Native Son

by Richard Wright

  “When men are pursuing their normal rounds of duty and a crime as black and bloody as this is committed, they become paralyzed. The more horrible the crime, the more stunned, shocked, and dismayed is the tranquil city in which it happens; the more helpless are the citizens before it.

  “Restore confidence to those of us who still survive, so that we may go on and reap the rich harvests of life. Your Honor, in the name of Almighty God, I plead with you to be merciful to us!”

  Buckley’s voice boomed in Bigger’s ears and he knew what the loud commotion meant when the speech had ended. In the back of the room several newspapermen were scrambling for the door. Buckley wiped his red face and sat down. The judge rapped for order, and said:

  “Court will adjourn for one hour.”

  Max was on his feet.

  “Your Honor, you cannot do this…. Is it your intention…. More time is needed…. You….”

  “The Court will give its decision then,” the judge said.

  There were shouts. Bigger saw Max’s lips moving, but he could not make out what he was saying. Slowly, the room quieted. Bigger saw that the expressions on the faces of the men and women were different now. He felt that the thing had been decided. He knew that he was to die.

  “Your Honor,” Max said, his voice breaking from an intensity of emotion. “It seems that for careful consideration of the evidence and discussion submitted, more time is….”

  “The Court reserves the right to determine how much time is needed, Mr. Max,” the judge said.

  Bigger knew that he was lost. It was but a matter of time, of formality.

  He did not know how he got back into the little room; but when he was brought in he saw the tray of food still there, uneaten. He sat down and looked at the six policemen who stood silently by. Guns hung from their hips. Ought he to try to snatch one and shoot himself? But he did not have enough spirit to respond positively to the idea of self-destruction. He was paralyzed with dread.

  Max came in, sat, and lit a cigarette.

  “Well, son. We’ll have to wait. We’ve got an hour.”

  There was a banging on the door.

  “Don’t let any of those reporters in here,” Max told a policeman.

  “O.K.”

  Minutes passed. Bigger’s head began to ache with the suspense of it. He knew that Max had nothing to say to him and he had nothing to say to Max. He had to wait; that was all; wait for something he knew was coming. His throat tightened. He felt cheated. Why did they have to have a trial if it had to end this way?

  “Well, I reckon it’s all over for me now,” Bigger sighed, speaking as much for himself as for Max.

  “I don’t know,” Max said.

  “I know,” Bigger said.

  “Well, let’s wait.”

  “He’s making up his mind too quick. I know I’m going to die.”

  “I’m sorry, Bigger. Listen, why don’t you eat?”

  “I ain’t hungry.”

  “This thing isn’t over yet. I can ask the Governor….”

  “It ain’t no use. They got me.”

  “You don’t know.”

  “I know.”

  Max said nothing. Bigger leaned his head upon the table and closed his eyes. He wished Max would leave him now. Max had done all he could. He should go home and forget him.

  The door opened.

  “The judge’ll be ready in five minutes!”

  Max stood up. Bigger looked at his tired face.

  “All right, son. Come on.”

  Walking between policemen, Bigger followed Max back into the court room. He did not have time to sit down before the judge came. He remained standing until the judge was seated, then he slid weakly into his chair. Max rose to speak, but the judge lifted his hand for silence.

  “Will Bigger Thomas rise and face the Court?”

  The room was full of noise and the judge rapped for quiet. With trembling legs, Bigger rose, feeling in the grip of a nightmare.

  “Is there any statement you wish to make before sentence is passed upon you?”

  He tried to open his mouth to answer, but could not. Even if he had had the power of speech, he did not know what he could have said. He shook his head, his eyes blurring. The court room was profoundly quiet now. The judge wet his lips with his tongue and lifted a piece of paper that crackled loudly in the silence.

  “In view of the unprecedented disturbance of the public mind, the duty of this Court is clear,” the judge said and paused.

  Bigger groped for the edge of the table with his hand and clung to it.

  “In Number 666–983, indictment for murder, the sentence of the Court is that you, Bigger Thomas, shall die on or before midnight of Friday, March third, in a manner prescribed by the laws of this State.

  “This Court finds your age to be twenty.

  “The Sheriff may retire with the prisoner.”

  Bigger understood every word; and he seemed not to react to the words, but to the judge’s face. He did not move; he stood looking up into the judge’s white face, his eyes not blinking. Then he felt a hand upon his sleeve; Max was pulling him back into his seat. The room was in an uproar. The judge rapped with his gavel. Max was on his feet, trying to say something; there was too much noise and Bigger could not tell what it was. The handcuffs were clicked upon him and he was led through the underground passage back to his cell. He lay on the cot and something deep down in him said, It’s over now…. It’s all over….

  Later on the door opened and Max came in and sat softly beside him on the cot. Bigger turned his face to the wall.

  “I’ll see the Governor, Bigger. It’s not over yet….”

  “Go ’way,” Bigger whispered.

  “You’ve got to….”

  “Naw. Go ’way….”

  He felt Max’s hand on his arm; then it left. He heard the steel door clang shut and he knew that he was alone. He did not stir; he lay still, feeling that by being still he would stave off feeling and thinking, and that was what he wanted above all right now. Slowly, his body relaxed. In the darkness and silence he turned over on his back and crossed his hands upon his chest. His lips moved in a whimper of despair.

