Native Son Part 40

"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 s.h.i.+fted his feet and listened to the faint clang of another street car pa.s.sing. The man leaned forward, caught hold of Bigger's arm and spoke while shaking him.

"You're hurting n.o.body 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 am telling the truth!" 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 Sat.u.r.day?"

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?"

"n.o.body."

"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 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?" 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 Sat.u.r.day 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 n.o.body 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. Tell 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 over with." 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 Sat.u.r.day, 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. n.o.body 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 pus.h.i.+ng 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 circ.u.mstances 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 s.p.a.ce, 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 sonofab.i.t.c.h!"

"Gee, isn't he black black!"

"Kill 'im!"