Native Son by Richard Wright

at Bigger and Bigger’s stomach tightened as though he were expecting a blow and were getting ready for it. His fists clenched harder. In a split second he felt how his fist and arm and body would feel if he hit Gus squarely in the mouth, drawing blood; Gus would fall and he would walk out and the whole thing would be over and the robbery would not take place. And his thinking and feeling in this way made the choking tightness rising from the pit of his stomach to his throat slacken a little.
    “You see, Bigger,” began Gus in a tone that was a compromise between kindness and pride. “You see, Bigger, you the cause of all the trouble we ever have. It’s your hot temper. Now, how come you want to cuss me? Ain’t I got a right to make up my mind? Naw: that ain’t your way. You start cussing. You say I’m scared. It’s youwho’s scared. You scared I’m going to say yes and you’ll have to go through with the job….”
    “Say that again! Say that again and I’ll take one of these balls and sink it in your Goddamn mouth,” Bigger said, his pride wounded to the quick.
    “Aw, for Chrissakes,” Jack said.
    “You see how he is,” Gus said.
    “Why don’t you say what you going to do?” Bigger demanded.
    “Aw, I’m going with you-all,” Gus said in a nervous tone that sought to hide itself; a tone that hurried on to other things. “I’m going, but Bigger don’t have to act like that. He don’t have to cuss me.”
    “Why didn’t you say that at first?” Bigger asked; his anger amounted almost to frenzy. “You make a man want to sock you!”
    “…I’ll help on the haul,” Gus continued, as though Bigger had not spoken. “I’ll help just like I always help. But I’ll be Goddamn if I’m taking orders from you , Bigger! You just a scared coward! You calling me scared so nobody’ll see how scared you is!”
    Bigger leaped at him, but Jack ran between them. G.H. caught Gus’s arm and led him aside.
    “Who’s asking you to take orders?” Bigger said. “I never want to give orders to a piss-sop like you!”
    “You boys cut out that racket back there!” Doc called.
    They stood silently about the pool table. Bigger’s eyes followed Gus as Gus put his cue stick in the rack and brushed chalk dust from his trousers and walked a little distance away. Bigger’s stomach burned and a hazy black cloud hovered a moment before his eyes, and left. Mixed images of violence ran like sand through his mind, dry and fast, vanishing. He could stab Gus with his knife; he could slap him; he could kick him; he could trip him up and send him sprawling on his face. He could do a lot of things to Gus for making him feel this way.
    “Come on, G.H.,” Gus said.
    “Where we going?”
    “Let’s walk.”
    “O.K.”
    “What we gonna do?” Jack asked. “Meet here at three?”
    “Sure,” Bigger said. “Didn’t we just decide?”
    “I’ll be here,” Gus said, with his back turned.
    When Gus and G.H. had gone Bigger sat down and felt cold sweat on his skin. It was planned now and he would have to go through with it. His teeth gritted and the last image he had seen of Gus going through the door lingered in his mind. He could have taken one of the cue sticks and gripped it hard and swung it at the back of Gus’s head, feeling the impact of the hard wood cracking against the bottom of the skull. The tight feeling was still in him and he knew that it would remain until they were actually doing the job, until they were in the store taking the money.
    “You and Gus sure don’t get along none,” Jack said, shaking his head.
    Bigger turned and looked at Jack; he had forgotten that Jack was still there.
    “Aw, that yellow black bastard,” Bigger said.
    “He’s all right,” Jack said.
    “He’s scared,” Bigger said. “To make him ready for a job, you have to make him scared two ways. You have to make him more scared of what’ll happen to him if he don’t do the job than of what’ll happen to him if he pulls