The Best of Simple by Langston Hughes

Author:Langston Hughes
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781466894860
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Midsummer Madness

PAVEMENT hot as a frying pan on Jennie Lou’s griddle. Heat devils dancing in the air. Men in windows with no undershirts on—which is one thing ladies can’t get by with if they lean out windows. Sunset. Stoops running over with people, curbs running over with kids. August in Harlem too hot to be August in hell. Beer is going up a nickel a glass, I hear, but I do not care. I would still be forced to say gimme a cool one.

“That bar’s sign is lying—AIR COOLED—which is why I’d just as well stay out here on the sidewalk. Girl, where did you get them baby-doll clothes? Wheee-ee-oooo!” The woman did not stop, but you could tell by the way she walked that she heard him. Simple whistled. “Hey, Lawdy, Miss Claudy! Or might your name be Cleopatra?” No response. “Partner, she ig-ed me.”

“She really ignored you,” I said.

“Well, anyhow, every dog has its day—but the trouble is there are more dogs than there are days, more people than there are houses, more roomers than there are rooms, and more babies than there are cribs.”

“You’re speaking philosophically this evening.”

“I’m making up proverbs. For instance: ‘A man with no legs don’t need shoes.’”

“Like most proverbs, that states the obvious.”

“It came right out of my own head—even if I did hear it before,” insisted Simple. “Also I got another one for you based on experience: ‘Don’t get a woman that you love. Get a woman that loves YOU!’”

“Meaning, I take it, that if a woman loves you, she will take care of you, and you won’t have to take care of her.”

“Something like that,” said Simple, “because if you love a woman you are subject to lay down your all before her, empty your heart and your pockets, and then have nothing left. I bet if I had been born with a silver spoon in my mouth, some woman would of had my spoon before I got to the breakfast table. I always was weak for women. In fact, womens is the cause of my being broke tonight. After I buy Joyce her summer ice cream and Zarita her summer beer, I cannot hardly buy myself a drink by the middle of the week. At dinner time all I can do is walk in a restaurant and say, ‘Gimme an order of water in a clean glass.’”

“I will repeat a proverb for you,” I said. “‘It’s a mighty poor chicken that can’t scratch up his own food.’”

“I am a poor rooster,” said Simple. “Womens have cleaned me to the bone. I may give out, but I’ll never give up, though. Neither womens nor white folks are going to get Jesse B. down.”

“Can’t you ever keep race out of the conversation?” I said.

“I am race conscious,” said Simple. “And I ain’t ashamed of my race. I ain’t like that woman that bought a watermelon and had it wrapped before she carried it out of the store. I am what I am.

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