Simple's Uncle Sam by Langston Hughes

Author:Langston Hughes
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781466894877
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux

SIMPLY SIMPLE

“Almost nobody in this world ever does everything right,” said Simple, “so everybody ought to have the right to do some things wrong—including Adam Powell. Powell is a Baptist. When I were a child in Virginia, the Baptists could do no wrong. Also, down South if you was not a Baptist, your soul were lost. Just to be sprinkled a Methodist, your soul was just not saved. You had to be dipped—with water in your ears Baptist-style—to be saved. When I were baptized, I was almost near drowned. That Sunday when I come up out of that holy water, the minister said, ‘Jesse B. Semple, what have you to say?’

“I said, ‘Reverend, you is trying to drown me.’

“Old Rev. said, ‘Has the Spirit entered into your soul this morning?’

“I said, ‘All I know is, I am full of water.’

“Rev. said, ‘You are one of these hardened sinners. You must go and come again.’

“I went—but I have not been baptized again. But, since I have been having a toothache lately, I think I will be a Christian Scientist like my wife lately is. Joyce says a toothache is all mind.”

“I thought you told me you loved gospel songs,” I said. “There is no gospel singing in Christian Science churches.”

“What?” asked Simple. “Then I will go to Bishop Child’s temple where there is a fine choir. I was just trying to save dentist’s bills and follow my wife’s advice.”

“Religion is designed to save your soul,” I said, “not your teeth.”

“Neither does religion help you on your income tax,” said Simple. “Look at Adam Powell, pastor of the biggest Baptist church in the world, and they got him in the income-tax wringer. I asked Joyce what the Christian Scientists would say about that. Joyce said Science would say, ‘Nothing is but thinking makes it so.’

“I said to my wife, ‘If that be true, then what about our budget for food, house, and upkeep? Some weeks you tell me you cannot balance our budget unless I give you all my salary. Why don’t you just think that I gave it all to you? Then our budget would be balanced and everything would be O.K.’

“Joyce said, ‘Jess Semple,’ and she shook her finger, ‘don’t be simple.’

“I said, ‘Baby, don’t shake your finger in my face. That is probably why Venus got her arms cut off—from shaking her fingers in some man’s face once too often. And look at Mona Lisa smiling that sly little old smile, setting there thinking up ways to bedevil a man. I can tell by how she looks, Mona Lisa is up to no good purpose. If Mona Lisa was to come to life here in New York and take the A Train to Harlem, I would send her right back to France where she belongs. That woman would ruin a man—like Desdemona did Old Fellow.”

“You mean Othello?” I said.

“Whoever that Negro were that was driv mad by a white handkerchief,” said Simple.

“It was not Desdemona’s fault,” I explained. “It was Iago’s.

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