Native Son - Richard Wright [200]
“Bigger,” Max said helplessly.
Bigger grew still and leaned weakly against the door.
“Mr. Max, I know the folks who sent me here to die hated me; I know that. B-b-but you reckon th-they was like m-me, trying to g-get something like I was, and when I’m dead and gone they’ll be saying like I’m saying now that they didn’t mean to hurt nobody…th-that they was t-trying to get something, too….?”
Max did not answer. Bigger saw a look of indecision and wonder come into the old man’s eyes.
“Tell me, Mr. Max. You think they was?”
“Bigger,” Max pleaded.
“Tell me, Mr. Max!”
Max shook his head and mumbled,
“You’re asking me to say things I don’t want to say….”
“But I want to know!”
“You’re going to die, Bigger….”
Max’s voice faded. Bigger knew that the old man had not wanted to say that; he had said it because he had pushed him, had made him say it. They were silent for a moment longer, then Bigger whispered,
“That’s why I want to know…. I reckon it’s ’cause I know I’m going to die that makes me want to know….”
Max’s face was ashy. Bigger feared that he was going to leave. Across a gulf of silence, they looked at each other. Max sighed.
“Come here, Bigger,” he said.
He followed Max to the window and saw in the distance the tips of sun-drenched buildings in the Loop.
“See all those buildings, Bigger?” Max asked, placing an arm about Bigger’s shoulders. He spoke hurriedly, as though trying to mold a substance which was warm and pliable, but which might soon cool.
“Yeah. I see ’em….”
“You lived in one of them once, Bigger. They’re made out of steel and stone. But the steel and stone don’t hold ’em together. You know what holds those buildings up, Bigger? You know what keeps them in their place, keeps them from tumbling down?”
Bigger looked at him, bewildered.
“It’s the belief of men. If men stopped believing, stopped having faith, they’d come tumbling down. Those buildings sprang up out of the hearts of men, Bigger. Men like you. Men kept hungry, kept needing, and those buildings kept growing and unfolding. You once told me you wanted to do a lot of things. Well, that’s the feeling that keeps those buildings in their places….”
“You mean…. You talking about what I said that night, when I said I wanted to do a lot of things?” Bigger’s voice came quiet, childlike in its tone of hungry wonder.
“Yes. What you felt, what you wanted, is what keeps those buildings standing there. When millions of men are desiring and longing, those buildings grow and unfold. But, Bigger, those buildings aren’t growing any more. A few men are squeezing those buildings tightly in their hands. The buildings can’t unfold, can’t feed the dreams men have, men like you…. The men on the inside of those buildings have begun to doubt, just as you did. They don’t believe any more. They don’t feel it’s their world. They’re restless, like you, Bigger. They have nothing. There’s nothing through which they can grow and unfold. They go in the streets and they stand outside of those buildings and look and wonder….”
“B-b-but what they hate me for?” Bigger asked.
“The men who own those buildings are afraid. They want to keep what they own, even if it makes others suffer. In order to keep it, they push men down in the mud and tell them that they are beasts. But men, men like you, get angry and fight to re-enter those buildings, to live again. Bigger, you killed. That was wrong. That was not the way to do it. It’s too late now for you to…work with…others who are t-trying to…believe and make the world live again…. But it’s not too late to believe what you felt, to understand what you felt….”
Bigger was gazing in the direction of the buildings; but he did not see them. He was trying to react to the picture Max was drawing, trying to compare that picture with what he had felt all his life.
“I always wanted to do something,” he mumbled.
They were silent and Max did not speak again until Bigger looked at him. Max