“F. D. is grown. He can get married by his self. Joyce and me will stand up with him if he wants us to. But I will write that boy and tell him I could not wait. F. D. is young and got plenty of time. His memory don’t go back no further than Sarah Vaughan—never heard of Ma Rainey. Besides he’s on the baseball team, which will keep him busy pitching till June.”

“Well, I did not have a chance to give that bachelor’s party for you, which I regret.”

“It would be no use to give it now because I have ceased from this day on to be a drinking man,” said Simple, “so you’ll save your money. Not that Joyce cares too much about me drinking, but I plans to respect what little objections she do have. She will never see me high again. And Zarita will never see me at all. Zarita has done cried, and wished me well, and is thinking about getting married herself—which is one more reason not to drink—with her off my mind.”

“But can’t I even buy you a beer in celebration of the occasion?”

“One—providing you got a stick of chlorophyll chewing gum about you.”

“Hypocrite.”

“Just kidding,” said Simple. “But all kidding aside—and thanks for the beer—I am a new man. I intends to act like a new man, and therefore be a new man. I will only drink in moderation—which means small glasses—from now on. And this spring I will down as much sassafras tea as I will beer, if not more. What Joyce likes, I like. What she do, I do. Same as in the Bible—‘Whether she goeth, I goeth’—even to concerts and teas.”

“You are indeed a changed man,” I said. “It’s simply amazing.”

“Simply heavenly,” said Simple. “Love is as near heaven as a man gets on this earth.”

Bang-up Big End

Bang-up Big End

“I WONDER how come they don’t have lady pallbearers?” asked my friend.

“Lady pallbearers?”

“Yes,” said Simple, “at funerals. I have never yet seen a lady carrying a coffin. Women do everything else these days from flying airplanes and driving taxis to fighting bulls. They might as well be pallbearers, too.”

“Maybe it’s because women are more emotional than men,” I said. “They might break down from sorrow and drop the corpse.”