“What kind of prayer would you pray, friend?”

“I would pray a don’t-want-to-have-no-more-wars prayer, and it would go like this: ‘Lord,’ I would say, I would ask Him, ‘Lord, kindly please, take the blood off of my hands and off of my brothers hands, and make us shake hands clean and not be afraid. Neither let me nor them have no knives behind our backs, Lord, nor up our sleeves, nor no bombs piled out yonder in a desert. Let’s forget about bygones. Too many mens and womens are dead. The fault is mine and theirs, too. So teach us all to do right, Lord, please, and to get along together with that atom bomb on this earth—because I do not want it to fall on me—nor Thee—nor anybody living. Amen!’”

“I didn’t know you could pray like that,” I said.

“It ain’t much,” said Simple, “but that girl friend of mine, Joyce, drug me to church last Sunday where the man was preaching and praying about peace, so I don’t see why I shouldn’t make myself up a prayer, too. I figure God will listen to me as well as the next one.”

“You certainly don’t have to be a minister to pray,” I said, “and you have composed a good prayer. But now it’s up to you to help God bring it into being, since God is created in your image.”

“I thought it was the other way around,” said Simple.

“However that may be,” I said, “according to the Bible, God can bring things about on this earth only through man. You are a man, so you must help God make a good world.”

“I am willing to help Him,” said Simple, “but I do not know much what to do. The folks who run this world are going to run it in the ground in spite of all, throwing people out of work and then saying, ‘Peace, it’s wonderful!’ Peace ain’t wonderful when folks ain’t got no job.”

“Certainly a good job is essential to one’s well-being,” I said.

“It is essential to me,” said Simple, “if I do not want to live off of Joyce. And I do not want to live off of no woman. A woman will take advantage of you, if you live off of her.”

“If a woman loves you, she does not mind sharing with you,” I said. “Share and share alike.”

“Until times get hard!” said Simple. “But when there is not much to share, loving is one thing, and sharing is another. Often they parts company. I know because I have both loved and shared. As long as I shared mine, all was well, but when my wife started sharing, skippy!

“My wife said, ‘Baby, when is you going to work?’

“I said, ‘When I find a job.’

“She said, ‘Well, it better be soon because I’m giving out.’