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By Root 14116 0

’m going to try…. This thing hit me like a bomb. It t-t-took me all week to get myself together. They had me in jail and I couldn’t for the life of me figure out what was happening…. I—I don’t want to worry you, Bigger. I know you’re in trouble. But there’s something I just got to say…. You needn’t talk to me unless you want to, Bigger. I think I know something of what you’re feeling now. I’m not dumb, Bigger; I can understand, even if I didn’t seem to understand that night….” Jan paused, swallowed, and lit a cigarette. “Well, you jarred me…. I see now. I was kind of blind. I—I just wanted to come here and tell you that I’m not angry…. I’m not angry and I want you to let me help you. I don’t hate you for trying to blame this thing on me…. Maybe you had good reasons…. I don’t know. And maybe in a certain sense, I’m the one who’s really guilty….” Jan paused again and sucked long and hard at his cigarette, blew the smoke out slowly and nervously bit his lips. “Bigger, I’ve never done anything against you and your people in my life. But I’m a white man and it would be asking too much to ask you not to hate me, when every white man you see hates you. I—I know my…. my face looks like theirs to you, even though I don’t feel like they do. But I didn’t know we were so far apart until that night…. I can understand now why you pulled that gun on me when I waited outside that house to talk to you. It was the only thing you could have done; but I didn’t know my white face was making you feel guilty, condemning you….” Jan’s lips hung open, but no words came from them; his eyes searched the corners of the room.

Bigger sat silently, bewildered, feeling that he was on a vast blind wheel being turned by stray gusts of wind. The preacher came forward.

“Is yuh Mistah Erlone?”

“Yes,” said Jan, turning.

“Tha’ wuz a mighty fine thing you jus’ said, suh. Ef anybody needs he’p, this po’ boy sho does. Ah’m Reveren’ Hammon’.”

Bigger saw Jan and the preacher shake hands.

“Though this thing hurt me, I got something out of it,” Jan said, sitting down and turning to Bigger. “It made me see deeper into men. It made me see things I knew, but had forgotten. I—I lost something, but I got something, too….” Jan tugged at his tie and the room was silent, waiting for him to speak. “It taught me that it’s your right to hate me, Bigger. I see now that you couldn’t do anything else but that; it was all you had. But, Bigger, if I say you got the right to hate me, then that ought to make things a little different, oughtn’t it? Ever since I got out of jail I’ve been thinking this thing over and I felt that I’m the one who ought to be in jail for murder instead of you. But that can’t be, Bigger. I can’t take upon myself the blame for what one hundred million people have done.” Jan leaned forward and stared at the floor. “I’m not trying to make up to you, Bigger. I didn’t come here to feel sorry for you. I don’t suppose you’re so much worse off than the rest of us who get tangled up in this world. I’m here because I’m trying to live up to this thing as I see it. And it isn’t easy, Bigger. I—I loved that girl you killed. I—I loved….” His voice broke and Bigger saw his lips tremble. “I was in jail grieving for Mary and then I thought of all the black men who’ve been killed, the black men who had to grieve when their people were snatched from them in slavery and since slavery. I thought that if they could stand it, then I ought to.” Jan crushed the cigarette with his shoe. “At first, I thought old man Dalton was trying to frame me, and I wanted to kill him. And when I heard that you’d done it, I wanted to kill you. And then I got to thinking. I saw if I killed, this thing would go on and on and never stop. I said, ‘I’m going to help that guy, if he lets me.’ ”

“May Gawd in heaven bless yuh, son,” the preacher said.

Jan lit another cigarette and offered one to Bigger; but Bigger refused by keeping his hands folded in front of him and staring stonily at the floor. Jan’s words were strange; he had never heard such talk before. The meaning of what Jan had said was so new that he could not react to it; he simply sat, staring, wondering, afraid even to look at Jan.