Native Son - Richard Wright [14]
“Yessuh.”
“Send the Fifth, Sixth, and Seventh Regiments,” Bigger said, frowning. “And attack with tanks, gas, planes, and infantry.”
“Yessuh!” Gus said again, saluting and clicking his heels.
For a moment they were silent, facing each other, their shoulders thrown back, their lips compressed to hold down the mounting impulse to laugh. Then they guffawed, partly at themselves and partly at the vast white world that sprawled and towered in the sun before them.
“Say, what’s a ‘left flank’?” Gus asked.
“I don’t know,” Bigger said. “I heard it in the movies.”
They laughed again. After a bit they relaxed and leaned against the wall, smoking. Bigger saw Gus cup his left hand to his ear, as though holding a telephone receiver; and cup his right hand to his mouth, as though talking into a transmitter.
“Hello,” Gus said.
“Hello,” Bigger said. “Who’s this?”
“This is Mr. J. P. Morgan speaking,” Gus said.
“Yessuh, Mr. Morgan,” Bigger said; his eyes filled with mock adulation and respect.
“I want you to sell twenty thousand shares of U.S. Steel in the market this morning,” Gus said.
“At what price, suh?” Bigger asked.
“Aw, just dump ’em at any price,” Gus said with casual irritation. “We’re holding too much.”
“Yessuh,” Bigger said.
“And call me at my club at two this afternoon and tell me if the President telephoned,” Gus said.
“Yessuh, Mr. Morgan,” Bigger said.
Both of them made gestures signifying that they were hanging up telephone receivers; then they bent double, laughing.
“I bet that’s just the way they talk,” Gus said.
“I wouldn’t be surprised,” Bigger said.
They were silent again. Presently, Bigger cupped his hand to his mouth and spoke through an imaginary telephone transmitter.
“Hello.”
“Hello,” Gus answered. “Who’s this?”
“This is the President of the United States speaking,” Bigger said.
“Oh, yessuh, Mr. President,” Gus said.
“I’m calling a cabinet meeting this afternoon at four o’clock and you, as Secretary of State, must be there.”
“Well, now, Mr. President,” Gus said, “I’m pretty busy. They raising sand over there in Germany and I got to send ’em a note….”
“But this is important,” Bigger said.
“What you going to take up at this cabinet meeting?” Gus asked.
“Well, you see, the niggers is raising sand all over the country,” Bigger said, struggling to keep back his laughter. “We’ve got to do something with these black folks….”
“Oh, if it’s about the niggers, I’ll be right there, Mr. President,” Gus said.
They hung up imaginary receivers and leaned against the wall and laughed. A street car rattled by. Bigger sighed and swore.
“Goddammit!”
“What’s the matter?”
“They don’t let us do nothing.”
“Who?”
“The white folks.”
“You talk like you just now finding that out,” Gus said.
“Naw. But I just can’t get used to it,” Bigger said. “I swear to God I can’t. I know I oughtn’t think about it, but I can’t help it. Every time I think about it I feel like somebody’s poking a red-hot iron down my throat. Goddammit, look! We live here and they live there. We black and they white. They got things and we ain’t. They do things and we can’t. It’s just like living in jail. Half the time I feel like I’m on the outside of the world peeping in through a knothole in the fence….”
“Aw, ain’t no use feeling that way about it. It don’t help none,” Gus said.
“You know one thing?” Bigger said.
“What?”
“Sometimes I feel like something awful’s going to happen to me,” Bigger spoke with a tinge of bitter pride in his voice.
“What you mean?” Gus asked, looking at him quickly. There was fear in Gus’s eyes.
“I don’t know. I just feel that way. Every time I get to thinking about me being black and they being white, me being here and they being there, I feel like something awful’s going to happen to me….”
“Aw, for Chrissakes! There ain’t nothing you can do about it. How come you want to worry yourself? You black and they make the laws….”
“Why they make us live in one corner of the city? Why don’t they let us fly planes and run ships….”
Gus hunched Bigger with his elbow and mumbled good-naturedly, “Aw, nigger, quit thinking about it. You