Native Son by Richard Wright Page A

the job.”
    “If we going to Blum’s today, we oughtn’t fuss like this,” Jack said. “We got a job on our hands, a real job.”
    “Sure. Sure, I know,” Bigger said.
    Bigger felt an urgent need to hide his growing and deepening feeling of hysteria; he had to get rid of it or else he would succumb to it. He longed for a stimulus powerful enough to focus his attention and drain off his energies. He wanted to run. Or listen to some swing music. Or laugh or joke. Or read a Real Detective Story Magazine . Or go to a movie. Or visit Bessie. All that morning he had lurked behind his curtain of indifference and looked at things, snapping and glaring at whatever had tried to make him come out into the open. But now he was out; the thought of the job at Blum’s and the tilt he had had with Gus had snared him into things and his self-trust was gone. Confidence could only come again nowthrough action so violent that it would make him forget. These were the rhythms of his life: indifference and violence; periods of abstract brooding and periods of intense desire; moments of silence and moments of anger—like water ebbing and flowing from the tug of a far-away, invisible force. Being this way was a need of his as deep as eating. He was like a strange plant blooming in the day and wilting at night; but the sun that made it bloom and the cold darkness that made it wilt were never seen. It was his own sun and darkness, a private and personal sun and darkness. He was bitterly proud of his swiftly changing moods and boasted when he had to suffer the results of them. It was the way he was, he would say; he could not help it, he would say, and his head would wag. And it was his sullen stare and the violent action that followed that made Gus and Jack and G.H. hate and fear him as much as he hated and feared himself.
    “Where you want to go?” Jack asked. “I’m tired of setting.”
    “Let’s walk,” Bigger said.
    They went to the front door. Bigger paused and looked round the poolroom with a wild and exasperated expression, his lips tightening with resolution.
    “Goin’?” Doc asked, not moving his head.
    “Yeah,” Bigger said.
    “See you later,” Jack said.
    They walked along the street in the morning sunshine. They waited leisurely at corners for cars to pass; it was not that they feared cars, but they had plenty of time. They reached South Parkway smoking freshly lit cigarettes.
    “I’d like to see a movie,” Bigger said.
    “ Trader Horn ’s running again at the Regal. They’re bringing a lot of old pictures back.”
    “How much is it?”
    “Twenty cents.”
    “O.K. Let’s see it.”
    They walked six blocks in silence. It was eleven-thirty when they reached Forty-seventh Street and South Parkway and the Regal was just opening. They bought tickets and walked into the darkened movie and took seats. The picture had not yet started andthey sat listening to the pipe organ playing low and soft. Bigger moved restlessly and his breath quickened; he looked round in the shadows to see if any attendant was near, then slouched far down in his seat. He glanced at Jack and saw that Jack was watching him out of the corners of his eyes. They both laughed.
    “You at it again?” Jack asked.
    “I’m polishing my nightstick,” Bigger said.
    They giggled.
    “I’ll beat you,” Jack said.
    “Go to hell.”
    The organ played for a long moment on a single note, then died away.
    “I’ll bet you ain’t even hard yet,” Jack whispered.
    “I’m getting hard.”
    “Mine’s like a rod,” Jack said with intense pride.
    “I wished I had Bessie here now,” Bigger said.
    “I could make old Clara moan now.”
    They sighed.
    “I believe that woman who passed saw us.”
    “So what?”
    “If she comes back I’ll throw it in her.”
    “You a killer.”
    “If she saw it she’d faint.”
    “Or grab it, maybe.”
    “Yeah.”
    Bigger saw Jack lean forward and stretch out his legs, rigidly.
    “You