Native Son - Richard Wright [161]
“Why, Bigger?”
“I don’t know, Mr. Max.”
“Bigger, don’t you know they hate others, too?”
“Who they hate?”
“They hate trade unions. They hate folks who try to organize. They hate Jan.”
“But they hate black folks more than they hate unions,” Bigger said. “They don’t treat union folks like they do me.”
“Oh, yes, they do. You think that because your color makes it easy for them to point you out, segregate you, exploit you. But they do that to others, too. They hate me because I’m trying to help you. They’re writing me letters, calling me a ‘dirty Jew.’ ”
“All I know is that they hate me,” Bigger said grimly.
“Bigger, the State’s Attorney gave me a copy of your confession. Now, tell me, did you tell him the truth?”
“Yeah. There wasn’t nothing else to do.”
“Now, tell me this, Bigger. Why did you do it?”
Bigger sighed, shrugged his shoulders and sucked his lungs full of smoke.
“I don’t know,” he said; smoke eddied slowly from his nostrils.
“Did you plan it?”
“Naw.”
“Did anybody help you?”
“Naw.”
“Had you been thinking about doing something like that for a long time?”
“Naw.”
“How did it happen?”
“It just happened, Mr. Max.”
“Are you sorry?”
“What’s the use of being sorry? That won’t help me none.”
“You can’t think of any reason why you did it?”
Bigger was staring straight before him, his eyes wide and shining. His talking to Max had evoked again in him that urge to talk, to tell, to try to make his feelings known. A wave of excitement flooded him. He felt that he ought to be able to reach out with his bare hands and carve from naked space the concrete, solid reasons why he had murdered. He felt them that strongly. If he could do that, he would relax; he would sit and wait until they told him to walk to the chair; and he would walk.
“Mr. Max, I don’t know. I was all mixed up. I was feeling so many things at once.”
“Did you rape her, Bigger?”
“Naw, Mr. Max. I didn’t. But nobody’ll believe me.”
“Had you planned to before Mrs. Dalton came into the room?”
Bigger shook his head and rubbed his hands nervously across his eyes. In a sense he had forgotten Max was in the room. He was trying to feel the texture of his own feelings, trying to tell what they meant.
“Oh, I don’t know. I was feeling a little that way. Yeah, I reckon I was. I was drunk and she was drunk and I was feeling that way.”
“But, did you rape her?”
“Naw. But everybody’ll say I did. What’s the use? I’m black. They say black men do that. So it don’t matter if I did or if I didn’t.”
“How long had you known her?”
“A few hours.”
“Did you like her?”
“Like her?”
Bigger’s voice boomed so suddenly from his throat that Max started. Bigger leaped to his feet; his eyes widened and his hands lifted midway to his face, trembling.
“No! No! Bigger….” Max said.
“Like her? I hated her! So help me God, I hated her!” he shouted.
“Sit down, Bigger!”
“I hate her now, even though she’s dead! God knows, I hate her right now….”
Max grabbed him and pushed him back into the chair.
“Don’t get excited, Bigger. Here; take it easy!”
Bigger quieted, but his eyes roved the room. Finally, he lowered his head and knotted his fingers. His lips were slightly parted.
“You say you hated her?”
“Yeah; and I ain’t sorry she’s dead.”
“But what had she done to you? You say you had just met her.”
“I don’t know. She didn’t do nothing to me.” He paused and ran his hand nervously across his forehead. “She…. It was… Hell, I don’t know. She asked me a lot of questions. She acted and talked in a way that made me hate her. She made me feel like a dog I was so mad I wanted to cry….” His voice trailed off in a plaintive whimper. He licked his lips. He was caught in a net of vague, associative memory: he saw an image of his little sister, Vera, sitting on the edge of a chair crying because he had shamed her by “looking” at her; he saw her rise and fling her shoe at him. He shook his head, confused. “Aw, Mr. Max, she wanted me to tell her how Negroes live. She got into the front seat of the car where I was….”
“But, Bigger, you don’t hate people for that. She