Music City, Side Two

The road from Nashville to Memphis was almost unremarkable, flanked by bare gray forests and barely rolling hills. An apt reflective canvas, probably, for moving across the first road that took me past the Mississippi, that showed me south. Almost 15 years further along in life, here I was riding backwards. And where was all the lush green and hallowed ground of my Highway 40 memory? Dormant? Further east? Fabricated? It just now occurred to me that I would spend the next two days in my own Matrix.

One corroboration -- it was still a three-hour tour, and a swift one with my sister behind the wheel. She took one work call, and then we talked about old friends and future vacations. Approaching the city, much as we had on arrival in Nashville, we merged incorrectly at a freeway interchange; missing our downtown exit. We drove a full circuit around Memphis before accessing our Beale Street portal, but then Katie found some Marc Cohn on her phone so we could cruise in like bona fide tourists, ready to go Walkin' in Memphis. Our Westin accommodations were a wheelchair accessible corner room on the third floor, with diagonal windows displaying the Fed Ex Forum (home of the Grizzlies) and the roof of Silky O'Sullivan's. We set up the wifi, changed clothes, and went out to an empty Beale.

Was it a January issue, or had there never been any people on these party streets in the daylight of my past travels? With the place to ourselves we went leisurely about the business of taking selfies under important signage, and then considered dinner. We should have proceeded directly to Charlie Vergos' Rendezvous, but we still were no more interested in barbecued ribs than we had been in hot chicken. Instead we were side-tracked by a hawker at a corner kiosk who offered to take our picture with a peek of the river behind us, and then said the best view in town, especially at sunset, was on the roof of the Madison Hotel.

Eight blocks later we were in an elevator hitting the "penthouse" button toward we knew not what. When the elevator doors opened we still weren't sure: mauve lounges around stylish fire pits, heat lamps and tall cocktail tables with ashtrays (damn), and two intrepid happy hour ladies huddled by the rail, hair whipping in the wind. Was it merely a place to sit and enjoy the view, and would such a thing be possible in this weather? Compared to the ground floor it was arctic up here, but we saw the Mighty Miss spread across the horizon, studded with marshy islands, dots of boats, bridges. We saw this with our own hair whipping frantically around us, but remained intrigued. We turned to discover a window with a bar in it, and a beautiful bartender wrapped in wool scarves. Her makeup seemed to match the lounge seats. We asked what her business prospects were on a night like this, would she open a bottle of bubbles just for my one glass? She would.

Katie ordered a vodka soda, and immediately her phone rang with more work. She slipped around the corner of the bar in search of less wind so the call was audible, and after paying (and tipping with much gratitude) for our drinks I followed her. Eureka. The bar wall blocked the bluster completely on this side and the view was still glorious. The bartender came out a side door to bum a cigarette. She introduced herself as Q. When Katie finally finished her phone call, a great conversation with Q began about having her better options in Memphis than in hometown Detroit, about her Fallujah tour, about her recent breakup. She had to dip back into the bar for an adventurous couple who appeared at her window, but soon rejoined us and brought the whole Prosecco bottle with her. Katie engaged the couple, round-faced Mississippians in town celebrating their 24th wedding anniversary. I toasted them and kept taking pictures of the increasingly gold-washed river. Q brought over stools from the wind-swept front of the terrace; the happy hour ladies were long gone. Cozy around the corner, we could not be torn from our private party, even as the last green flash of sun disappeared into the river and stars salted the sky, and more bubbles went into our ever-emptier stomachs. As I decided to get firm about going to find dinner, another four Friday night explorers found us, young locals on a reunion weekend from colleges and first jobs. More conversation developed with my sister conducting. Then it was Q who wanted to take pictures of all of us, to preserve this epic winter assembly in the wind -- whether for the archives of what I later discovered was the hottest club venue in town, or for her own pride as its master of ceremonies, I didn't know, but it was a merry photo session.

