Native Son - Richard Wright [160]
Bigger was silent; he glanced at Max again, and then away.
“What’s on your mind, Bigger?”
“Nothing,” he mumbled.
“Now, listen, Bigger. I want you to tell me all about yourself….”
“Mr. Max, it ain’t no use in you doing nothing!” Bigger blurted.
Max eyed him sharply.
“Do you really feel that way, Bigger?”
“There ain’t no way else to feel.”
“I want to talk to you honestly, Bigger. I see no way out of this but a plea of guilty. We can ask for mercy, for life in prison….”
“I’d rather die!”
“Nonsense. You want to live.”
“For what?”
“Don’t you want to fight this thing?”
“What can I do? They got me.”
“You don’t want to die that way, Bigger.”
“It don’t matter which way I die,” he said; but his voice choked.
“Listen, Bigger, you’re facing a sea of hate now that’s no different from what you’ve faced all your life. And because it’s that way, you’ve got to fight. If they can wipe you out, then they can wipe others out, too.”
“Yeah,” Bigger mumbled, resting his hands upon his knees and staring at the black floor. “But I can’t win.”
“First of all, Bigger. Do you trust me?”
Bigger grew angry.
“You can’t help me, Mr. Max,” he said, looking straight into Max’s eyes.
“But do you trust me, Bigger?” Max asked again.
Bigger looked away. He felt that Max was making it very difficult for him to tell him to leave.
“I don’t know, Mr. Max.”
“Bigger, I know my face is white,” Max said. “And I know that almost every white face you’ve met in your life had it in for you, even when that white face didn’t know it. Every white man considers it his duty to make a black man keep his distance. He doesn’t know why most of the time, but he acts that way. It’s the way things are, Bigger. But I want you to know that you can trust me.”
“It ain’t no use, Mr. Max.”
“You want me to handle your case?”
“You can’t help me none. They got me.”
Bigger knew that Max was trying to make him feel that he accepted the way he looked at things and it made him as self-conscious as when Jan had taken his hand and shaken it that night in the car. It made him live again in that hard and sharp consciousness of his color and feel the shame and fear that went with it, and at the same time it made him hate himself for feeling it. He trusted Max. Was Max not taking upon himself a thing that would make other whites hate him? But he doubted if Max could make him see things in a way that would enable him to go to his death. He doubted that God Himself could give him a picture for that now. As he felt at present, they would have to drag him to the chair, as they had dragged him down the steps the night they captured him. He did not want his feelings tampered with; he feared that he might walk into another trap. If he expressed belief in Max, if he acted on that belief, would it not end just as all other commitments of faith had ended? He wanted to believe; but was afraid. He felt that he should have been able to meet Max halfway; but, as always, when a white man talked to him, he was caught out in No Man’s Land. He sat slumped in his chair with his head down and he looked at Max only when Max’s eyes were not watching him.
“Here; take a cigarette, Bigger.” Max lit Bigger’s and then lit his own; they smoked awhile. “Bigger, I’m your lawyer. I want to talk to you honestly. What you say is in strictest confidence….”
Bigger stared at Max. He felt sorry for the white man. He saw that Max was afraid that he would not talk at all. And he had no desire to hurt Max. Max leaned forward determinedly. Well, tell him. Talk. Get it over with and let Max go.
“Aw, I don’t care what I say or do now….”
“Oh, yes, you do!” Max said quickly.
In a fleeting second an impulse to laugh rose up in Bigger, and left. Max was anxious to help him and he had to die.
“Maybe I do care,” Bigger drawled.
“If you don’t care about what you say or do, then why didn’t you re-enact that crime out at the Dalton home today?”
“I wouldn’t do nothing for them.”
“Why?”
“They hate black