Native Son

by Richard Wright

  Buckley let go of Bigger’s arm and hoisted the window; a cold wind swept in and Bigger heard a roar of voices. Involuntarily, he stepped backward. Would they break into the jail? Buckley shut the window and led him back to the room. He sat upon the cot and Buckley sat opposite him.

  “You look like an intelligent boy. You see what you’re in. Tell me about this thing. Don’t let those Reds fool you into saying you’re not guilty. I’m talking to you as straight as I’d talk to a son of mine. Sign a confession and get this over with.”

  Bigger said nothing; he sat looking at the floor.

  “Was Jan mixed up in this?”

  Bigger heard the faint excited sound of mob voices coming through the concrete walls of the building.

  “He proved an alibi and he’s free. Tell me, did he leave you holding the bag?”

  Bigger heard the far-away clang of a street car.

  “If he made you do it, then sign a complaint against him.”

  Bigger saw the shining tip of the man’s black shoes; the sharp creases in his striped trousers; the clear, icy glinting of the eye-glasses upon his high, long nose.

  “Boy,” said Buckley in a voice so loud that Bigger flinched, “where’s Bessie?”

  Bigger’s eyes widened. He had not thought of Bessie but once since his capture. Her death was unimportant beside that of Mary’s; he knew that when they killed him it would be for Mary’s death; not Bessie’s.

  “Well, boy, we found her. You hit her with a brick, but she didn’t die right away….”

  Bigger’s muscles jerked him to his feet. Bessie alive! But the voice droned on and he sat down.

  “She tried to get out of that air-shaft, but she couldn’t. She froze to death. We got the brick you hit her with. We got the blanket and the quilt and the pillows you took from her room. We got a letter from her purse she had written to you and hadn’t mailed, a letter telling you she didn’t want to go through with trying to collect the ransom money. You see, boy, we got you. Come on, now, tell me all about it.”

  Bigger said nothing. He buried his face in his hands.

  “You raped her, didn’t you? Well, if you won’t tell about Bessie, then tell me about that woman you raped and choked to death over on University Avenue last fall.”

  Was the man trying to scare him, or did he really think he had done other killings?

  “Boy, you might just as well tell me. We’ve got a line on all you ever did. And how about the girl you attacked in Jackson Park last summer? Listen, boy, when you were in your cell sleeping and wouldn’t talk, we brought women in to identify you. Two women swore complaints against you. One was the sister of the woman you killed last fall, Mrs. Clinton. The other woman, Miss Ashton, says you attacked her last summer by climbing through the window of her bedroom.”

  “I ain’t bothered no woman last summer or last fall either,” Bigger said.

  “Miss Ashton identified you. She swears you’re the one.”

  “I don’t know nothing about it.”

  “But Mrs. Clinton, the sister of the woman you killed last fall, came to your cell and pointed you out. Who’ll believe you when you say you didn’t do it? You killed and raped two women in two days; who’ll believe you when you say you didn’t rape and kill the others? Come on, boy. You haven’t a chance holding out.”

  “I don’t know nothing about other women,” Bigger repeated stubbornly.

  Bigger wondered how much did the man really know. Was he lying about the other women in order to get him to tell about Mary and Bessie? Or were they really trying to pin other crimes upon him?

  “Boy, when the newspapers get hold of what we’ve got on you, you’re cooked. I’m not the one who’s doing this. The Police Department is digging up the dirt and bringing it to me. Why don’t you talk? Did you kill the other women? Or did somebody make you do it? Was Jan in this business? Were the Reds helping you? You’re a fool if Jan was mixed up in this and you won’t tell.”

  Bigger shifted his feet and listened to the faint clang of another street car passing. The man leaned forward, caught hold of Bigger’s arm and spoke while shaking him.

  “You’re hurting nobody but yourself holding out like this, boy! Tell me, were Mary, Bessie, Mrs. Clinton’s sister, and Miss Ashton the only women you raped or killed?”

  The words burst out of Bigger:

  “I never heard of no Miss Clinton or Miss Ashton before!”

  “Didn’t you attack a girl in Jackson Park last summer?”

  “Naw!”

  “Didn’t you choke and rape a woman on University Avenue last fall?”