Numbers were shared and images texted. The most demonstrative of the youngsters implored us to meet for dancing at the end of the night (no sooner than 1am, please) somewhere called Raifords. It was hard to fathom Katie or I making it that far; we had passed the point where food would check the heavy hand of the alcohol. Our hours-ago notion to eat at the elegant lobby bistro was out; we were out of elegance range. Instead, after bidding the party farewell at the elevator, I steered us though the suddenly teeming streets into the first easy pub I spotted, The Flying Saucer. Long tables in a half-full, high-ceilinged, wood-paneled room, a patient waitress, giant pretzels with cream cheese dip, kale salads -- it had what we needed, not special Memphis but real life. I replenished water while Katie spun lectures on education, politics, the environment. She was on fire, celebrating the completion of the grant and finally, after that phone call on the roof, the end of the work week. Celebrating, too, I suspect, her introduction to this storied city, so far from our West Coast roots, with her only sister. I gave in to her celebration, though when we emerged from the pub back onto Beale, I could have called it good right then. The street was kaleidoscopic, festivities lurching in all directions. I saw through the chaos that one loud venue was The Tin Roof; regrettably or inevitably, it was a chain after all. It was hard to know what we should do next. As we stalled, a needy guy offered to take a picture of us and then tried to sell us his CD. I suggested we hold up the CD in the picture and market him via a Facebook post. He became dejected, lamenting the cold and the days since a shelter bed. My sister gave him a hug, because that's the humane thing to do, and then bolted to the other side of the street, possessed with a need for more action. Above her was a sign that said POOL , so I said "Pool?" and she said "Yessss!!!".

It was not a bar with a few pool tables; it was a pool hall with a humble bar along one side, and a few high-tops with stools (and ashtrays on the tables, damn) along the other. Jukebox in the back, twenty people in the place and none of them besides a bartender and us a woman. Frat guys playing very earnest pool at the back tables and some other kind of guys playing dominoes at the bar. Well then, time for tall Jack and Cokes. The bartender told me this drink was now called a Lemmy, and I was glad to know the Motorhead reference. We might be okay in here. Twirling around a front table, Katie was all billiards braggadocio, but it was pointless for me to even pick up a stick. Then providence sent a steel horse cowboy wandering in to my rescue. His biker jacket was covered with flair, so I broke the ice with that. He was the boss of his Baltimore crew and immediately affable, seeming to have chosen this venue, like us, by default with no agenda, easily enticed into a game with Katie. His lieutenant arrived with a pitcher of light- colored beer. We talked about the philanthropy of their fledgling bike chapter; they were in Memphis for a regional meeting tomorrow to get their official endorsement. These guys were not seasoned pool players -- the first game was ugly but Katie came out the victor on a scratch. In fact she won three more, playing with each of our new friends in turn while I and the other teased them. We went on to talk about our jobs and their kids' schools. They gave us jukebox money and we gave them shots when we saw they weren't loving their light beer, and we all enjoyed the company until about 11pm, when Katie lost a game.

Despite their early morning, they wanted to keep up with us, but we graciously cut them loose in the street. "Foooood," my sister growled like a grizzly. The next open door was Silky O'Sullivan's so we went in, and while Katie procured a basket of chili fries, I realized that Silky's had two rooms and the other one was a dueling piano bar. We found a table in there and ordered water, though the popular choice appeared to be a bucket of pink drink with six straws called a Diver. A mid-western, lonely, seemingly too-sober guy at the next table was intent on talking to us, even when my sister turned her back to him, even when we mentioned our husbands. But the pianos made me happy and he was harmless enough to humor until the chili fries were gone. Then we crossed the street and straight up crashed into our heavenly king bed.

The arrival of morning was not awesome thanks to all those accessible ashtrays the night before, but I'd been mindful enough of my booze/water ratio, and my sister was young and resilient. By about 10am we were on the move, in the direction of the Lorraine Motel (aka The National Civil Rights Museum). Katie wanted to see it, to learn more, and I thought helping teach her while seeing it myself one more time, my third, would somehow galvanize my collective Memphis crossings.

We walked out the Westin front door right into the front of the Gibson guitar factory museum and walked right on by without thinking, which I would later lament. Nashville had already suggested I should give better consideration to the varied cultures of music royalty, the details that distinguished west side music and east, Hollywood and the hills, rock, soul, blues, and country. But my plan was to do this work at Stax Records, the landmark I had skipped without thinking on prior trips, when I was a novice. Stupid to presume I was not a novice any more.    

