Native Son - Richard Wright [15]
The plane was gone from the sky and the white plumes of floating smoke were thinly spread, vanishing. Because he was restless and had time on his hands, Bigger yawned again and hoisted his arms high above his head.
“Nothing ever happens,” he complained.
“What you want to happen?”
“Anything,” Bigger said with a wide sweep of his dingy palm, a sweep that included all the possible activities of the world.
Then their eyes were riveted; a slate-colored pigeon swooped down to the middle of the steel car tracks and began strutting to and fro with ruffled feathers, its fat neck bobbing with regal pride. A street car rumbled forward and the pigeon rose swiftly through the air on wings stretched so taut and sheer that Bigger could see the gold of the sun through their translucent tips. He tilted his head and watched the slate-colored bird flap and wheel out of sight over the edge of a high roof.
“Now, if I could only do that,” Bigger said.
Gus laughed.
“Nigger, you nuts.”
“I reckon we the only things in this city that can’t go where we want to go and do what we want to do.”
“Don’t think about it,” Gus said.
“I can’t help it.”
“That’s why you feeling like something awful’s going to happen to you,” Gus said. “You think too much.”
“What in hell can a man do?” Bigger asked, turning to Gus.
“Get drunk and sleep it off.”
“I can’t. I’m broke.”
Bigger crushed his cigarette and took out another one and offered the package to Gus. They continued smoking. A huge truck swept past, lifting scraps of white paper into the sunshine; the bits settled down slowly.
“Gus?”
“Hunh?”
“You know where the white folks live?”
“Yeah,” Gus said, pointing eastward. “Over across the ‘line’; over there on Cottage Grove Avenue.”
“Naw; they don’t,” Bigger said.
“What you mean?” Gus asked, puzzled. “Then, where do they live?”
Bigger doubled his fist and struck his solar plexus.
“Right down here in my stomach,” he said.
Gus looked at Bigger searchingly, then away, as though ashamed.
“Yeah; I know what you mean,” he whispered.
“Every time I think of ’em, I feel ’em,” Bigger said.
“Yeah; and in your chest and throat, too,” Gus said.
“It’s like fire.”
“And sometimes you can’t hardly breathe….”
Bigger’s eyes were wide and placid, gazing into space.
“That’s when I feel like something awful’s going to happen to me….” Bigger paused, narrowed his eyes. “Naw; it ain’t like something going to happen to me. It’s…. It’s like I was going to do something I can’t help….”
“Yeah!” Gus said with uneasy eagerness. His eyes were full of a look compounded of fear and admiration for Bigger. “Yeah; I know what you mean. It’s like you going to fall and don’t know where you going to land….”
Gus’s voice trailed off. The sun slid behind a big white cloud and the street was plunged in cool shadow; quickly the sun edged forth again and it was bright and warm once more. A long sleek black car, its fenders glinting like glass in the sun, shot past them at high speed and turned a corner a few blocks away. Bigger pursed his lips and sang:
“Zoooooooooom!”
“They got everything,” Gus said.
“They own the world,” Bigger said.
“Aw, what the hell,” Gus said. “Let’s go in the poolroom.”
“O.K.”
They walked toward the door of the poolroom.
“Say, you taking that job you told us about?” Gus asked.
“I don’t know.”
“You talk like you don’t want it.”
“Oh, hell, yes! I want the job,” Bigger said.
They looked at each other and laughed. They went inside. The poolroom was empty, save for a fat, black man who held a half smoked, unlit cigar in his mouth and leaned on the front counter. To the rear burned a single green-shaded bulb.
“Hi, Doc,” Bigger said.
“You boys kinda early this morning,” Doc said.
“Jack or G.H. around yet?” Bigger asked.
“Naw,” Doc said.
“Let’s shoot a game,” Gus said.
“I’m broke,” Bigger said.
“I got some money.”
“Switch on the light. The balls are racked,” Doc said.
Bigger turned on the light. They lagged for first shot. Bigger won. They started playing. Bigger’s shots were poor; he was thinking of Blum’s, fascinated with the idea of the robbery, and a little afraid of it.