“If she had fussed and raised her voice, I would not have felt so bad. But the sweet way she said, ‘Enjoy yourself,’ all ladylike and sad and quiet, as if she was left out of things, cut me to my soul. Joyce ought to know I would not leave her out of nothing.

“I would of followed her in the street, but she said, ‘Don’t you come behind me!’

“The way she said it, I knowed she meant it. So I did not go. When I turned back, there was my landlady. All I said to that old battle-ax was, ‘Go to hell!’ I were so mad at that woman for sending Joyce upstairs.

“She started yelling as I went on up the steps, but I didn’t hear a word she said. I knowed she was telling me to find another room. But I did not care. All I wanted was to lay eyes on Zarita, stop them damn records from playing, and get them low-down dirty no-gooders out of my room. Which I did before you could say ‘Jackie Robinson.’ But after they left, I could not sleep. It were a blue evening.

“Some of Zarita’s stuff was still on the floor next day when I went to work, so I gathered it up and brought it down here to the bartender and left it for her. I do not want to see Zarita no more again. The smell of that Night in Paris water is still in my room. I’ll smell it till the day I die. But I don’t care if I die right now. I don’t know what to say to Joyce. A man should not fool around a bad woman no kind of way when he’s got a good woman to love. They say, ‘You never miss the water till the well runs dry.’ Boy, you don’t know how I miss Joyce these last few days.”

“Haven’t you tried to see her?” I asked.

“Tried?” said Simple. “I phoned her seventeen times. She will not answer the phone. I rung her bell. Nobody will let me in. I sent her six telegrams, but she do not reply. If I could write my thoughts, I would write her a letter, but I am no good at putting words on paper much. The way I feel now, nobody could put my feelings down nohow. I got the blues for true. I can’t be satisfied. This morning I had the blues so bad, I wished that I had died. These is my bitter days. What shall I do?”

“I don’t know.”