Before all this, though, I wanted a real breakfast of biscuits, French toast, pancakes or waffles. Of course so did everyone else on this fine Saturday morning; we had to pass a couple of promising diners on Main Street where the crowds were out the door, eventually finding room at a "gastropub" called South of Beale. It only offered buttery breakfast delights on Sunday. The closest match to my cravings was fried chicken and waffles, a dish invented in Memphis (according to Memphians), that I didn't recall sampling on either prior trip. To hell with my fickle chicken preferences, it was time to eat the right thing. When the waitress said they were out I gave up and just let my sister order another burger. But when the waitress came back with the burger, perhaps having observed some deep blooming defeat and reported it to the kitchen, she said a new batch of chicken and waffles was coming right up. I don't know if it got to the heart of the matter, but it satisfied something.

While we ate I told Katie about the 1968 sanitation workers strike and Martin Luther King's last campaign. I recounted the tale his friend Billy Kyles had told my scholarly group as we sat rapt in a museum conference room in 2009. I invoked the eerie "Mountaintop" speech King gave the night before he was murdered and how formidable it felt to stand, on that same scholarly tour, at the Mason Temple podium where he delivered it. I told her about Jacqueline Smith, whose protest outside the museum kept me from going in the first time I was here. Seven years after that, Jacqueline was still outside, compelling me to wonder all through my tour which was the more important activism: educating the largely unscathed masses or empowering the locals in need. This problem struck a chord with my sister, who wrestled with it all day. I had no answer for her, but had let go of the wrestling somewhere along the way. As for Jacqueline, we found her unwavering -- 28 Years of Protest her sign read today -- on her same old corner across from the museum, and it took my breath away. 

Also on hand, on the next corner, was a group of young men preaching equity and respect to a mostly black audience. How long would their campaign last, as long as Jacqueline's? Or had they already been here longer...were their Black Lives Matter posters much different from those carried by the sanitation workers in 1968; had four decades helped us evolve? Standing under the white wreath of room 306, King's room at the motel, my sister kept wondering (as I had before), would a museum finally do the trick? She'd never know unless she went inside, so I showed her the way, but after the ticket counter I was a lousy guide. The few displays I remembered were not in the first two rooms, and then we were trapped. The rest was concealed on the other side of a small theater where we had to watch a cheesy abridged-history film which set the tone when it said the museum was brought to us by the Ford Motor Company. After that we moved through the galleries rather quickly, declined (as I had before) to go across the street and see from whence the assassin's shot was fired, and walked back to our hotel trying to help each other sort out our roles in this outrageous play.

We would use the car for the rest of the sight-seeing, and I requested the first stop be Stax, just a five minute drive from the hotel. That short drive confirmed that Memphis was not Nashville. The age and the wear of things was everywhere on display; the race and class machinery that kept it that way could not be ignored. Maybe it could on some other side of town I hadn't seen, but not here on the south side. Though a dazzling sunny day, it was cold out and winter quiet, and the lack of people (on porches or anywhere else) lent a further sense of abandonment. Stax was a little gem in the midst of this, with a lush green lawn around its parking lot, and more midcentury than last-century architecture, including one structure that looked like a gentrified condo or school. Indeed, Stax had attached a music academy to its museum, turning high school students into high-demand musicians since 2002. That was everything I needed to hear, so we skipped the tour and instead slowly flipped through records and posters and compared t-shirts in the gift shop. I came out with the only two souvenirs of the whole Tennessee trip.   

The next stop was Graceland, Katie's request, which I was surprised by. Or sorry about. Or skeptical of. I was unable to explain my response. The sad guy at Silky's last night had helped by mentioning the ticket prices. "That's it," I was reiterating as we got on the freeway, "it's disturbingly commercial. It costs ten bucks just to park before you can even get at anything." It's disturbingly not what it was, surrounded by Taco Bells and other sad suburban trappings. And I've already done it, was the part I couldn't quite say, I've already been disappointed and bewildered and grappled with all that, you can read about in the blog, and I don't know how to revisit it any more. "But," I did say, "you can pull up along the wall in front of the property and peek over at the house and then decide if you want to do more." She had mostly decided as soon as she exited the freeway onto Elvis Presley Blvd and saw what I'd been trying to explain. It actually looked less insolvent and more sad suburb than my memory told it. Had it changed? Was my first trip to the South a thing so old it that was altered with time, as Graceland had already been then and was now even more? Or had the Taco Bells alone not justified how wrong it all felt to me so I'd added liquor stores and shoes for sale on the corner? I'd never know, nor ever be able to find the signature I'd Sharpied onto this long wall of graffiti. I didn't even look for it, or take a picture of me or Katie or both of us. Her glimpse over the wall satisfied her and then she wanted to drive around the neighborhood behind Graceland to try deciphering what this place had actually been. As she drove, I supplemented with Wikipedia details. We stopped at the Walgreens on the way out. Bought potato chips and tampons at the Walgreens on Elvis Presley Boulevard. Surely not the Walgreens where Elvis, or even Priscilla, or anyone they knew ever bought anything.