  In self-defense he shut out the night and day from his mind, for if he had thought of the sun’s rising and setting, of the moon or the stars, of clouds or rain, he would have died a thousand deaths before they took him to the chair. To accustom his mind to death as much as possible, he made all the world beyond his cell a vast grey land where neither night nor day was, peopled by strange men and women whom he could not understand, but with those lives he longed to mingle once before he went.

  He did not eat now; he simply forced food down his throat without tasting it, to keep the gnawing pain of hunger away, to keep from feeling dizzy. And he did not sleep; at intervals he closed his eyes for a while, no matter what the hour, then opened them at some later time to resume his brooding. He wanted to be free of everything that stood between him and his end, him and the full and terrible realization that life was over without meaning, without anything being settled, without conflicting impulses being resolved.

  His mother and brother and sister had come to see him and he had told them to stay home, not to come again, to forget him. The Negro preacher who had given him the cross had come and he had driven him away. A white priest had tried to persuade him to pray and he had thrown a cup of hot coffee into his face. The priest had come to see other prisoners since then, but had not stopped to talk with him. That had evoked in Bigger a sense of his worth almost as keen as that which Max had roused in him during the long talk that night. He felt that his making the priest stand away from him and wonder about his motives for refusing to accept the consolations of religion was a sort of recognition of his personality on a plane other than that which the priest was ordinarily willing to make.

  Max had told him that he was going to see the Governor, but he had heard no more from him. He did not hope that anything would come of it; he referred to it in
his thoughts and feelings as something happening outside of his life, which could not in any way alter or influence the course of it.

  But he did want to see Max and talk with him again. He recalled the speech Max had made in court and remembered with gratitude the kind, impassioned tone. But the meaning of the words escaped him. He believed that Max knew how he felt, and once more before he died he wanted to talk with him and feel with as much keenness as possible what his living and dying meant. That was all the hope he had now. If there were any sure and firm knowledge for him, it would have to come from himself.

  He was allowed to write three letters a week, but he had written to no one. There was no one to whom he had anything to say, for he had never given himself whole-heartedly to anyone or anything, except murder. What could he say to his mother and brother and sister? Of the old gang, only Jack had been his friend, and he had never been so close to Jack as he would have liked. And Bessie was dead; he had killed her.

  When tired of mulling over his feelings, he would say to himself that it was he who was wrong, that he was no good. If he could have really made himself believe that, it would have been a solution. But he could not convince himself. His feelings clamored for an answer his mind could not give.

  All his life he had been most alive, most himself when he had felt things hard enough to fight for them; and now here in this cell he felt more than ever the hard central core of what he had lived. As the white mountain had once loomed over him, so now the black wall of death loomed closer with each fleeting hour. But he could not strike out blindly now; death was a different and bigger adversary.

  Though he lay on his cot, his hands were groping fumblingly through the city of men for something to match the feelings smoldering in him; his groping was a yearning to know. Frantically, his mind sought to fuse his feelings with the world about him, but he was no nearer to knowing than ever. Only his black body lay here on the cot, wet with the sweat of agony.

  If he were nothing, if this were all, then why could not he die without hesitancy? Who and what was he to feel the agony of a wonder so intensely that it amounted to fear? Why was this strange impulse always throbbing in him when there was nothing outside of him to meet it and explain it? Who or what had traced this restless design in him? Why was this eternal reaching for something that was not there? Why this black gulf between him and the world: warm red blood here and cold blue sky there, and never a wholeness, a oneness, a meeting of the two?

  Was that it? Was it simply fever, feeling without knowing, seeking without finding? Was this the all, the meaning, the end? With these feelings and questions the minutes passed. He grew thin and his eyes held the red blood of his body.

  The eve of his last day came. He longed to talk to Max more than ever. But what could he say to him? Yes; that was the joke of it. He could not talk about this thing, so elusive it was; and yet he acted upon it every living second.

  The next day at noon a guard came to his cell and poked a telegram through the bars. He sat up and opened it.

  BE BRAVE GOVERNOR FAILED DONE

  ALL POSSIBLE SEE YOU SOON

  MAX

  He balled the telegram into a tight knot and threw it into a corner.

  He had from now until midnight. He had heard that six hours before his time came they would give him some more clothes, take him to the barber shop, and then take him to the death cell. He had been told by one of the guards not to worry, that “eight seconds after they take you out of your cell and put that black cap over your eyes, you’ll be dead, boy.” Well, he could stand that. He had in his mind a plan: he would flex his muscles and shut his eyes and hold his breath and think of absolutely nothing while they were handling him. And when the current struck him, it would all be over.

  He lay down again on the cot, on his back, and stared at the tiny bright-yellow electric bulb glowing on the ceiling above his head. It contained the fire of death. If only those tiny spirals of heat inside of that glass globe would wrap round him now—if only someone would attach the wires to his iron cot while he dozed off—if only when he was in a deep dream they would kill him….

  He was in an uneasy sleep when he heard the voice of a guard.

