The Greyhound offers its regular handful of down-and-outs, for whom Memphis is nothing but an air conditioned station: a pit stop on a directionless journey. A woman on the city bus from the station tells us that she lives in Broadway, where there are “white folk who look out for each other”. She shakes her head in disbelief when she hears that we’re travelling on our own, “Twenty-one? But you’re too young”.
We soon discover that our ‘minimalist’ downtown apartment consists of an airbed in an empty room.Twenty minutes working out which of my clothes would best serve as sheets. Beale Street turns out to be a pedestrianised shrine to Elvis, Blues, and BBQ. Speaking of which, we eat the most incredible ribs at the Blues City Cafe. Walking away from the neon oil spill of Beale St into the shadows of downtown Memphis it becomes painfully obvious that none of it’s real. Apart from, perhaps, the Blues guitarist who plays for tips in a shadowy park, just a foot away from the lights and booze and sequinned Elvis t-shirts.
To The Table 