Native Son - Richard Wright [16]
Bigger doubled his fist and struck his solar plexus.
“Right down here in my stomach,” he said.
Gus looked at Bigger searchingly, then away, as though ashamed.
“Yeah; I know what you mean,” he whispered.
“Every time I think of ’em, I feel ’em,” Bigger said.
“Yeah; and in your chest and throat, too,” Gus said.
“It’s like fire.”
“And sometimes you can’t hardly breathe….”
Bigger’s eyes were wide and placid, gazing into space.
“That’s when I feel like something awful’s going to happen to me….” Bigger paused, narrowed his eyes. “Naw; it ain’t like something going to happen to me. It’s…. It’s like I was going to do something I can’t help….”
“Yeah!” Gus said with uneasy eagerness. His eyes were full of a look compounded of fear and admiration for Bigger. “Yeah; I know what you mean. It’s like you going to fall and don’t know where you going to land….”
Gus’s voice trailed off. The sun slid behind a big white cloud and the street was plunged in cool shadow; quickly the sun edged forth again and it was bright and warm once more. A long sleek black car, its fenders glinting like glass in the sun, shot past them at high speed and turned a corner a few blocks away. Bigger pursed his lips and sang:
“Zoooooooooom!”
“They got everything,” Gus said.
“They own the world,” Bigger said.
“Aw, what the hell,” Gus said. “Let’s go in the poolroom.”
“O.K.”
They walked toward the door of the poolroom.
“Say, you taking that job you told us about?” Gus asked.
“I don’t know.”
“You talk like you don’t want it.”
“Oh, hell, yes! I want the job,” Bigger said.
They looked at each other and laughed. They went inside. The poolroom was empty, save for a fat, black man who held a half smoked, unlit cigar in his mouth and leaned on the front counter. To the rear burned a single green-shaded bulb.
“Hi, Doc,” Bigger said.
“You boys kinda early this morning,” Doc said.
“Jack or G.H. around yet?” Bigger asked.
“Naw,” Doc said.
“Let’s shoot a game,” Gus said.
“I’m broke,” Bigger said.
“I got some money.”
“Switch on the light. The balls are racked,” Doc said.
Bigger turned on the light. They lagged for first shot. Bigger won. They started playing. Bigger’s shots were poor; he was thinking of Blum’s, fascinated with the idea of the robbery, and a little afraid of it.
“Remember what we talked about so much?” Bigger asked in a flat, neutral tone.
“Naw.”
“Old Blum.”
“Oh,” Gus said. “We ain’t talked about that for a month. How come you think of it all of a sudden?”
“Let’s clean the place out.”
“I don’t know.”
“It was your plan from the start,” Bigger said.
Gus straightened and stared at Bigger, then at Doc who was looking out of the front window.
“You going to tell Doc? Can’t you never learn to talk low?”
“Aw, I was just asking you, do you want to try it?”
“Naw.”
“How come? You scared ’cause he’s a white man?”
“Naw. But Blum keeps a gun. Suppose he beats us to it?”
“Aw, you scared; that’s all. He’s a white man and you scared.”
“The hell I’m scared,” Gus, hurt and stung, defended himself.
Bigger went to Gus and placed an arm about his shoulders.
“Listen, you won’t have to go in. You just stand at the door and keep watch, see? Me and Jack and G.H.’ll go in. If anybody comes along, you whistle and we’ll go out the back way. That’s all.”
The front door opened; they stopped talking and turned their heads.
“Here comes Jack and G.H. now,” Bigger said.
Jack and G.H. walked to the rear of the poolroom.
“What you guys doing?” Jack asked.
“Shooting a game. Wanna play?” Bigger asked.
“You asking ’em to play and I’m paying for the game,” Gus said.
They all laughed and Bigger laughed with them but stopped quickly. He felt that the joke was on him and he took a seat alongside the wall and propped his feet upon the rungs of a chair, as though he had not heard. Gus and G.H. kept on laughing.
“You niggers is crazy,” Bigger said. “You laugh like monkeys and you ain’t got nerve enough to do nothing but talk.”
“What you mean?” G.H. asked.
“I got a haul all figured out,” Bigger said.
“What haul?”
“Old Blum’s.”