“I know it,” said Simple, “but now only until Joyce and me can find ourselves an apartment. I want to get as far away from roomers as I can—just once in life. Roomers dips into a man’s business. They eye your wife—the mens do. Sometimes even a female tempts me myself, if she’s pretty. Joyce has done warned me about that chick on the third floor where we room now.”

“Then you can sympathize with Mrs. Maxwell-Reeves’ position,” I said. “Rooming houses do lower the tone of a residential section, overpopulate an area, and cause it to cease to be exclusive. But often, Negroes who buy in exclusive neighborhoods have to have roomers to help them pay off the mortgage and keep up the high taxes. Not everyone is as well off as Mrs. Reeves.”

“Mrs. Maxwell-Reeves is so well off she never did have no roomers even in Harlem, Joyce says. Just a whole house to herself! Some Negroes is rich.”

“That is why she wishes to be exclusive,” I said.

“Then she will have to move again,” said Simple. “She paid the price to break the ice to get colored folks into that neighborhood first—now it is no longer exclusive—and when it gets crowded, it won’t be suburban. So I guess she will just have to move again.”

“Yet, if she does, the same thing may happen.”

“That is what Mrs. Maxwell-Reeves calls a vicious circle,” said Simple, “when Negroes move in. Listen, daddy-o, are Negroes vicious?”

“Do you think Negroes are vicious?”

“No,” said Simple, “it must be the circle.”

Again Cousin Minnie

Again Cousin Minnie

“YOU see that little old joker down at the end of the bar?” asked Simple, pointing with his beer. “Well, that Negro’s been in jail so much he ought to belong to the Bail-Bond-of-the-Month Club.”

“What’s his claim to fame?” I requested.

“He’s a numbers writer,” said Simple. “But he’s also got political influence. The cops take him down, but next thing you know, he’s back walking the streets again. And fight! That little cat can fight, man, anybody! Hard as nails! I do believe he would fight his own papa.”

“It’s too bad he can’t turn his energies to better purpose,” I said, “such as the field of race relations where militancy is needed.”