For a place to be sure the King had stood, there was still Sun Records, another must-see in Katie's mind. And though about Sun I was also wary or weary, I'm happy to report how this visit veered from my prior one. For starters, what I remembered as the middle of nowhere was just a few blocks from Beale. The studio tour upstairs still didn't entice, but the snobby coffee shop I thought was downstairs had become an inviting soda counter -- its backdrop a giant print of the Million Dollar Quartet -- at which we sat a good spell devouring scratch-made chocolate shakes in silver goblets. Katie was all curiosity about the lives in the picture so we Wikied some more trivia and chatted with the shake-maker until it was time to go see the 5 o'clock ducks waddle into their fountain at the Peabody Hotel.

The Peabody lobby was mobbed. Fancy people, pearls and pencil skirts, children in Christmas costumes, random tourists, ripped jeans and sneakers, teenagers in Nike sweatshirts. The red carpet was rolled out so we waded through the fray until I found one vacant chair. The ducks were late. My sister sat on the floor next to the chair. Cocktail waitresses swirled around carrying nuts and trays; none offered us a mint julep but we weren't staying anyway, it was just a checkpoint. Katie was studying the ornately carved and stained glass ceiling when the Duckmaster came out of the elevator and deftly began rolling up the red carpet with his gold duck-headed cane. It was 5:30. Were the ducks early? I wanted to approach and ask the Duckmaster what gives, but the costume kids were taking selfies with him and a fountain backdrop. My ear caught the melody of Moon River and my eyes followed to the magnificent piano player, a 90 year old belle with a halo of platinum curls, a clown kit of makeup, and a black sequin suit glittering like a meteor shower. When it was plain that the ducks were not coming, we went over to her, loitering in the walkway with three other couples from whom the pianist was unsuccessfully soliciting requests. The only way anyone engaged her was by taking her picture. "So, that's the Peabody." Yes. "Can we get Pizza?" 

We chose Aldo's because the patio was wrapped in plastic, so warm, and eating on any patio felt slightly festive or scenic. We walked in the door and heard "Seattle!", and I knew it had be sad guy from Silky O'Sullivan's. I waved. At least we were not the only delinquent tourists choosing pizza. Two garden salads, two slices of cheese pie and a superfluous order of garlic knots worked fine. On the way home Beale was even rowdier than the night before, in part because there was a game starting at the Forum any minute. We paused to watch a stomp and drum band in Grizzly gear tearing up the middle of the street, an incredibly joyful noise. We left the garlic knots on a low wall for someone in need like last night's CD seller. Adele's Hello blared out of the karaoke bar across the street from the WC Handy statue, which we stood under for awhile, in its painted shadow on the sidewalk, awash in the concurrence. Katie remarked on the education she'd gained in Memphis. We shared some giddy laughter waiting for an empty Westin elevator, and put on our pajamas as soon as we got into the room. The hotel premium channel featured Oscar nominees and we picked Spotlight. After the movie we were both out by 10 o'clock, lulled by the basketball party racket just outside our windows. I was sleeping in the middle of Beale, not in a grandma's bedroom or a Reed College dorm. Nothing was ever the same the next time, a lesson I might finally accept; if I was to be always a traveler (never a resident), composites were my best hope for knowing a place. I probably still hadn't bothered to eat a fried peanut butter banana sandwich in Elvis's favorite booth at the Arcade Restaurant because I needed to leave a hook set for the next time. 

I woke in subdued silence, surrounded by hangovers, hearing Katie in the shower. When she came out I took my own, and when I came out she and her stuff were gone. After packing leisurely, I found her in the lobby Starbucks enjoying some quiet. We were in the car before 9am. The Music Highway was lovelier now, with morning sun dappling through the dark roadside branches and sparkling the carpet of leaves. We exited once, in Jackson, for a detour past Union University and breakfast sandwiches at a strip mall Panera. We pulled back into Sam and John's driveway before they were even home from church, so we wheeled our bags into our guest rooms as if we'd never left, then cuddled with Winston and soaked up the sun in the front room, now so familiar, and surely the warmest place in town on this 30 degree day.

