Native Son Part 52

"My G.o.d, what b.l.o.o.d.y scenes must have taken place! How swift and unexpected must have been that l.u.s.tful and murderous attack! How that poor child must have struggled to escape that maddened ape! How she must have pled on bended knee, with tears in her eyes, to be spared the vile touch of his horrible person! Your Honor, must not this infernal monster have burned her body to destroy evidence of offenses worse worse than rape? That treacherous beast must have known that if the marks of his teeth were ever seen on the innocent white flesh of her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, he would not have been accorded the high honor of sitting here in this court of law! O suffering Christ, there are no words to tell of a deed so black and awful! than rape? That treacherous beast must have known that if the marks of his teeth were ever seen on the innocent white flesh of her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, he would not have been accorded the high honor of sitting here in this court of law! O suffering Christ, there are no words to tell of a deed so black and awful!

"And the defense would have us believe that this was an act of creation creation! It is a wonder that G.o.d in heaven did not drown out his lying voice with a thunderous 'NO!' It is enough to make the blood stop flowing in one's veins to hear a man excuse this cowardly and beastly crime on the ground that it was 'instinctive'!

"The next morning Bigger Thomas took Miss Dalton's trunk, half-packed, to the La Salle Street Station and prepared to send it off as though nothing had happened, as though Miss Dalton were still alive. But the bones of Miss Dalton's body were found in the furnace that evening.

"The burning of the body and the taking of the half-packed trunk to the station mean just one thing, Your Honor. It shows that the rape and murder were planned planned, that an attempt was made to destroy evidence so that the crime could be carried on to the point of ransom. If Miss Dalton were accidentally killed, as this Negro so pathetically tried to make us believe when he first 'confessed,' then why did he burn her body? Why did he take her trunk to the station when he knew that she was dead?

"There is but one answer! He planned to rape, to kill, to collect! He burned the body to get rid of evidences of rape rape! He took the trunk to the station to gain time in which to burn the body and prepare the kidnap note. He killed her because he raped raped her! Mind you, Your Honor, the central crime here is her! Mind you, Your Honor, the central crime here is rape rape! Every action points toward that!

"Knowing that the family had called in private investigators, the Negro tried to throw the suspicion elsewhere. In other words, he was not above seeing an innocent man die for his crime. When he could not kill any more, he did the next best thing. He lied! He sought to blame the crime upon one of Miss Dalton's friends, whose political beliefs, he thought, would d.a.m.n him. He told wild lies of taking the two of them, Miss Dalton and her friend, to her room. He said that he had been told to go home and leave the car out in the snow in the driveway all night. Knowing that his lies were being found out, he tried yet another scheme. He tried to collect money!

"Did he flee the scene when the investigators were at work? No! Coldly, without feeling, he stayed on in the Dalton home, ate, slept, basking in the misguided kindness of Mr. Dalton, who refused to allow him to be questioned upon the theory that he was a poor boy who needed protection protection!

"He needed as much protection as you would give a coiled rattler!

"While the family was searching heaven and earth for their daughter, this ghoul writes a kidnap note demanding ten thousand dollars for the safe return safe return of Miss Dalton! But the discovery of the bones in the furnace put that foul dream to an end! of Miss Dalton! But the discovery of the bones in the furnace put that foul dream to an end!

"And the defense would have us believe that this man acted in fear! Has fear, since the beginning of time, driven men to such lengths of calculation?

"Again, we have but the bare word of this worthless ape to go on. He fled the scene and went to the home of a girl, Bessie Mears, with whom he had long been intimate. There something occurred that only a cunning beast could have done. This girl had been frightened into helping him collect the ransom money, and he had placed in her keeping the money he had stolen from the corpse of Mary Dalton. He killed that poor girl, and even yet it staggers my mind to think that such a plan for murder could have been hatched in a human brain. He persuaded this girl, who loved him deeply-despite the a.s.sertions of Mr. Max, that G.o.dless Communist who tried to make you believe otherwise!-as I said, he persuaded this girl who loved him deeply to run away with him. They hid in an abandoned building. And there, with a blizzard raging outside, in the sub-zero cold and darkness, he committed rape and murder again, twice twice in twenty-four hours! in twenty-four hours!

"I repeat, Your Honor, I cannot understand it! I have dealt with many a murderer in my long service to the state, but never have I encountered the equal of this. So eager was this demented savage to rape and kill that he forgot the only thing that might have helped him to escape; that is, the money he had stolen from the dead body of Mary Dalton, which was in the pocket of Bessie Mears' dress. He took the ravished body of that poor working girl-the money was in her dress, I say-and dumped it four floors down an air-shaft. The doctors told us that that girl was not dead when she hit the bottom of that shaft; she froze to death later, trying to climb out!

"Your Honor, I spare you the ghastly details of these murders. The witnesses have told all.

"But I demand, in the name of the people of this state, that this man die for these crimes!

"I demand this so that others may be deterred from similar crimes, so that peaceful and industrious people may be safe. Your Honor, millions are waiting for your word! They are waiting for you to tell them that jungle law does not prevail in this city! They want you to tell them that they need not sharpen their knives and load their guns to protect themselves. They are waiting, Your Honor, beyond that window! Give them your word so that they can, with calm hearts, plan for the future! Slay the dragon of doubt that causes a million hearts to pause tonight, a million hands to tremble as they lock their doors!

"When men are pursuing their normal rounds of duty and a crime as black and b.l.o.o.d.y 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 G.o.d, 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 s.n.a.t.c.h 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 pa.s.sed. 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 pa.s.sed 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 666983, 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 pa.s.sage 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 grat.i.tude the kind, impa.s.sioned 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 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 pa.s.sed. He grew thin and his eyes held the red blood of his body. 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 pa.s.sed. 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 DONEALL POSSIBLE SEE YOU SOONMAX.

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 gla.s.s 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.

"h.e.l.lo, 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?"