bigger went to Gus and placed an arm about his shoulders.
“Listen, you won’t have to go in. You just stand at the door and keep watch, see? Me and Jack and G.H.’ll go in. If anybody com
es along, you whistle and we’ll go out the back way. That’s all.”
The front door opened; they stopped talking and turned their heads.
“Here comes Jack and G.H. now,” Bigger said.
Jack and G.H. walked to the rear of the poolroom.
“What you guys doing?” Jack asked.
“Shooting a game. Wanna play?” Bigger asked.
“You asking ’em to play and I’m paying for the game,” Gus said.
They all laughed and Bigger laughed with them but stopped quickly. He felt that the joke was on him and he took a seat alongside the wall and propped his feet upon the rungs of a chair, as though he had not heard. Gus and G.H. kept on laughing.
“You niggers is crazy,” Bigger said. “You laugh like monkeys and you ain’t got nerve enough to do nothing but talk.”
“What you mean?” G.H. asked.
“I got a haul all figured out,” Bigger said.
“What haul?”
“Old Blum’s.”
There was silence. Jack lit a cigarette. Gus looked away, avoiding the conversation.
“If old Blum was a black man, you-all would be itching to go. ’Cause he’s white, everybody’s scared.”
“I ain’t scared,” Jack said. “I’m with you.”
“You say you got it all figured out?” G.H. asked.
Bigger took a deep breath and looked from face to face. It seemed to him that he should not have to explain.
“Look, it’ll be easy. There ain’t nothing to be scared of. Between three and four ain’t nobody in the store but the old man. The cop is way down at the other end of the block. One of us’ll stay outside and watch. Three of us’ll go in, see? One of us’ll throw a gun on old Blum; one of us’ll make for the cash box under the counter; one of us’ll make for the back door and have it open so we can make a quick get-away down the back alley…. That’s all. It won’t take three minutes.”
“I thought we said we wasn’t never going to use a gun,” G.H. said. “And we ain’t bothered no white folks before.”
“Can’t you see? This is something big,” Bigger said.
He waited for more objections. When none were forthcoming he talked again.
“We can do it, if you niggers ain’t scared.”
Save for the sound of Doc’s whistling up front, there was silence. Bigger watched Jack closely; he knew that the situation was one in which Jack’s word would be decisive. Bigger was afraid of Gus, because he knew that Gus would not hold out if Jack said yes. Gus stood at the table, toying with a cue stick, his eyes straying lazily over the billiard balls scattered about the table in the array of an unfinished game. Bigger rose and sent the balls whirling with a sweep of his hand, then looked straight at Gus as the gleaming balls kissed and rebounded from the rubber cushions, zig-zagging across the table’s green cloth. Even though Bigger had asked Gus to be with him in the robbery, the fear that Gus would really go made the muscles of Bigger’s stomach tighten; he was hot all over. He felt as if he wanted to sneeze and could not; only it was more nervous than wanting to sneeze. He grew hotter, tighter; his nerves were taut and his teeth were on edge. He felt that something would soon snap within him.