When the cousins pulled up we jumped in their backseat and headed for Double Dogs, their favorite bar, where we could watch the Seahawks/Panthers playoff game while we had lunch. John was rooting for Seattle and I gave him the misimpression that I was a real football fan. The rest of the neighborhood also thought Double Dogs would be a great place to spend the afternoon -- there were no open tables. So we buttoned our coats and walked a cold couple of blocks to the weirdly appointed Sportsman's Grille. John and I sat facing a TV and I continued to play along. Lunch took up the third quarter, in which the Hawks went from 0 to 14 points. Even though the Panthers scored none, the 31 they'd piled up in the first half still seemed like enough to end Seattle's season. John was recording the game at home so we'd find out later. Now it was on to Andrew Jackson's Hermitage at the city's northeast edge. The sun was already falling in the freezing parking lot and the museum building was open for less than another hour, but we each paid our twenty dollars and warmed up while meandering past information murals and artifacts under glass. In the lobby before the doors leading outside to the plantation, under banners with #thepeople'spresident and #bornforthestorm, a southern knowitall was explaining the war of northern aggression to a guy with an Indian accent. Literally, I heard him say, "Of course I don't call it the Civil War..."

The path to the mansion was pretty, with plaques in the grass at intervals describing the antebellum design of the trees and the entry road. Inside the house I was struck by the wallpaper, a reproduction of the Parisian Telemachus on the Isle of Calypso, which I could not tear my eyes from as it climbed the two stories of the front hall. The compact tour was curiously divided by three different guides, all over 70, one confused, one grumpy, and the middle one just right -- that was Jim Sharp, who John Maxwell fell in love with, asking him side questions about the framed maps while our 21st Century Confederate from the lobby blathered more facts from his own collection. We broke away from him and the rest of our group out the mansion's back door and strode around the farm buildings, slave cabins, and cotton patches at a brisk pace in the bitter cold. At last we came upon Jackson's tomb and the surrounding graves, mostly of servants, a shrine to Paternalism. As I meditated on ever more lessons and ghosts, an arresting sunset reached through the winter branches and over the memorial dome. I suggested a hot toddies. We raced to the car with a fleeting adieu to Jim Sharp.

Sam stopped for lemons on the way home and made us the best hot toddies I hope to ever sip. After two each, and a confirmed Seahawks loss, we ordered take-out pasta, watched the James Brown biopic Get on Up, and then said goodnight -- and goodbye, wistfully -- to the cousins. Katie and I stayed up with a bottle of wine to toast our final night. The impending departure provoked our weightiest conversations thus far, with tears and laughter, plans and sticking points. And then there was one more sleep in the shelter of that celestial Maxwell guest bed.

It was almost habit to hear Sam and John depart for the start of their regular working people's week in the frosty gray hours of first light. The phone told me it was 15 degrees out there. I stayed snuggled up until I heard my sister in the shower again, then packed up again and finished Wide Sargasso Sea on the sunny couch with Winston while Katie, too, was a regular Monday worker online. When she wrapped up, we went in search of host gifts at Grand Cru wine and liquor. We had salads at Dose coffee shop next door, and drove around the famous reproduction of the Parthenon in Centennial Park -- Nashville, it turns out, is "the Athens of the South". The museum was closed, but we saw Athena's statue outside, and then went across town in search of the World Market for more gifts. We picked up four little White Castle burgers on the way back to the house, and ate them at the kitchen island while we set up our thank-you display. The burgers were, surprise, not the ones I remembered. Square Weber buns, yes, but onions and pickles on top of the patty? Where was the juice seeping into the bread and above all why was the cheese orange, or why did I remember it being white? Because you can't ever go home again, when home is the you who you were a long time ago and the places you made each day in that image.

But home, to the Pacific Northwest, we did then go. We arrived nice and early to the airport which, drenched in icy sun and heated through its bountiful skylights, was even more attractive than it had been when we arrived. Katie took a nap waiting at the gate. Our flight was bumpy and a bit long in the dark. It had in fact been a very protracted journey in some ways; the difference I'd gleaned between Memphis and Nashville alone was a lot to reflect on -- blues and country, the difference was black and white. I landed more grateful for the Eden of Seattle than ever before, done with the dream of relocating to anywhere in the southern United States, ready to pursue a fresh romance with my West.