Native Son - Richard Wright [164]
“Did you ever hope for anything, Bigger?”
“What for? I couldn’t get it. I’m black,” he mumbled.
“Didn’t you ever want to be happy?”
“Yeah; I guess so,” he said, straightening.
“How did you think you could be happy?”
“I don’t know. I wanted to do things. But everything I wanted to do I couldn’t. I wanted to do what the white boys in school did. Some of ’em went to college. Some of’em went to the army. But I couldn’t go.”
“But still, you wanted to be happy?”
“Yeah; sure. Everybody wants to be happy, I reckon.”
“Did you think you ever would be?”
“I don’t know. I just went to bed at night and got up in the morning. I just lived from day to day. I thought maybe I would be.”
“How?”
“I don’t know,” he said in a voice that was almost a moan.
“What did you think happiness would be like?”
“I don’t know. It wouldn’t be like this.”
“You ought to have some idea of what you wanted, Bigger.”
“Well, Mr. Max, if I was happy I wouldn’t always be wanting to do something I know I couldn’t do.”
“And why did you always want to?”
“I couldn’t help it. Everybody feels that way, I reckon. And I did, too. Maybe I would’ve been all right if I could’ve done something I wanted to do. I wouldn’t be scared then. Or mad, maybe. I wouldn’t be always hating folks; and maybe I’d feel at home, sort of.”
“Did you ever go to the South Side Boys’ Club, the place where Mr. Dalton sent those ping-pong tables?”
“Yeah; but what the hell can a guy do with ping-pong?”
“Do you feel that that club kept you out of trouble?”
Bigger cocked his head.
“Kept me out of trouble?” he repeated Max’s words. “Naw; that’s where we planned most of our jobs.”
“Did you ever go to church, Bigger?”
“Yeah; when I was little. But that was a long time ago.”
“Your folks were religious?”
“Yeah; they went to church all the time.”
“Why did you stop going?”
“I didn’t like it. There was nothing in it. Aw, all they did was sing and shout and pray all the time. And it didn’t get ’em nothing. All the colored folks do that, but it don’t get ’em nothing. The white folks got everything.”
“Did you ever feel happy in church?”
“Naw. I didn’t want to. Nobody but poor folks get happy in church.”
“But you are poor, Bigger.”
Again Bigger’s eyes lit with a bitter and feverish pride.
“I ain’t that poor,” he said.
“But Bigger, you said that if you were where people did not hate you and you did not hate them, you could be happy. Nobody hated you in church. Couldn’t you feel at home there?”
“I wanted to be happy in this world, not out of it. I didn’t want that kind of happiness. The white folks like for us to be religious, then they can do what they want to with us.”
“A little while ago you spoke of God ‘getting you’ for killing those women. Does that mean you believe in Him?”
“I don’t know.”
“Aren’t you afraid of what’ll happen to you after you die?”
“Naw. But I don’t want to die.”
“Didn’t you know that the penalty for killing that white woman would be death?”
“Yeah; I knew it. But I felt like she was killing me, so I didn’t care.”
“If you could be happy in religion now, would you want to be?”
“Naw. I’ll be dead soon enough. If I was religious, I’d be dead now.”
“But the church promises eternal life?”
“That’s for whipped folks.”
“You don’t feel like you’ve had a chance, do you?”
“Naw; but I ain’t asking nobody to be sorry for me. Naw; I ain’t asking that at all. I’m black. They don’t give black people a chance, so I took a chance and lost. But I don’t care none now. They got me and it’s all over.”
“Do you feel, Bigger, that somehow, somewhere, or sometime or other you’ll have a chance to make up for what you didn’t get here on earth?”
“Hell, naw! When they strap me in that chair and turn on the heat, I’m through, for always.”
“Bigger, I want to ask you something about your race. Do you love your people?”
“I don’t know, Mr. Max. We all black and the white folks treat us the same.”
“But Bigger, your race is doing things for you. There are Negroes leading your people.”
“Yeah; I know. I heard about ’em. They all