  “Thomas! Here’s your lawyer!”

  He swung his feet to the floor and sat up. Max was standing at the bars. The guard unlocked the door and Max walked in. Bigger had an impulse to rise, but he remained seated. Max came to the center of the floor and stopped. They looked at each other for a moment.

  “Hello, Bigger.”

  Silently, Bigger shook hands with him. Max was before him, quiet, white, solid, real. His tangible presence seemed to belie all the vague thoughts and hopes that Bigger had woven round him in his broodings. He was glad that Max had come, but he was bewildered.

  “How’re you feeling?”

  For an answer, Bigger sighed heavily.

  “You get my wire?” Max asked, sitting on the cot.

  Bigger nodded.

  “I’m sorry, son.”

  There was silence. Max was at his side. The man who had lured him on a quest toward a dim hope was there. Well, why didn’t he speak now? Here was his chance, his last chance. He lifted his eyes shyly to Max’s; Max was looking at him. Bigger looked off. What he wanted to say was stronger in him when he was alone; and though he imputed to Max the feelings he wanted to grasp, he could not talk of them to Max until he had forgotten Max’s presence. Then fear that he would not be able to talk about this consuming fever made him panicky. He struggled for self-control; he did not want to lose this driving impulse; it was all he had. And in the next second he felt that it was all foolish, useless, vain. He stopped trying, and in the very moment he stopped, he heard himself talking with tight throat, in tense, involuntary whispers; he was trusting the sound of his voice rather than the sense of his words to carry his meaning.

  “I’m all right, Mr. Max. You ain’t to blame for what’s happening to me…. I know you did all you could….” Under the pressure of a feeling of futility his voice trailed off. After a short silence he blurted, “I just r-r-reckon I h-had it coming….” He stood up, full now, wanting to talk. His lips moved, but no words came.

  “Is there anything I can do for you, Bigger?” Max asked softly.

  Bigger looked at Max’s grey eyes. How could he get into that man a sense of what he wanted? If he could only tell him! Before he was aware of what he was doing, he ran to the door and clutched the cold steel bars in his hands.

  “I—I….”

  “Yes, Bigger?”

  Slowly, Bigger turned and came back to the cot. He stood before Max again, about to speak, his right hand raised. Then he sat down and bowed his head.

  “What is it, Bigger? Is there anything you want me to do on the outside? Any message you want to send?”

  “Naw,” he breathed.

  “What’s on your mind?”

  “I don’t know.”

  He could not talk. Max reached over and placed a hand on his shoulder, and Bigger could tell by its touch that Max did not know had no suspicion of what he wanted, of what he was trying to say Max was upon another planet, far off in space. Was there any way to break down this wall of isolation? Distractedly, he gazed about the cell, trying to remember where he had heard words that would help him. He could recall none. He had lived outside of the lives of men Their modes of communication, their symbols and images, had been denied him. Yet Max had given him the faith that at bottom all men lived as he lived and felt as he felt. And of all the men he had met, surely Max knew what he was trying to say. Had Max left him? Had Max, knowing that he was to die, thrust him from his thoughts and feelings, assigned him to the grave? Was he already numbered among the dead? His lips quivered and his eyes grew misty. Yes; Max had left him. Max was not a friend. Anger welled in him. But he knew that anger was useless.

  Max rose and went to a small window; a pale bar of sunshine fell across his white head. And Bigger, looking at him, saw that sunshine for the first time in many days;
and as he saw it, the entire cell, with its four close walls, became crushingly real. He glanced down at himself; the shaft of yellow sun cut across his chest with as much weight as a beam forged of lead. With a convulsive gasp, he bent forward and shut his eyes. It was not a white mountain looming over him now; Gus was not whistling “The Merry-Go-Round Broke Down” as he came into Doc’s poolroom to make him go and rob Blum’s; he was not standing over Mary’s bed with the white blur hovering near;—this new adversary did not make him taut; it sapped strength and left him weak. He summoned his energies and lifted his head and struck out desperately, determined to rise from the grave, resolved to force upon Max the reality of his living.

  “I’m glad I got to know you before I go!” he said with almost a shout; then was silent, for that was not what he had wanted to say.

  Max turned and looked at him; it was a casual look, devoid of the deeper awareness that Bigger sought so hungrily.

  “I’m glad I got to know you, too, Bigger. I’m sorry we have to part this way. But I’m old, son. I’ll be going soon myself….”

  “I remembered all them questions you asked me….”

  “What questions?” Max asked, coming and sitting again on the cot.

  “That night….”

  “What night, son?”

  Max did not even know! Bigger felt that he had been slapped. Oh, what a fool he had been to build hope upon such shifting sand! But he had to make him know!

  “That night you asked me to tell all about myself,” he whimpered despairingly.

  “Oh.”

  He saw Max look at the floor and frown. He knew that Max was puzzled.

  “You asked me questions nobody ever asked me before. You knew that I was a murderer two times over, but you treated me like a man….”

  Max looked at him sharply and rose from his cot. He stood in front of Bigger for a moment and Bigger was on the verge of believing that Max knew, understood; but Max’s next words showed him that the white man was still trying to comfort him in the face of death.