Native Son - Richard Wright [37]
“You know, Bigger, I’ve long wanted to go into these houses,” she said, pointing to the tall, dark apartment buildings looming to either side of them, “and just see how your people live. You know what I mean? I’ve been to England, France and Mexico, but I don’t know how people live ten blocks from me. We know so little about each other. I just want to see. I want to know these people. Never in my life have I been inside of a Negro home. Yet they must live like we live. They’re human…. There are twelve million of them…. They live in our country…. In the same city with us….” her voice trailed off wistfully.
There was silence. The car sped through the Black Belt, past tall buildings holding black life. Bigger knew that they were thinking of his life and the life of his people. Suddenly he wanted to seize some heavy object in his hand and grip it with all the strength of his body and in some strange way rise up and stand in naked space above the speeding car and with one final blow blot it out—with himself and them in it. His heart was beating fast and he struggled to control his breath. This thing was getting the better of him; he felt that he should not give way to his feelings like this. But he could not help it. Why didn’t they leave him alone? What had he done to them? What good could they get out of sitting here making him feel so miserable?
“Tell me where it is, Bigger,” Jan said.
“Yessuh.”
Bigger looked out and saw that they were at Forty-sixth Street.
“It’s at the end of the next block, suh.”
“Can I park along here somewhere?”
“Oh; yessuh.”
“Bigger, please! Don’t say sir to me…. I don’t like it. You’re a man just like I am; I’m no better than you. Maybe other white men like it. But I don’t. Look, Bigger….”
“Yes….” Bigger paused, swallowed, and looked down at his black hands. “O.K.,” he mumbled, hoping that they did not hear the choke in his voice.
“You see, Bigger….” Jan began.
Mary reached her hand round back of Bigger and touched Jan’s shoulder.
“Let’s get out,” she said hurriedly.
Jan pulled the car to the curb and opened the door and stepped out. Bigger slipped behind the steering wheel again, glad to have room at last for his arms and legs. Mary got out of the other door. Now, he could get some rest. So intensely taken up was he with his own immediate sensations, that he did not look up until he felt something strange in the long silence. When he did look he saw, in a split second of time, Mary turn her eyes away from his face. She was looking at Jan and Jan was looking at her. There was no mistaking the meaning of the look in their eyes. To Bigger it was plainly a bewildered and questioning look, a look that asked: What on earth is wrong with him? Bigger’s teeth clamped tight and he stared straight before him.
“Aren’t you coming with us, Bigger?” Mary asked in a sweet tone that made him want to leap at her.
The people in Ernie’s Kitchen Shack knew him and he did not want them to see him with these white people. He knew that if he went in they would ask one another: Who’re them white folks Bigger’s hanging around with?
“I—I…. I don’t want to go in….” he whispered breathlessly.
“Aren’t you hungry?” Jan asked.
“Naw; I ain’t hungry.”
Jan and Mary came close to the car.
“Come and sit with us anyhow,” Jan said.
“I…. I….” Bigger stammered.
“It’ll be all right,” Mary said.
“I can stay here. Somebody has to watch the car,” he said.
“Oh, to hell with the car!” Mary said. “Come on in.”
“I don’t want to eat,” Bigger said stubbornly.