“I have been fired, laid off, and last week given an indefinite vacation, also Jim Crowed, segregated, barred out, insulted, eliminated, called black, yellow, and red, locked in, locked out, locked up, also left holding the bag. I have been caught in the rain, caught in raids, caught short with my rent, and caught with another man’s wife. In my time I have been caught—but I am still here!”

“You have suffered,” I said.

“Suffered!” cried Simple. “My mama should have named me Job instead of Jess Semple. I have been underfed, underpaid, undernourished, and everything but undertaken. I been bit by dogs, cats, mice, rats, poll parrots, fleas, chiggers, bedbugs, granddaddies, mosquitoes, and a gold-toothed woman.”

“Great day in the morning!”

“That ain’t all,” said Simple. “In this life I been abused, confused, misused, accused, false-arrested, tried, sentenced, paroled, blackjacked, beat, third-degreed and near about lynched!”

“Anyhow your health has been good—up to now,” I said.

“Good health nothing,” objected Simple, waving his hands, kicking off the cover, and swinging his feet out of bed. “I done had everything from flat feet to a flat head. Why, man, I was born with the measles! Since then I had smallpox, chickenpox, whooping cough, croup, appendicitis, athlete’s foot, tonsillitis, arthritis, backache, mumps, and a strain—but I am still here. Daddy-o, I’m still here!”

“Having survived all that, what are you afraid of, now that you are almost over pneumonia?”

“I’m afraid,” said Simple, “I will die before my time.”

There Ought to be a Law

There Ought to be a Law

“I HAVE been up North a long time, but it looks like I just cannot learn to like white folks.”

“I don’t care to hear you say that,” I said, “because there are a lot of good white people in this world.”

“Not enough of them,” said Simple, waving his evening paper. “If there was, they would make this American country good. But just look at what this paper is full of.”

“You cannot dislike all white people for what the bad ones do,” I said. “And I’m certain you don’t dislike them all because once you told me yourself that you wouldn’t wish any harm to befall Mrs. Roosevelt.”

“Mrs. Roosevelt is different,” said Simple.

“There now! You see, you are talking just as some white people talk about the Negroes they happen to like. They are always ‘different.’ That is a provincial way to think. You need to get around more.”

“You mean among white folks?” asked Simple. “How can I make friends with white folks when they got Jim Crow all over the place?”

“Then you need to open your mind.”

“I have near about lost my mind worrying with them,” said Simple. “In fact, they have hurt my soul.”

“You certainly feel bad tonight,” I said. “Maybe you need a drink.”