“Court-martial them,” said Simple. “After they had set in the stockade for six months, I would bring them Mississippi white boys out, and I would say once more, ‘Left face!’ I bet they would left face then! Else I’d court-martial them again.”

“You have a very good imagination,” I said, “also a sadistic one.”

“I can see myself now in World War III,” said Simple, “leading my Mississippi troops into action. I would do like all the other generals do, and stand way back on a hill somewheres and look through my spyglasses and say, ‘Charge on! Mens, charge on!’ Then I would watch them Dixiecrat boys go—like true sons of the old South, mowing down the enemy.

“When my young white lieutenants from Vicksburg jeeped back to Headquarters to deliver their reports in person to me, they would say, ‘General Captain, sir, we have taken two more enemy positions.’

“I would say, ‘Mens, return to your companies—and tell ’em to charge on!’

“Next day, when I caught up to ’em, I would pin medals on their chests for bravery. Then I would have my picture taken in front of all my fine white troops—me—the first black American general to pin medals on white soldiers from Mississippi. It would be in every paper in the world—the great news event of World War III.”

“It would certainly be news,” I said.

“Doggone if it wouldn’t,” said Simple. “It would really be news! You see what I mean by solving—not just resolving. I will’ve done solved.”

Blue Evening

Blue Evening

WHEN I walked into the bar and saw him on the corner stool alone, I could tell something was wrong.

“Another hangover?”

“Nothing that simple. This is something I thought never would happen to me.”

“What?” I asked.

“That a woman could put me down. In the past, I have always left womens. No woman never left me. Now Joyce has quit.”

“I don’t believe it,” I said. “You’ve been going together for two or three years, and getting along fine. What happened? That little matter of the divorce from your wife, the fur coat, or what?”

“Zarita,” said Simple.

“Zarita! She’s nothing to you.”

“I know it,” said Simple. “She never was nothing to me but a now-and-then. But Zarita has ruint my life. You don’t know how it feels, buddy, when somebody has gone that you never had before. I never had a woman like Joyce. I loved that girl. Nobody never cared for me like Joyce did.”

“Have a drink,” I said, “on me.”

“This is one time I do not want a drink. I feel too bad.”

“Then it is serious,” I said.

“It’s what the blues is made out of,” said Simple. “‘Love, oh, love, oh, careless love!’ Buddy, I were careless.”

“What happened, old man?”