Native Son - Richard Wright [11]
He got up and crushed his cigarette upon the window sill. Vera came into the room and placed knives and forks upon the table.
“Get ready to eat, you-all,” the mother called.
He sat at the table. The odor of frying bacon and boiling coffee drifted to him from behind the curtain. His mother’s voice floated to him in song.
Life is like a mountain railroad
With an engineer that’s brave
We must make the run successful
From the cradle to the grave….
The song irked him and he was glad when she stopped and came into the room with a pot of coffee and a plate of crinkled bacon. Vera brought the bread in and they sat down. His mother closed her eyes and lowered her head and mumbled, “Lord, we thank Thee for the food You done placed before us for the nourishment of our bodies. Amen.” She lifted her eyes and without changing her tone of voice, said, “You going to have to learn to get up earlier than this, Bigger, to hold a job.”
He did not answer or look up.
“You want me to pour you some coffee?” Vera asked.
“Yeah.”
“You going to take the job, ain’t you, Bigger?” his mother asked.
He laid down his fork and stared at her.
“I told you last night I was going to take it. How many times you want to ask me?”
“Well, don’t bite her head off,” Vera said. “She only asked you a question.”
“Pass the bread and stop being smart.”
“You know you have to see Mr. Dalton at five-thirty,” his mother said.
“You done said that ten times.”
“I don’t want you to forget, son.”
“And you know how you can forget,” Vera said.
“Aw, lay off Bigger,” Buddy said. “He told you he was going to take the job.”
“Don’t tell ’em nothing,” Bigger said.
“You shut your mouth, Buddy, or get up from this table,” the mother said. “I’m not going to take any stinking sass from you. One fool in the family’s enough.”
“Lay off, Ma,” Buddy said.
“Bigger’s setting here like he ain’t glad to get a job,” she said.
“What you want me to do? Shout?” Bigger asked.
“Oh, Bigger!” his sister said.
“I wish you’d keep your big mouth out of this!” he told his sister.
“If you get that job,” his mother said in a low, kind tone of voice, busy slicing a loaf of bread, “I can fix up a nice place for you children. You could be comfortable and not have to live like pigs.”
“Bigger ain’t decent enough to think of nothing like that,” Vera said.
“God, I wish you-all would let me eat,” Bigger said.
His mother talked on as though she had not heard him and he stopped listening.
“Ma’s talking to you, Bigger,” Vera said.
“So what?”
“Don’t be that way, Bigger!”
He laid down his fork and his strong black fingers gripped the edge of the table; there was silence save for the tinkling of his brother’s fork against a plate. He kept staring at his sister till her eyes fell.
“I wish you’d let me eat,” he said again.
As he ate he felt that they were thinking of the job he was to get that evening and it made him angry; he felt that they had tricked him into a cheap surrender.
“I need some carfare,” he said.
“Here’s all I got,” his mother said, pushing a quarter to the side of his plate.
He put the quarter in his pocket and drained his cup of coffee in one long swallow. He got his coat and cap and went to the door.
“You know, Bigger,” his mother said, “if you don’t take that job the relief’ll cut us off. We won’t have any food.”
“I told you I’d take it!” he shouted and slammed the door.
He went down the steps into the vestibule and stood looking out into the street through the plate glass of the front door. Now and then a street car rattled past over steel tracks. He was sick of his life at home. Day in and day out there was nothing but shouts and bickering. But what could he do? Each time he asked himself that question his mind hit a blank wall and he stopped thinking. Across the street directly in front of him, he saw a truck pull to a stop at the curb and two white men in overalls got out with