Native Son - Richard Wright [176]
“How long will it last?”
“I don’t know, Bigger. You’ll have to be brave and hold up.”
“I wish it was over.”
“This is your life, Bigger. You got to fight.”
“I don’t care what they do to me. I wish it was over.”
The next morning they woke him, fed him, and took him back to court. Jan came to the stand and said what he had said at the inquest. Buckley made no attempt to link Jan with the murder of Mary. G.H. and Gus and Jack told of how they used to steal from stores and newsstands, of the fight they had had the morning they planned to rob Blum’s. Doc told of how Bigger had cut the cloth of his pool table and said that Bigger was “mean and bad, but sane.” Sixteen policemen pointed him out as “the man we captured, Bigger Thomas.” They said that a man who could elude the law as skilfully as Bigger had was “sane and responsible.” A man whom Bigger recognized as the manager of the Regal Theatre told how Bigger and boys like him masturbated in the theatre, and of how he had been afraid to speak to them about it, for fear that they might start a fight and cut him. A man from the juvenile court said that Bigger had served three months in a reform school for stealing auto tires.
There was a recess and in the afternoon five doctors said that they thought Bigger was “sane, but sullen and contrary.” Buckley brought forth the knife and purse Bigger had hidden in the garbage pail and informed the Court that the city’s dump had been combed for four days to find them. The brick he had used to strike Bessie with was shown; then came the flashlight, the Communist pamphlets, the gun, the blackened earring, the hatchet blade, the signed confession, the kidnap note, Bessie’s bloody clothes, the stained pillows and quilts, the trunk, and the empty rum bottle which had been found in the snow near a curb. Mary’s bones were brought in and women in the court room began to sob. Then a group of twelve workmen brought in the furnace, piece by piece, from the Dalton basement and mounted it upon a giant wooden platform. People in the room stood to look and the judge ordered them to sit down.
Buckley had a white girl, the size of Mary, crawl inside of the furnace “to prove beyond doubt that it could and did hold and burn the ravished body of innocent Mary Dalton; and to show that the poor girl’s head could not go in and the sadistic Negro cut it off.” Using an iron shovel from the Dalton basement, Buckley showed how the bones had been raked out; explained how Bigger had “craftily crept up the stairs during the excitement and taken flight.” Mopping sweat from his face, Buckley said,
“The State rests, Your Honor!”
“Mr. Max,” the judge said. “You may proceed to call your witnesses.”
“The defense does not contest the evidence introduced here,” Max said. “I therefore waive the right to call witnesses. As I stated before, at the proper time I shall present a plea in Bigger Thomas’ behalf.”
The judge informed Buckley that he could sum up. For an hour Buckley commented upon the testimony of the State’s witnesses and interpreted the evidence, concluding with the words,
“The intellectual and moral faculties of mankind may as well be declared impotent, if the evidence and testimony submitted by the State are not enough to compel this Court to impose the death sentence upon Bigger Thomas, this despoiler of women!”
“Mr. Max, will you be prepared to present your plea tomorrow?” the judge asked.
“I will, Your Honor.”
Back in his cell, Bigger tumbled lifelessly onto his cot. Soon it’ll all be over, he thought. Tomorrow might be the last day; he hoped so. His sense of time was gone; night and day were merged now.
The next morning he was awake in his cell when Max came. On his way to court he wondered what Max would say about him. Could Max really save his life? In the act of thinking the thought, he thrust it from him. If he kept hope from his mind, then whatever happened would seem natural. As he was led down the hall, past windows, he saw that the mob and the troops still surrounded the court house. The building was still jammed with muttering people.