Native Son Read Online Free PDF Page B

nothing like that,” Vera said.
    “God, I wish you-all would let me eat,” Bigger said.
    His mother talked on as though she had not heard him and he stopped listening.
    “Ma’s talking to you, Bigger,” Vera said.
    “So what ?”
    “Don’t be that way, Bigger!”
    He laid down his fork and his strong black fingers gripped the edge of the table; there was silence save for the tinkling of his brother’s fork against a plate. He kept staring at his sister till her eyes fell.
    “I wish you’d let me eat,” he said again.
    As he ate he felt that they were thinking of the job he was to get that evening and it made him angry; he felt that they had tricked him into a cheap surrender.
    “I need some carfare,” he said.
    “Here’s all I got,” his mother said, pushing a quarter to the side of his plate.
    He put the quarter in his pocket and drained his cup of coffee in one long swallow. He got his coat and cap and went to the door.
    “You know, Bigger,” his mother said, “if you don’t take that job the relief’ll cut us off. We won’t have any food.”
    “I told you I’d take it!” he shouted and slammed the door.
    He went down the steps into the vestibule and stood looking out into the street through the plate glass of the front door. Now and then a street car rattled past over steel tracks. He was sick of his life at home. Day in and day out there was nothing but shouts and bickering. But what could he do? Each time he asked himself that question his mind hit a blank wall and he stopped thinking. Across the street directly in front of him, he saw a truck pull to a stop at the curb and two white men in overalls got out with pails and brushes. Yes, he could take the job at Dalton’s and be miserable, or he could refuse it and starve. It maddened him to think that he did not have a wider choice of action. Well, he could not stand here all day like this. What was he to do with himself? He tried to decide ifhe wanted to buy a ten-cent magazine, or go to a movie, or go to the poolroom and talk with the gang, or just loaf around. With his hands deep in his pockets, another cigarette slanting across his chin, he brooded and watched the men at work across the street. They were pasting a huge colored poster to a signboard. The poster showed a white face.
    “That’s Buckley!” He spoke softly to himself. “He’s running for State’s Attorney again.” The men were slapping the poster with wet brushes. He looked at the round florid face and wagged his head. “I bet that sonofabitch rakes off a million bucks in graft a year. Boy, if I was in his shoes for just one day I’d never have to worry again.”
    When the men were through they gathered up their pails and brushes and got into the truck and drove off. He looked at the poster: the white face was fleshy but stern; one hand was uplifted and its index finger pointed straight out into the street at each passer-by. The poster showed one of those faces that looked straight at you when you looked at it and all the while you were walking and turning your head to look at it it kept looking unblinkingly back at you until you got so far from it you had to take your eyes away, and then it stopped, like a movie blackout. Above the top of the poster were tall red letters: YOU CAN’T WIN!
    He snuffed his cigarette and laughed silently. “You crook,” he mumbled, shaking his head. “You let whoever pays you off win!” He opened the door and met the morning air. He went along the sidewalk with his head down, fingering the quarter in his pocket. He stopped and searched all of his pockets; in his vest pocket he found a lone copper cent. That made a total of twenty-six cents, fourteen cents of which would have to be saved for carfare to Mr. Dalton’s; that is, if he decided to take the job. In order to buy a magazine and go to the movies he would have to have at least twenty cents more. “Goddammit, I’m always broke!” he mumbled.
    He stood on the corner in the