Native Son - Richard Wright [198]
“How’re you feeling?”
For an answer, Bigger sighed heavily.
“You get my wire?” Max asked, sitting on the cot.
Bigger nodded.
“I’m sorry, son.”
There was silence. Max was at his side. The man who had lured him on a quest toward a dim hope was there. Well, why didn’t he speak now? Here was his chance, his last chance. He lifted his eyes shyly to Max’s; Max was looking at him. Bigger looked off. What he wanted to say was stronger in him when he was alone; and though he imputed to Max the feelings he wanted to grasp, he could not talk of them to Max until he had forgotten Max’s presence. Then fear that he would not be able to talk about this consuming fever made him panicky. He struggled for self-control; he did not want to lose this driving impulse; it was all he had. And in the next second he felt that it was all foolish, useless, vain. He stopped trying, and in the very moment he stopped, he heard himself talking with tight throat, in tense, involuntary whispers; he was trusting the sound of his voice rather than the sense of his words to carry his meaning.
“I’m all right, Mr. Max. You ain’t to blame for what’s happening to me…. I know you did all you could….” Under the pressure of a feeling of futility his voice trailed off. After a short silence he blurted, “I just r-r-reckon I h-had it coming….” He stood up, full now, wanting to talk. His lips moved, but no words came.
“Is there anything I can do for you, Bigger?” Max asked softly.
Bigger looked at Max’s grey eyes. How could he get into that man a sense of what he wanted? If he could only tell him! Before he was aware of what he was doing, he ran to the door and clutched the cold steel bars in his hands.
“I—I….”
“Yes, Bigger?”
Slowly, Bigger turned and came back to the cot. He stood before Max again, about to speak, his right hand raised. Then he sat down and bowed his head.
“What is it, Bigger? Is there anything you want me to do on the outside? Any message you want to send?”
“Naw,” he breathed.
“What’s on your mind?”
“I don’t know.”
He could not talk. Max reached over and placed a hand on his shoulder, and Bigger could tell by its touch that Max did not know had no suspicion of what he wanted, of what he was trying to say Max was upon another planet, far off in space. Was there any way to break down this wall of isolation? Distractedly, he gazed about the cell, trying to remember where he had heard words that would help him. He could recall none. He had lived outside of the lives of men Their modes of communication, their symbols and images, had been denied him. Yet Max had given him the faith that at bottom all men lived as he lived and felt as he felt. And of all the men he had met, surely Max knew what he was trying to say. Had Max left him? Had Max, knowing that he was to die, thrust him from his thoughts and feelings, assigned him to the grave? Was he already numbered among the dead? His lips quivered and his eyes grew misty. Yes; Max had left him. Max was not a friend. Anger welled in him. But he knew that anger was useless.
Max rose and went to a small window; a pale bar of sunshine fell across his white head. And Bigger, looking at him, saw that sunshine for the first time in many days; and as he saw it, the entire cell, with its four close walls, became crushingly real. He glanced down at himself; the shaft of yellow sun cut across his chest with as much weight as a beam forged of lead. With a convulsive gasp, he bent forward and shut his eyes. It was not a white mountain looming over him now; Gus was not whistling “The Merry-Go-Round Broke Down” as he came into Doc’s poolroom to make him go and rob Blum’s; he was not standing over Mary’s bed with the white blur hovering near;—this new adversary did not make him taut; it sapped strength and left him weak. He summoned his energies and lifted his head and struck out desperately, determined to rise from the grave, resolved to force upon Max the reality of his living.
“I’m glad I got to know you before I go!” he said with almost a shout; then was silent, for that was not what he had wanted to