FICTION There was a time in the South when colored school teachers were revered by everybody in the community, white and colored. Th ese respected mentors were predominantly female and taught in elementary schools where the bulk of southern school attendance was concentrated. Traditionally these respected women were choice ladies sought after and targeted by a coterie of colored men, many who had not completed the elementary grades, and were low wage earners. Th eir “thang” was to marry one of these women distinguished by their roll books. Most of these men were decent, and some loved the women who would elevate them to statures they would never attain otherwise. —And there was Joe Cephus Divine who rejected all women but school teachers and who justifi ed his rejection: “I didn’t LOVE none of them—other women. A man’s got to at least LOVE a woman he doesn’t want. I MARRIED WHO I WANTED. A MAN DOESN’T HAVE TO LOVE WHO HE WANTS.” —After two marriages and two divorces, Joe Cephus marries Johnnye Jamison, who also has an agenda— remembering you are a walking cosmos.