“I might not own ’em,” said Simple, “but I live in ’em. It would take an atom bomb to get me out.”

“Or a depression,” I said.

“I would not move for no depression. No, I would not go back down South, not even to Baltimore. I am in Harlem to stay! You say the houses ain’t mine. Well, the sidewalk is—and don’t nobody push me off. The cops don’t even say, ‘Move on,’ hardly no more. They learned something from them Harlem riots. They used to beat your head right in public, but now they only beat it after they get you down to the stationhouse. And they don’t beat it then if they think you know a colored congressman.”

“Harlem has a few Negro leaders,” I said.

“Elected by my own vote,” said Simple. “Here I ain’t scared to vote—that’s another thing I like about Harlem. I also like it because we’ve got subways and it does not take all day to get downtown, neither are you Jim Crowed on the way. Why, Negroes is running some of these subway trains. This morning I rode the A Train down to 34th Street. There were a Negro driving it, making ninety miles a hour. That cat were really driving that train! Every time he flew by one of them local stations looks like he was saying, ‘Look at me! This train is mine!’ That cat were gone, ole man. Which is another reason why I like Harlem! Sometimes I run into Duke Ellington on 125th Street and I say, ‘What you know there, Duke?’ Duke says, ‘Solid, ole man.’ He does not know me from Adam, but he speaks. One day I saw Lena Horne coming out of the Hotel Theresa and I said, ‘Hubba! Hubba!’ Lena smiled. Folks is friendly in Harlem. I feel like I got the world in a jug and the stopper in my hand! So drink a toast to Harlem!”

Simple lifted his glass of beer:

“Here’s to Harlem!

They say Heaven is Paradise.

If Harlem ain’t Heaven,

Then a mouse ain’t mice!”

“Heaven is a state of mind,” I commented.

“It sure is mine,” said Simple, draining his glass. “From Central Park to 179th, from river to river, Harlem is mine! Lots of white folks is scared to come up here, too, after dark.”

“That is nothing to be proud of,” I said.

“I am sorry white folks is scared to come to Harlem, but I am scared to go around some of them. Why, for instant, in my home town once before I came North to live, I was walking down the street when a white woman jumped out of her door and said, ‘Boy, get away from here because I am scared of you.’

“I said, ‘Why?’

“She said, ‘Because you are black.’