Native Son - Richard Wright [192]
“What was the reaction of this sly thug when he learned that he had an opportunity to support himself, his mother, his little sister and his little brother? Was he grateful? Was he glad that he was having something offered to him that ten million men in America would have fallen on their knees and thanked God for?
“No! He cursed his mother! He said that he did not want to work! He wanted to loaf about the streets, steal from newsstands, rob stores, meddle with women, frequent dives, attend cheap movies, and chase prostitutes! That was the reaction of this subhuman killer when he was confronted with the Christian kindness of a man he had never seen!
“His mother prevailed upon him, pled with him; but the plight of his mother, worn out from a life of toil, had no effect upon this hardened black thing. The future of his sister, an adolescent school girl, meant nothing to him. The fact that the job would have enabled his brother to return to school was not enticing to Bigger Thomas.
“But, suddenly, after three days of persuasion by his mother, he consented. Had any of her arguments reached him at long last? Had he begun to feel his duty toward himself and his family? No! Those were not the considerations that drove this rapacious beast from his den into the open! He consented only when his mother informed him that the relief would cut off their supply of food if he did not accept. He agreed to go to work, but forbade his mother to speak to him within the confines of the home, so outraged was he that he had to earn his bread by the sweat of his brow. It was hunger that drove him out, sullen, angry, still longing to stay upon the streets and steal as he had done before, and for which he had once landed in a reform school.
“The counsel for the defendant, with characteristic Communistic cunning, boasted that I could not supply a motive for the crimes of this beast. Well, Your Honor, I shall disappoint him, for I shall divulge the motive.
“On the very day that Bigger Thomas was to report to the Dalton home for work, he saw a newsreel in a movie. This newsreel showed Mary Dalton in a bathing suit upon a Florida beach. Jack Harding, a friend of Bigger Thomas, under persistent questioning, admitted that Bigger Thomas was enthralled by the idea of driving such a girl around the city. Let us be frank and not gloss over words. This Court has already heard of the obnoxious sexual perversions practiced by these boys in darkened theatres. Though Jack Harding would not admit it outright, we got enough information out of him to know that when the shadow of Mary Dalton was moving upon that screen those boys indulged in such an act! It was then that the idea of rape, murder, and ransom entered the mind of this moron! There is your motive and the vile circumstances under which it was conceived!
“After seeing that movie, he went to the Dalton home. He was welcomed there with lavish kindness. He was given a room; he was told that he would receive extra money for himself, over and above his weekly wages. He was fed. He was asked if he wanted to go back to school and learn a trade. But he refused. His mind and heart—if this beast can be said to have a mind and a heart!—were not set upon any such goals.
“Less than an hour after he had been in that house, he met Mary Dalton, who asked him if he wanted to join a union. Mr. Max, whose heart bleeds for labor, did not tell us why his client should have resented that.
“What black thoughts passed through that Negro’s scheming brain the first few moments after he saw that trusting white girl standing before him? We have no way of knowing,