Native Son - Richard Wright [63]
“Naw; what you mean?”
“You remember hearing people talk about Loeb and Leopold.”
“Oh!”
“The ones who killed the boy and then tried to get money from the boy’s family….
…by sending notes to them Bigger was not listening. The world of sound fell abruptly away from him and a vast picture appeared before his eyes, a picture teeming with so much meaning that he could not react to it all at once. He lay, his eyes unblinking, his heart pounding, his lips slightly open, his breath coming and going so softly that it seemed he was not breathing at all. you remember them aw you ain’t even listening He said nothing. how come you won’t listen when I talk to you Why could he, why could he not, not send a letter to the Daltons, asking for money? Bigger He sat up in bed, staring into the darkness, what’s the matter honey He could ask for ten thousand, or maybe twenty. Bigger what’s the matter I’m talking to you He did not answer; his nerves were taut with the hard effort to remember something. Now! Yes, Loeb and Leopold had planned to have the father of the murdered boy get on a train and throw the money out of the window while passing some spot. He leaped from bed and stood in the middle of the floor. Bigger He could, yes, he could have them pack the money in a shoe box and have them throw it out of a car somewhere on the South Side. He looked round in the darkness, feeling Bessie’s fingers on his arm. He came to himself and sighed.
“What’s the matter, honey?” she asked.
“Hunh?”
“What’s on your mind?”
“Nothing.”
“Come on and tell me. You worried?”
“Naw; naw….”
“Now, I told you what was on my mind, but you won’t tell me what’s on yours. That ain’t fair.”
“I just forgot something. That’s all.”
“That ain’t what you was thinking about,” she said.
He sat back on the bed, feeling his scalp tingle with excitement. Could he do it? This was what had been missing and this was what would make the thing complete. But this thing was so big he would have to take time and think it over carefully.
“Honey, tell me where you get that money?”
“What money?” he asked in a tone of feigned surprise.
“Aw, Bigger. I know something’s wrong. You worried. You got something on your mind. I can tell it.”
“You want me to make up something to tell you?”
“All right; if that’s the way you feel about it.”
“Aw, Bessie….”
“You didn’t have to come here tonight.”
“Maybe I shouldn’t’ve come.”
“You don’t have to come no more.”
“Don’t you love me?”
“About as much as you love me.”
“How much is that?”
“You ought to know.”
“Aw, let’s stop fussing,” he said.
He felt the bed sag gently and heard the bed-covers rustling as she pulled them over her. He turned his head and stared at the dim whites of her eyes in the darkness. Maybe, yes, maybe he could. maybe he could use her. He leaned and stretched himself on the bed beside her; she did not move. He put his hand upon her shoulder, pressing it just softly enough to let her know that he was thinking about her. His mind tried to grasp and encompass as much of her life as it could, tried to understand and weigh it in relation to his own, as his hand rested on her shoulder. Could he trust her? How much could he tell her? Would she act with him, blindly. believing his word?
“Come on. Let’s get dressed and go out and get something to drink,” she said.
“O.K.”
“You ain’t acting like you always act tonight.”
“I got something on my mind.”
“Can’t you tell me?”
“I don’t know.”
“Don’t you trust me?”
“Sure.”
“Then why don’t you tell me?”
He did not answer. Her voice had come in a whisper, a whisper he had heard many times when she wanted something badly. It brought to him a full sense of her life, what he had been thinking and feeling when he had placed his hand upon her shoulder. The same deep realization he had had that morning at home at the breakfast table while watching Vera and Buddy and his mother came back to him; only it was Bessie he was looking at now and seeing how blind she was. He felt the narrow orbit of her life: from her room to the kitchen of the white folks was the farthest she ever moved. She worked long hours, hard and hot hours seven days a week, with only Sunday afternoons off; and when she did get off she wanted fun, hard and fast fun, something to make her feel that she was making up for the starved life she led. It was her hankering for sensation that he liked about her. Most nights she was too tired to go out; she only wanted to get drunk. She wanted liquor and he wanted her. So he would give her the liquor and she would give him herself. He had heard her complain about how hard the white folks worked her; she had told him over and over again that she lived their lives when she was working in their homes, not her own. That was why, she told him, she drank. He knew why she liked him; he gave her money for drinks. He knew that if he did not give it to her someone else would; she would see to that. Bessie, too, was very blind. What ought he tell her? She might come in just handy. Then he realized that whatever he chose to tell her ought not to be anything that would make her feel in any way out of it; she ought to be made to feel that she knew it all. Goddamn! He just simply could not get used to acting like he ought. He should not have made her think that something was happening that he did not want her to know.