Native Son - Richard Wright [51]
“He makes me feel like a dog,” Vera sobbed with her face buried in her hands, going behind the curtain.
“Boy,” said Buddy, “I tried to keep awake till you got in last night, but I couldn’t. I had to go to bed at three. I was so sleepy I could hardly keep my eyes open.”
“I was here before then,” Bigger said.
“Aw, naw! I was up….”
“I know when I got in!”
They looked at each other in silence.
“O.K.,” Buddy said.
Bigger was uneasy. He felt that he was not handling himself right.
“You get the job?” Buddy asked.
“Yeah.”
“Driving?”
“Yeah.”
“What kind of a car is it?”
“A Buick.”
“Can I ride with you some time?”
“Sure; soon as I get settled.”
Buddy’s questions made him feel a little more at ease; he always liked the adoration Buddy showed him.
“Gee! That’s the kind of job I want,” Buddy said.
“It’s easy.”
“Will you see if you can find me one?”
“Sure. Give me time.”
“Got a cigarette?”
“Yeah.”
They were silent, smoking. Bigger was thinking of the furnace. Had Mary burned? He looked at his watch; it was seven o’clock. Ought he go over right now, without waiting for breakfast? Maybe he had left something lying round that would let them know Mary was dead. But if they slept late on Sunday mornings, as Mr. Dalton had said, they would have no reason to be looking round down there.
“Bessie was by last night,” Buddy said.
“Yeah?”
“She said she saw you in Ernie’s Kitchen Shack with some white folks.”
“Yeah. I was driving ’em last night.”
“She was talking about you and her getting married.”
“Humph!”
“How come gals that way, Bigger? Soon’s a guy get a good job, they want to marry?”
“Damn if I know.”
“You got a good job now. You can get a better gal than Bessie,” Buddy said.
Although he agreed with Buddy, he said nothing.
“I’m going to tell Bessie!” Vera called.
“If you do, I’ll break your neck,” Bigger said.
“Hush that kind of talk in here,” the mother said.
“Oh, yeah,” Buddy said. “I met Jack last night. He said you almost murdered old Gus.”
“I ain’t having nothing to do with that gang no more,” Bigger said emphatically.
“But Jack’s all right,” Buddy said.
“Well, Jack, but none of the rest.”
Gus and G.H. and Jack seemed far away to Bigger now, in another life, and all because he had been in Dalton’s home for a few hours and had killed a white girl. He looked round the room, seeing it for the first time. There was no rug on the floor and the plastering on the walls and ceiling hung loose in many places. There were two worn iron beds, four chairs, an old dresser, and a drop-leaf table on which they ate. This was much different from Dalton’s home. Here all slept in one room; there he would have a room for himself alone. He smelt food cooking and remembered that one could not smell food cooking in Dalton’s home; pots could not be heard rattling all over the house. Each person lived in one room and had a little world of his own. He hated this room and all the people in it, including himself. Why did he and his folks have to live like this? What had they ever done? Perhaps they had not done anything. Maybe they had to live this way precisely because none of them in all their lives had ever done anything, right or wrong, that mattered much.
“Fix the table, Vera. Breakfast’s ready,” the mother called.
“Yessum.”
Bigger sat at the table and waited for food. Maybe this would be the last time he would eat here. He felt it keenly and it helped him to have patience. Maybe some day he would be eating in jail. Here he was sitting with them and they did not know that he had murdered a white girl and cut her head off and burnt her body. The thought of what he had done, the awful horror of it, the daring associated with such actions, formed for him for the first time in his fear-ridden life a barrier of protection between him and a world he feared. He had murdered and had created a new life for himself. It was something that was all his own, and it was the first time in his life he had had anything that others could not take from him. Yes; he could sit here calmly and eat and not be concerned about what