The Story of Bigger T.

 

Hear then the story of Bigger T.
A common tale and not pretty.
Native son of the windy city.
Never felt that he was free.
Wound up dead when he tried to be.
 
Why did I do it? I don’t know!
Hot from the liquor, cold from the snow.
Gal in the bed, her mom at the do’.
Trapped like a rat, nowhere to go.
Covered her mouth while I laid low.
 
Bigger killed that young girl dead.
Laid her down on a hot coal bed.
Then took a brick to his girlfriend’s head.
Across the rooftops Bigger fled.
Nearly escaped but got caught instead.
 
Got myself a real smart Jew
a left wing lawyer, thought he knew
a way to talk the judge into
a life in prison that I could do.
But when they were finished I was through.
 
Bigger the victim? What a switch!
That murdering, raping, son of a bitch!
Was no other man ever born in a ditch?
Or prevented by fate from relieving his itch?
Is poverty then to be blamed on the rich?
 
 
Louis William Rose
October 29, 2002
 
 
(Bigger Thomas is a character in the book, Native Son written by
Richard Wright one of the great lights of the Harlem Renaissance)

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