“It would probably scare the wits out of you, if you did see one,” I said, “so you might not live to read your name in the papers.”

“I could read my name from the other world then,” said Simple, “and be just as proud. Me, Jesse B. Semple—my name in print for once—killed by looking at a flying saucer.”

Minnie One More Time

Minnie One More Time

“DO YOU know what?” asked Simple.

“No, what?” I said.

“Cousin Minnie’s knees is farther apart than necessary. In other words, she is bowlegged as she can be. In fact, so bowlegged she could not catch a pig.”

“Say not so!” I said.

“Minnie is also homely, squat, shot, beat and what not,” said Simple, “yet there is something about that chick that mens admires. To tell the truth, if Minnie were not my cousin by blood—as well as by fooling around—I might kinder like her myself. Minnie is not pretty, but she is something else not pretty—which is I do not know how to explain by sight—but which must be good.”

“Never having laid eyes on your Cousin Minnie, I can’t imagine what you are talking about in exact terms, but I think I understand. Minnie is an ugly woman who has pretty points, a homely dame who hypes men, a sad sack who signals back when it comes to the Male Code, not the Morse Code. Am I right?”

“No more righter could you be than in what you say about Minnie! There is something about Minnie that carries her through this world without work. That broad has not worked three weeks in six months, yet she lives, drinks and enjoys life. How does she do it? Answer—some chump called a man lays it on the line for Minnie. To look at her, you would never think that Minnie could attract a chimpanzee, let alone a chump. But she do. Now, me, I have to work for a living. Does Minnie? I’m ugly. But Minnie’s uglier. Still and yet, when Minnie flashes that big old smile of hers on some simple-minded man on payday—his payday is her heyday. Minnie can cover her rent for a month—and the chump is out of his week’s salary. And does Minnie care about the square? She does not! Not Minnie! She’ll let the poor man go home so broke he don’t have a nickel for church on Sunday morning. I told Minnie someday some man is going to give her a good old New York head-whipping if she don’t watch out.