  “Naw!”

  “Didn’t you climb through a window out in Englewood last fall and rape a woman?”

  “Naw; naw! I tell you I didn’t!”

  “You’re not telling the truth, boy. Lying won’t get you anywhere.”

  “I am telling the truth!”

  “Whose idea was the kidnap note? Jan’s?”

  “He didn’t have nothing to do with it,” said Bigger, feeling a keen desire on the man’s part to have him implicate Jan.

  “What’s the use of your holding out, boy? Make it easy for yourself.”

  Why not talk and get it over with? They knew he was guilty. They could prove it. If he did not talk, then they would say he had committed every crime they could think of.

  “Boy, why didn’t you and your pals rob Blum’s store like you’d planned to last Saturday?”

  Bigger looked at him in surprise. They had found that out, too!

  “You didn’t think I knew about that, did you? I know a lot more, boy. I know about that dirty trick you and your friend Jack pulled off in the Regal Theatre, too. You wonder how I know it? The manager told us when we were checking up. I know what boys like you do, Bigger. Now, come on. You wrote that kidnap note, didn’t you?”

  “Yeah,” he sighed. “I wrote it.”

  “Who helped you?”

  “Nobody.”

  “Who was going to help you to collect the ransom money?”

  “Bessie.”

  “Come on. Was it Jan?”

  “Naw.”

  “Bessie?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Then why did you kill her?”

  Nervously, Bigger’s fingers fumbled with a pack of cigarettes and got one out. The man struck a match and held a light for him, but he struck his own match and ignored the offered flame.

  “When I saw I couldn’t get the money, I killed her to keep her from talking,” he said.

  “And you killed Mary, too?”

  “I didn’t mean to kill her, but it don’t matter now,” he said.

  “Did you lay her?”

  “Naw.”

  “You laid Bessie before you killed her. The doctors said so. And now you expect me to believe you didn’t lay Mary.”

  “I didn’t!”

  “Did Jan?”

  “Naw.”

  “Didn’t Jan lay her first and then you?…”

  “Naw; naw….”

  “But Jan wrote the kidnap note, didn’t he?”

  “I never saw Jan before that night.”

  “But didn’t he write the note?”

  “Naw; I tell you he didn’t.”

  “You wrote the note?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Didn’t Jan tell you to write it?”

  “Naw.”

  “Why did you kill Mary?”

  He did not answer.

  “See here, boy. What you say doesn’t make sense. You were never in the Dalton home until Saturday night. Yet, in one night a girl is raped, killed, burnt, and the next night a kidnap note is sent. Come on. Tell me everything that happened and about everybody who helped you.”

  “There wasn’t nobody but me. I don’t care what happens to me, but you can’t make me say things about other people.”

  “But you told Mr. Dalton that Jan was in this thing, too.”

  “I was trying to blame it on him.”

  “Well, come on. T
ell me everything that happened.”

  Bigger rose and went to the window. His hands caught the cold steel bars in a hard grip. He knew as he stood there that he could never tell why he had killed. It was not that he did not really want to tell, but the telling of it would have involved an explanation of his entire life. The actual killing of Mary and Bessie was not what concerned him most; it was knowing and feeling that he could never make anybody know what had driven him to it. His crimes were known, but what he had felt before he committed them would never be known. He would have gladly admitted his guilt if he had thought that in doing so he could have also given in the same breath a sense of the deep, choking hate that had been his life, a hate that he had not wanted to have, but could not help having. How could he do that? The impulsion to try to tell was as deep as had been the urge to kill.

  He felt a hand touch his shoulder; he did not turn round; his eyes looked downward and saw the man’s gleaming black shoes.

  “I know how you feel, boy. You’re colored and you feel that you haven’t had a square deal, don’t you?” the man’s voice came low and soft; and Bigger, listening, hated him for telling him what he knew was true. He rested his tired head against the steel bars and wondered how was it possible for this man to know so much about him and yet be so bitterly against him. “Maybe you’ve been brooding about this color question a long time, hunh, boy?” the man’s voice continued low and soft. “Maybe you think I don’t understand? But I do. I know how it feels to walk along the streets like other people, dressed like them, talking like them, and yet excluded for no reason except that you’re black. I know your people. Why, they give me votes out there on the South Side every election. I once talked to a colored boy who raped and killed a woman, just like you raped and killed Mrs. Clinton’s sister….”

