As if it wasn’t money I’m paying for my rent! And there’s still and yet another sign in my room which states:

NO COOKING, DRINKING, NO ROWDYISMS

As if I can cook without a stove or be rowdy by myself. And then right over my bed:

NO CO. AFTER 10

Just like a man can get along in this world alone. But it were part Zarita’s fault talking so loud. Anyhow when I saw all them signs I got madder than I had ever been before, and I tore them all down.

“Landladies must think roomers is uncivilized and don’t know how to behave themselves. Well, I do. I was also raised in a decent home. My mama made us respect our home. And I have never been known yet to wash my socks in no face bowl. So I tore them signs down.

“The next evening when I come in from work, before I even hit the steps, the landlady yells from the parlor, ‘Third Floor Rear?’

“I said, ‘Yes, this is the Third Floor Rear.’

“She says, ‘Does you know who tore my signs down in the bathroom and in the hall? Also your room?’

“I said, ‘I tore your signs down, madam. I have been looking at them signs for three months, so I know ’em by heart.’

“She says, ‘You will put them back, or else move.’

“I said, ‘I not only tore them signs down, I also tore them up!’

“She says, ‘When you have paid me my rent, you move.’

“I said, ‘I will move now.’

“She said, ‘You will not take your trunk now.’

“I said, ‘What’s to keep me?’

“She said, ‘Your room door is locked.’

“I said, ‘Lady, I got a date tonight. I got to get in to change my clothes.’

“She says, ‘You’ll get in when you pay your rent.’

“So I had to take the money for my date that night—that I was intending to take out Joyce—and pay up my room rent. The next week I didn’t have enough to move, so I am still there.”

“Did you put back the signs?” I asked.

“Sure,” said Simple. “I even writ a new sign for her which says:

DON’T NOBODY NO TIME TEAR DOWN

THESE SIGNS—ELSE MOVE”

Simple Prays A Prayer

Simple Prays A Prayer

IT WAS a hot night. Simple was sitting on his landlady’s stoop reading a newspaper by streetlight. When he saw me coming, he threw the paper down.

“Good evening,” I said.

“Good evening nothing,” he answered. “It’s too hot to be any good evening. Besides, this paper’s full of nothing but atom bombs and bad news, wars and rumors of wars, airplane crashes, murders, fightings, wife-whippings, and killings from the Balkans to Brooklyn. Do you know one thing? If I was a praying man, I would pray a prayer for this world right now.”