“She said, ‘No, it ain’t what you do—it’s what folks think you do. When folks see you coming out of my place at two-three-four o’clock in the morning, you know what they think—even if it ain’t so. I have been knowing you too long not to be married to you. It were not just day before yesterday that we met,’ Joyce says.”

“Then a divorce would be good for both of you,” I interjected. “You could get all those day-before-yesterdays straightened out.”

“Days is like stair-steps,” said Simple. “If you stumbled on the first day yesterday, you liable to be still falling tomorrow. I have stumbled.”

“Anyhow,” I said, “it is better to fall up than to fall down. You can get things straightened out when you get well.”

“No matter what a man does, sick or well, something is always liable to happen,” said Simple, “especially if you are colored.”

“Race has nothing to do with it,” I said. “In this uncertain world, something unpleasant can happen to anybody, colored or white, regardless of race.”

“Um-hum,” said Simple. “You can be robbed and mugged in the night—even choked.”

“That’s right,” I said, “or you can get poisoned from drinking King Kong after hours.”

“Sure can,” said Simple. “Or you can go crazy from worriation.”

“Or lose your job.”

“Else your money on the horses.”

“Or on numbers.”

“Or policy.”

“Or on Chinese lottery, if you live on the Coast.”

“Or poker or blackjack or pokino or tonk. And you ain’t mentioned Georgia skin,” said Simple.

“I can’t play skin,” I said.

“It’s a rugged card game,” said Simple. “If I had never learnt it, I might be rich today. But skin’s a mere skimption compared to some of the things that can happen to a man. For instant, if you was a porter, your train could wreck. If you was in the Merchant Marines, your boat could sink. Or if you’re a aviator, you’re liable to run into the Empire State Building or Abyssinia Baptist Church and bust up your plane. It is awful, man, what can happen to you in this life!”

“You talk as though you’ve had a hard time,” I said. “Have any of those things ever happened to you?”

“What’re you talking about?” cried Simple, sitting bolt upright in bed. “Not only am I half dead right now from pneumonia, but everything else has happened to me! I have been cut, shot, stabbed, run over, hit by a car, and tromped by a horse. I have also been robbed, fooled, deceived, two-timed, double-crossed, dealt seconds, and mighty near blackmailed—but I am still here!”

“You’re a tough man,” I said.