  “I didn’t do it!” Bigger screamed.

  “Why keep saying that? If you talk, maybe the judge’ll help you. Confess it all and get it over with. You’ll feel better. Say, listen, if you tell me everything, I’ll see that you’re sent to the hospital for an examination, see? If they say you’re not responsible, then maybe you won’t have to die….”

  Bigger’s anger rose. He was not crazy and he did not want to be called crazy.

  “I don’t want to go to no hospital.”

  “It’s a way out for you, boy.”

  “I don’t want no way out.”

  “Listen, start at the beginning. Who was the first woman you ever killed?”

  He said nothing. He wanted to talk, but he did not like the note of intense eagerness in the man’s voice. He heard the door behind him open; he turned his head just in time to see another white man look in questioningly.

  “I thought you wanted me,” the man said.

  “Yes; come on in,” Buckley said.

  The man came in and took a seat, holding a pencil and paper on his knee.

  “Here, Bigger,” Buckley said, taking Bigger by the arm. “Sit down here and tell me all about it. Get it over with.”

  Bigger wanted to tell how he had felt when Jan had held his hand; how Mary had made him feel when she asked him about how Negroes lived; the tremendous excitement that had hold of him during the day and night he had been in the Dalton home—but there were no words for him.

  “You went to Mr. Dalton’s home at five-thirty that Saturday, didn’t you?”

  “Yessuh,” he mumbled.

  Listlessly, he talked. He traced his every action. He paused at each question Buckley asked and wondered how he could link up his bare actions with what he had felt; but his words came out flat and dull. White men were looking at him, waiting for his words, and all the feelings of his body vanished, just as they had when he was in the car between Jan and Mary. When he was through, he felt more lost and undone than when he was captured. Buckley stood up; the other white man rose and held out the papers for him to sign. He took the pen in hand. Well, why shouldn’t he sign? He was guilty. He was lost. They were going to kill him. Nobody could help him. They were standing in front of him, bending over him, looking at him, waiting. His hand shook. He signed.

  Buckley slowly folded the papers and put them into his pocket. Bigger looked up at the two men, helplessly, wonderingly, Buckley looked at the other white man and smiled.

  “That was not as hard as I thought it would be,” Buckley said.

  “He came through like a clock,” the other man said.

  Buckley looked down at Bigger and said.

  “Just a scared colored boy from Mississippi.”

  There was a short silence. Bigger felt that they had forgotten him already. Then he heard them speaking.

  “Anything else, chief?”

  “Naw. I’ll be at my club. Let me know how the inquest turns out.”

  “O.K., chief.”

  “So long.”

  “I’ll be seeing you, chief.”

  Bigger felt so empty and beaten that he slid to the floor. He heard the feet of the men walking away softly. The door opened and shut. He was alone, profoundly, inescapably. He rolled on the floor and sobbed, wondering what it was that had hold of him, why he was here.

  He lay on the cold floor sobbing; but really he was standing up strongly with contrite heart, holding his life in his hands, staring at it with a wondering question. He lay on the cold floor sobbing; but really he was pushing forward with his puny strength against a world too big and too strong for him. He lay on the cold floor sobbing; but really he was groping forward with fierce zeal into a welter of circumstances which he felt contained a water of mercy for the thirst of his heart and brain.

  He wept because he had once again trusted his feelings and they had betrayed him. Why should he have felt the need to try to make his feelings known? And why did not he hear resounding echoes of his feelings in the hearts of others? There were times when he did hear echoes, but always they were couched in tones which, living as a Negro, he could not answer or accept without losing face with the world which had first evoked in him the song of manhood. He feared and hated the preacher because the preacher had told him to bow down and ask for a mercy he knew he needed; but his pride would never let him do that, not this side of the grave, not while the sun shone. And Jan? And Max? They were telling him to believe in himself. Once before he had accepted completely what his life had made him feel, even unto murder. He had emptied the vessel which life had filled for him and found the emptying meaningless. Yet the vessel was full again, waiting to be poured out. But no! Not blindly this time! He felt that he could not move again unless he swung out from the base of his own feelings; he felt that he would have to have light in order to act now.

