“What’s come off between you and Joyce now?” I asked.

“She has upset me,” said Simple.

“How?”

“One night last week when we come out of the subway, it was sleeting too hard to walk and we could not get a cab for love nor money. So Joyce condescends to stop in the Whistle and Rest with me and have a beer. If I had known what was in there, I would of kept on to Paddy’s, where they don’t have nothing but a juke box.”

“What was in there?”

“A trio,” said Simple. “They was humming and strumming up a breeze with the bass just a-thumping, piano trilling, and electric guitar vibrating with every string overcharged. They was playing off-bop. Now, I do not care much for music, and Joyce does not care much for beer. So after I had done had from four to six and she had had two, I said, ‘Let’s go.’ Joyce said, ‘No, baby! I want to stay awhile more.’

“Now that were the first time I have ever heard Joyce say she wants to set in a bar.

“I said, ‘What ails you?’

“Joyce said, ‘I love his piano playing.’

“I said, ‘You sure it ain’t the piano player you love?’ He were a slickheaded cat that looked like a shmoo and had a part in his teeth.

“Joyce said, ‘Don’t insinuate.’

“I said, ‘Before you sin, you better wait. It looks like to me that piano player is eying you mighty hard. He’d best keep his eyes on them keys, else I will close one and black the other, also be-bop his chops.’

“Joyce says, ‘Huh! It is about time you got a little jealous of me, Jess. Sometimes I think you take me for granted. But I do like that man’s music.’

“‘Are you sure it’s his music you like?’ I says. ‘As flirtatious as you is this evening, your middle name ought to be Frisky.’

“‘Don’t put me in no class with Zarita,’ says Joyce right out of the clear skies. ‘I am no bar-stool hussy’—which kinder took me back because I did not know Joyce had any information about Zarita. A man can’t do nothing even once without Harlem and his brother knowing it. Somebody has been talking, or else Joyce is getting too well acquainted with some of my friends—like you.”

“I never mention your personal affairs to anyone,” I said, “least of all to Joyce, whom I scarcely know except through your introduction.”

“Well, anyhow,” said Simple, “I did not wish to argue. I says to her, ‘I ignore that remark.’

“Joyce says, ‘I ignore you.’ And turned her back to me and cupped her ear to the music.

“‘Don’t rile me, woman,’ I says. ‘Come out of here and lemme take you home. You know we have to work in the morning.’