Native Son - Richard Wright [9]
“Hit ’im, Bigger!” Buddy shouted.
“Kill ’im!” the woman screamed.
The rat’s belly pulsed with fear. Bigger advanced a step and the rat emitted a long thin song of defiance, its black beady eyes glittering, its tiny forefeet pawing the air restlessly. Bigger swung the skillet; it skidded over the floor, missing the rat, and clattered to a stop against a wall.
“Goddamn!”
The rat leaped. Bigger sprang to one side. The rat stopped under a chair and let out a furious screak. Bigger moved slowly backward toward the door.
“Gimme that skillet, Buddy,” he asked quietly, not taking his eyes from the rat.
Buddy extended his hand. Bigger caught the skillet and lifted it high in the air. The rat scuttled across the floor and stopped again at the box and searched quickly for the hole; then it reared once more and bared long yellow fangs, piping shrilly, belly quivering.
Bigger aimed and let the skillet fly with a heavy grunt. There was a shattering of wood as the box caved in. The woman screamed and hid her face in her hands. Bigger tiptoed forward and peered.
“I got ’im,” he muttered, his clenched teeth bared in a smile. “By God, I got ’im.”
He kicked the splintered box out of the way and the flat black body of the rat lay exposed, its two long yellow tusks showing distinctly. Bigger took a shoe and pounded the rat’s head, crushing it, cursing hysterically:
“You sonofabitch!”
The woman on the bed sank to her knees and buried her face in the quilts and sobbed:
“Lord, Lord, have mercy….”
“Aw, Mama,” Vera whimpered, bending to her. “Don’t cry. It’s dead now.”
The two brothers stood over the dead rat and spoke in tones of awed admiration.
“Gee, but he’s a big bastard.”
“That sonofabitch could cut your throat.”
“He’s over a foot long.”
“How in hell do they get so big?”
“Eating garbage and anything else they can get.”
“Look, Bigger, there’s a three-inch rip in your pantleg.”
“Yeah; he was after me, all right.”
“Please, Bigger, take ’im out,” Vera begged.
“Aw, don’t be so scary,” Buddy said.
The woman on the bed continued to sob. Bigger took a piece of newspaper and gingerly lifted the rat by its tail and held it out at arm’s length.
“Bigger, take ’im out,” Vera begged again.
Bigger laughed and approached the bed with the dangling rat, swinging it to and fro like a pendulum, enjoying his sister’s fear.
“Bigger!” Vera gasped convulsively; she screamed and swayed and closed her eyes and fell headlong across her mother and rolled limply from the bed to the floor.
“Bigger, for God’s sake!” the mother sobbed, rising and bending over Vera. “Don’t do that! Throw that rat out!”
He laid the rat down and started to dress.
“Bigger, help me lift Vera to the bed,” the mother said.
He paused and turned round.
“What’s the matter?” he asked, feigning ignorance.
“Do what I asked you, will you, boy?”
He went to the bed and helped his mother lift Vera. Vera’s eyes were closed. He turned away and finished dressing. He wrapped the rat in a newspaper and went out of the door and down the stairs and put it into a garbage can at the corner of an alley. When he returned to the room his mother was still bent over Vera, placing a wet towel upon her head. She straightened and faced him, her cheeks and eyes wet with tears and her lips tight with anger.
“Boy, sometimes I wonder what makes you act like you do.”
“What I do now?” he demanded belligerently.
“Sometimes you act the biggest fool I ever saw.”
“What you talking about?”
“You scared your sister with that rat and she fainted! Ain’t you got no sense at all?”
“Aw, I didn’t know she was that scary.”
“Buddy!” the mother called.
“Yessum.”
“Take a newspaper and spread it over that spot.”
“Yessum.”
Buddy opened out a newspaper and covered the smear of blood on the