Native Son - Richard Wright [37]
“I’m all right, now, Jan,” he heard Mary say. “I’m sorry. I’m just a fool, I suppose…. I acted a ninny.” She lifted her eyes to Bigger. “Don’t mind me, Bigger. I’m just silly, I guess….”
He said nothing.
“Come on, Bigger,” Jan said in a voice that sought to cover up everything. “Let’s eat.”
Jan caught his arm and tried to pull him forward, but Bigger hung back. Jan and Mary walked toward the entrance of the cafe and Bigger followed, confused and resentful. Jan went to a small table near a wall.
“Sit down, Bigger.”
Bigger sat. Jan and Mary sat in front of him.
“You like fried chicken?” Jan asked.
“Yessuh,” he whispered.
He scratched his head. How on earth could he learn not to say yessuh and yessum to white people in one night when he had been saying it all his life long? He looked before him in such a way that his eyes would not meet theirs. The waitress came and Jan ordered three beers and three portions of fried chicken.
“Hi, Bigger!”
He turned and saw Jack waving at him, but staring at Jan and Mary. He waved a stiff palm in return. Goddamn! Jack walked away hurriedly. Cautiously, Bigger looked round; the waitresses and several people at other tables were staring at him. They all knew him and he knew that they were wondering as he would have wondered if he had been in their places. Mary touched his arm.
“Have you ever been here before, Bigger?”
He groped for neutral words, words that would convey information but not indicate any shade of his own feelings.
“A few times.”
“It’s very nice,” Mary said.
Somebody put a nickel in an automatic phonograph and they listened to the music. Then Bigger felt a hand grab his shoulder.
“Hi, Bigger! Where you been?”
He looked up and saw Bessie laughing in his face.
“Hi,” he said gruffly.
“Oh, ’scuse me. I didn’t know you had company,” she said, walking away with her eyes upon Jan and Mary.
“Tell her to come over, Bigger,” Mary said.
Bessie had gone to a far table and was sitting with another girl.
“She’s over there now,” Bigger said.
The waitress brought the beer and chicken.
“This is simply grand!” Mary exclaimed.
“You got something there,” Jan said, looking at Bigger. “Did I say that right, Bigger?”
Bigger hesitated.
“That’s the way they say it,” he spoke flatly.
Jan and Mary were eating. Bigger picked up a piece of chicken and bit it. When he tried to chew he found his mouth dry. It seemed that the very organic functions of his body had altered; and when he realized why, when he understood the cause, he could net chew the food. After two or three bites, he stopped and sipped his beer.
“Eat your chicken,” Mary said. “It’s good!”
“I ain’t hungry,” he mumbled.
“Want some more beer?” Jan asked after a long silence.
Maybe if he got a little drunk it would help him.
“I don’t mind,” he said.
Jan ordered another round.
“Do they keep anything stronger than beer here?” Jan asked.
“They got anything you want,” Bigger said.
Jan ordered a fifth of rum and poured a round. Bigger felt the liquor warming him. After a second drink Jan began to talk.
“Where were you born, Bigger?”
“In the South.”
“Whereabouts?”
“Mississippi.”
“How far did you go in school?”
“To the eighth grade.”
“Why did you stop?”
“No money.”
“Did you go to school in the North or South?”
“Mostly in the South. I went two years up here.”
“How long have you been in Chicago?”
“Oh, about five years.”
“You like it here?”
“It’ll do.”
“You live with your people?”
“My mother, brother, and sister.”
“Where’s your father?”
“Dead.”
“How long ago was that?”
“He got killed in a riot when I was a kid—in the South.”
There was silence. The rum was helping Bigger.
“And what was done about it?” Jan asked.
“Nothing, far as I know.”
“How do you feel about it?”
“I don’t know.”
“Listen, Bigger, that’s what we want to stop. That’s what we Communists are fighting. We want to stop people from treating others that way. I’m a member of the Party. Mary sympathizes. Don’t you think if we got together we could stop things like that?”
“I don’t know,” Bigger said; he was feeling the rum rising to his head.