“I would want somebody to miss me—even before I am gone. I want somebody to cry real loud, scream and let the neighbors know I am no longer here. I want my passing to be a main event, ‘Dear Jesus, Jesse B. is gone! The one I love is gone! Why did you take him this evening, Lord?’

“In fact, if there are more than one woman crying over me, I will be glad. If there are three or four, or seven, I would not care. Let the world, the rest of the womens in it, and everybody know that I have been here and gone, been in this world, and passed through, and left a mighty mourning. I want some woman to yell, ‘Why? Why did you take him, Lord?’

“When I go, I would not like to die like that fellow in Baltimore with nobody to claim his body, nobody to lay out Five Hundred Dollars for a funeral, nobody to come and cry. Only a lonesome few roomers knowed when he were taken down the steps with his room door left open—and it were empty in there. Empty, empty, and quiet.

“No, I would not want to be carried out that way, feet first. I would really like to walk down the steps, out to my own funeral—if I had to go at all. Anyhow, after I’m gone, I would like there to be such another weeping and wailing as you never heard. Not quiet like it were that day in Baltimore.

“Not having been around people very much who are dying, I did not know until then how it felt to see somebody walking down the hall tonight, then not see them in the morning because they are gone. Gone with a big letter, gone with a capital G. I mean solid and really not-here-no-more—gone. Silent, with nobody to scream. Nobody like Zarita around to make a big noise, nor Joyce to cry sweet and polite. Nobody to yell, ‘He’s gone.’ His name I can’t recall. But maybe why I remember that man in Baltimore so well is because there was no human to cry, ‘Gone! He’s gone!’

“The landlord said to his wife the next day, ‘Put that sign—ROOM FOR RENT—back in the window. But don’t let nobody have that room unless they pay a full week in advance.’

“That’s all anybody said after that roomer were gone. But one night somebody come and rung his bell, three rings. He were not there.”

Picture for Her Dresser

Picture for Her Dresser

IT WAS a warm evening not yet dark when I stopped by Simple’s. His landlady had the front door open airing the house, so I did not need to ring. I walked upstairs and knocked on his door. He was sitting on the bed, cutting his toenails, listening to a radio show, and frowning.