Native Son - Richard Wright [70]
“But, Bigger, honey…. Let’s don’t do that. We getting along all right like we is now….”
He drew his hand away.
“I’m going,” he said.
“When I’ll see you, honey?”
“I don’t know.”
He started off again and she overtook him and encircled him with her arms.
“Bigger, honey….”
“Come on, Bessie. What you going to do?”
She looked at him with round, helpless black eyes. He was still poised, wondering if she would pull him toward her, or let him fall alone. He was enjoying her agony, seeing and feeling the worth of himself in her bewildered desperation. Her lips trembled and she began to cry.
“What you going to do?” he asked again.
“If I do it, it’s ’cause you want me to,” she sobbed.
He put his arm about her shoulders.
“Come on, Bessie,” he said. “Don’t cry.”
She stopped and dried her eyes; he looked at her closely. She’ll do it, he thought.
“I got to go,” he said.
“I ain’t going in right now.”
“Where you going?”
He found that he was afraid of what she did, now that she was working with him. His peace of mind depended upon knowing what she did and why.
“I’m going to get a pint.”
That was all right; she was feeling as he knew she always felt.
“Well, I’ll see you tomorrow night, hunh?”
“O.K., honey. But be careful.”
“Look, Bessie, don’t you worry none. Just trust me. No matter what happens, they won’t catch us. And they won’t even know you had anything to do with it.”
“If they start after us, where could we hide, Bigger? You know we’s black. We can’t go just anywhere.”
He looked round the lamp-lit, snow-covered street.
“There’s plenty of places,” he said. “I know the South Side from A to Z. We could even hide out in one of those old buildings, see? Like I did last time. Nobody ever looks into ’em.”
He pointed across the street to a black, looming empty apartment building.
“Well,” she sighed.
“I’m going,” he said.
“So long, honey.”
He walked toward the car line; when he looked back he saw her still standing in the snow; she had not moved. She’ll be all right, he thought. She’ll go along.
Snow was falling again; the streets were long paths leading through a dense jungle, lit here and there with torches held high in invisible hands. He waited ten minutes for a car and none came. He turned the corner and walked, his head down, his hands dug into his pockets, going to Dalton’s.
He was confident. During the last day and night new fears had come, but new feelings had helped to allay those fears. The moment when he had stood above Mary’s bed and found that she was dead the fear of electrocution had entered his flesh and blood. But at home at the breakfast table with his mother and sister and brother, seeing how blind they were; and overhearing Peggy and Mrs. Dalton talking in the kitchen, a new feeling had been born in him, a feeling that all but blotted out the fear of death. As long as he moved carefully and knew what he was about, he could handle things, he thought. As long as he could take his life into his own hands and dispose of it as he pleased, as long as he could decide just when and where he would run to, he need not be afraid.
He felt that he had his destiny in his grasp. He was more alive than he could ever remember having been; his mind and attention were pointed, focused toward a goal. For the first time in his life he moved consciously between two sharply defined poles: he was moving away from the threatening penalty of death, from the deathlike times that brought him that tightness and hotness in his chest; and he was moving toward that sense of fullness he had so often but inadequately felt in magazines and movies.
The shame and fear and hate which Mary and Jan and Mr. Dalton and that huge rich house had made rise so hard and hot in him had now cooled