Native Son - Richard Wright [156]
“You black ape!”
“Shoot that bastard!”
He felt hot spittle splashing against his face. Somebody tried to leap at him, but was caught by the policemen and held back. As he stumbled along a high bright object caught his eyes; he looked up. Atop a building across the street, above the heads of the people, loomed a flaming cross. At once he knew that it had something to do with him. But why should they burn a cross? As he gazed at it he remembered the sweating face of the black preacher in his cell that morning talking intensely and solemnly of Jesus, of there being a cross for him, a cross for everyone, and of how the lowly Jesus had carried the cross, paving the way, showing how to die, how to love and live the life eternal. But he had never seen a cross burning like that one upon the roof. Were white people wanting him to love Jesus, too? He heard the wind whipping the flames. No! That was not right; they ought not burn a cross. He stood in front of the car, waiting for them to push him in, his eyes wide with astonishment, his impulses deadlocked, trying to remember something.
“He’s looking at it!”
“He sees it!”
The eyes and faces about him were not at all the way the black preacher’s had been when he had prayed about Jesus and His love, about His dying upon the cross. The cross the preacher had told him about was bloody, not flaming; meek, not militant. It had made him feel awe and wonder, not fear and panic. It had made him want to kneel and cry, but this cross made him want to curse and kill. Then he became conscious of the cross that the preacher had hung round his throat; he felt it nestling against the skin of his chest, an image of the same cross that blazed in front of his eyes high upon the roof against the cold blue sky, its darting tongues of fire lashed to a hissing fury by the icy wind.
“Burn ’im!”
“Kill ’im!”
It gripped him: that cross was not the cross of Christ, but the cross of the Ku Klux Klan. He had a cross of salvation round his throat and they were burning one to tell him that they hated him! No! He did not want that! Had the preacher trapped him? He felt betrayed. He wanted to tear the cross from his throat and throw it away. They lifted him into the waiting car and he sat between two policemen, still looking fearfully at the fiery cross. The sirens screamed and the cars rolled slowly through the crowded streets and he was feeling the cross that touched his chest, like a knife pointed at his heart. His fingers ached to rip it off; it was an evil and black charm which would surely bring him death now. The cars screamed up State Street, then westward on Twenty-sixth Street, one behind the other. People paused on the sidewalks to look. Ten minutes later they stopped in front of a huge white building; he was led up steps, down hallways and then halted in front of a cell door. He was pushed inside; the handcuffs were unlocked and the door clanged shut. The men lingered, looking at him curiously.
With bated breath he tore his shirt open, not caring who saw him. He gripped the cross and snatched it from his throat. He threw it away, cursing a curse that was almost a scream.
“I don’t want it!”
The men gasped and looked at him, amazed.
“Don’t throw that away, boy. That’s your cross!”
“I can die without a cross!”
“Only God can help you now, boy. You’d better get your soul right!”
“I ain’t got no soul!”
One of the men picked up the cross and brought it back.
“Here, boy; keep this. This is God’s cross!”
“I don’t care!”
“Aw, leave ’im alone!” one of the men said.
They left, dropping the cross just inside the cell door. He picked it up and threw it away again. He leaned weakly against the bars, spent. What were they trying to do to him? He lifted his head, hearing