“The first of the month falls every month, too, North or South. And them white folks who sends bills never forgets to send them—the phone bill, the furniture bill, the water bill, the gas bill, insurance, house rent. They also never forget you got their furniture in the house—and they will come and take it out if you do not pay the bill. Not only was my nose kept to the grindstone when I was married, but my bohunkus also. It were depression, too. They cut my wages down once at the foundry. They cut my wages down again. Then they cut my wages out, also the job. My old lady had to go cook for some rich white folks. And don’t you know Isabel wouldn’t bring me home a thing to eat! Neither would she open a can when she got home.

“I said, ‘Baby, what is the matter with you? Don’t you know I have to eat, too?’

“She said, ‘You know what is the matter with me. Ever since I have been with you, I have been treated like a dog for convenience. Who is paying for this furniture? Me! Who keeps up the house rent? Me! Who pays that little dime insurance of yourn? Me! And if you was to die, I would not benefit but Three Hundred Dollars. It looks like you can’t even get on WPA. But you better get on something, Jess. In fact, take over or take off.’

“Then it were that I took off,” said Simple.

“And ever since you’ve been a free man.”

“Free?” said Simple. “I would have been free if I hadn’t run into some old Baltimore friend boy here in Harlem who wrote and told my wife where I was at. So for the last year now she’s been writing me that if I wasn’t going to even give her a divorce, to at least buy her a fur coat this winter.”

“Why didn’t you give her a divorce when you left?” I asked.

“You can’t buy no divorce on WPA. And when the war came, she was working in a war plant making just as much money as me,” said Simple. “She could get her own divorce. But no! She still wanted me to pay for it. I told her to send me the money then and I would pay for it. But she wrote back and said I would never spend none of her money on Joyce. Baltimore womens is evil.”

“Evidently she does not trust you.”

“I would not trust myself with Three Hundred Dollars,” said Simple.

“So you are just going to keep on being married then. You can’t get loose if neither one of you is willing to pay for the divorce.”