“If I am going to be in an explosion, I’ll go. I’d like to see Joyce give you a good dressing down. Here you are, a man in your prime—and can’t pay for one divorce. Why, some men at your age are already paying three alimonies.”

“White men,” said Simple. “The most alimonies I ever knowed a Negro to pay was one—and he didn’t keep that up to date. What I like about Joyce is she would never alimony me. Joyce works and makes her own money and does not want anything out of me but love.”

We stopped in front of the neat brownstone house around the corner from Seventh Avenue where Joyce roomed. He rang seven times.

“Joyce knows my ring,” said Simple.

Nobody came to the door. He rang again, counting out loud from one to seven.

“Maybe Joyce is in the bathroom.”

No answer.

“I wonder should I ring for her big old fat landlady?”

“You have walked way over here,” I said, “so you might as well find out if she’s home or not.”

Simple rang one long ring and two short, the landlady’s private signal. Presently the floor boards creaked. The inner door opened. An enormous figure filled the vestibule. Then the outer glass door cracked just a crack.

The landlady said, “I knowed it was you all the time. Joyce is not here. She went to a movie.”

“You don’t know which one?”

“Joyce does not tell me her business. There’s a draft in this door, Mr. Semple. Excuse me.”

The door closed.

“Um-huh! You see,” said Simple. “Joyce has done made that woman mad at me, too. Done told her something. Her landlady is most in generally more pleasanter than mine, but you see how she acts tonight. When a woman is mad at a man, she always wants every other woman to be mad at him, too. Well, daddy-o, let’s go have a beer. We done took our walk.”

So we went and had a beer. Simple drank in silence, but not for long. As he ordered a second round, he said dolefully, “These are dark days for me, man. Joyce is as touchous as a mother hen done lost her chicks. She knows she has not lost me—she just has to wait a little longer. But she acts like I have put her down. That girl is bent, bound and determined to marry me. She has asked me seven times already.

“‘I’m tired of not seeing hair nor hide of neither ring, license, orange blossoms, or veil,’ Joyce told me last week. ‘I try to keep my head up and my back straight—but how straight can a girl’s back be without breaking? You know I don’t believe in no common-law stuff. But in the framework of marriage, that’s different. Jess Semple, my patience is about done wore out with you.’