  Gradually, more from a lessening of strength than from peace of soul, his sobs ceased and he lay on his back, staring at the ceiling. He had confessed and death loomed now for certain in a public future. How could he go to his death with white faces looking on and saying that only death would cure him for having flung into their faces his feeling of being black? How could death be victory now?

  He sighed, pulled up off the floor and lay on the cot, half-awake, half-asleep. The door opened and four policemen came and stood above him; one touched his shoulder.

  “Come on, boy.”

  He rose and looked at them questioningly.

  “You’re going back to the inquest.”

  They clicked the handcuffs upon his wrists and led him into the hall, to a waiting elevator. The doors closed and he dropped downward through space, standing between four tall, silent men in blue. The elevator stopped; the doors opened and he saw a restless crowd of people and heard a babble of voices. They led him through a narrow aisle.

  “That sonofabitch!”

  “Gee, isn’t he black!”

  “Kill ’im!”

  A hard blow came to his temple and he slumped to the floor. The faces and voices left him. Pain throbbed in his head and the right side of his face numbed. He held up an elbow to protect himself; they yanked him back upon his feet. When his sight cleared he saw policemen
struggling with a slender white man. Shouts rose in a mighty roar. To the front of him a white man pounded with a hammer-like piece of wood upon a table.

  “Quiet! Or the room’ll be cleared of everybody except witnesses!”

  The clamor ceased. The policemen pushed Bigger into a chair. Stretching to the four walls of the room was a solid sheet of white faces. Standing with squared shoulders all round were policemen with clubs in hand, silver metal on their chests, faces red and stern, grey and blue eyes alert. To the right of the man at the table, in rows of three each, six men sat still and silent, their hats and overcoats on their knees. Bigger looked about and saw the pile of white bones lying atop a table; beside them lay the kidnap note, held in place by a bottle of ink. In the center of the table were white sheets of paper fastened together by a metal clasp; it was his signed confession. And there was Mr. Dalton, white-faced, white-haired; and beside him was Mrs. Dalton, still and straight, her face, as always, tilted trustingly upward, to one side. Then he saw the trunk into which he had stuffed Mary’s body, the trunk which he had lugged down the stairs and had carried to the station. And, yes, there was the blackened hatchet blade and a tiny round piece of metal. Bigger felt a tap on his shoulder and looked round; Max was smiling at him.

  “Take it easy, Bigger. You won’t have to say anything here. It won’t be long.”

  The man at the front table rapped again.

  “Is there a member of the deceased’s family here, one who can give us the family history?”

  A murmur swept the room. A woman rose hurriedly and went to the blind Mrs. Dalton, caught hold of her arm, led her forward to a seat to the extreme right of the man at the table, facing the six men in the rows of chairs. That must be Mrs. Patterson, Bigger thought, remembering the woman Peggy had mentioned as Mrs. Dalton’s maid.

  “Will you please raise your right hand?”

  Mrs. Dalton’s frail, waxen hand went up timidly. The man asked Mrs. Dalton if the testimony she was about to give was the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help you God, and Mrs. Dalton answered,

  “Yes, sir; I do.”

  Bigger sat stolidly, trying not to let the crowd detect any fear in him. His nerves were painfully taut as he hung onto the old woman’s words. Under the man’s questioning, Mrs. Dalton said that her age was fifty-three, that she lived at 4605 Drexel Boulevard, that she was a retired school teacher, that she was the mother of Mary Dalton and the wife of Henry Dalton. When the man began asking questions relating to Mary, the crowd leaned forward in their seats. Mrs. Dalton said that Mary was twenty-three years of age, single; that she carried about thirty thousand dollars’ worth of insurance, that she owned real estate amounting to approximately a quarter of a million dollars, and that she was active right up to the date of her death. Mrs. Dalton’s voice came tense and faint and Bigger wondered how much more of this he could stand. Would it not have been much better to have stood up in the full glare of those roving knives of light and let them shoot him down? He could have cheated them out of this show, this hunt, this eager sport.