Inkerman Writers - Bud Craig

What I miss about Memphis

Am I the only 59-year-old Englishman to sing All Shook Up on a trolley bus in Memphis, Tennessee, I wondered? Day one of my trip and already I’d been plunged into a kind of surreal euphoria. Petrol fumes mingled with the aroma of barbecued ribs from the Blues City Café. The joyful clang of the bell in the warm September dusk reverberated from the neon lights of Beale Street as if announcing Party Time. Dolores, the black and beautiful manager of the hotel I was staying in, aimed her camcorder at me.

“Pete, sing a song,” she instructed.

That’s All Right, Mama, the King’s first record, might have been a better choice, I thought later. It was after all recorded in Memphis at the legendary Sun Studios on 7th July 1954. Or what about soul classic, In the Midnight Hour, produced at Stax Records, South Memphis, and written in the Lorraine Motel where Martin Luther King was shot?

Still, I figured, All Shook Up was the first Elvis number I remembered. Just by closing my eyes I hear it again in the Salford home of my childhood, thumping through the walls of the house next-door. Home of Eric Pendle, the only Teddy Boy in the street. The words captured with unnerving accuracy how I was feeling. I didn’t know if it was Christmas Eve or Pancake Tuesday. What was wrong with me? And what the heck was I going to do about it?

At 11.30 Central Time that morning I approached Eden Garden Hotel reception, catching a whiff of fresh coffee from the restaurant.

“How y’all doin’ today,” Dolores asked from behind the dark oak desk in an accent that made me want to dance. She leafed through the sheaf of documents I handed her.

“Hey, you from Manchester, England?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, how about that? My youngest kid, Wesley, is working on a doctorate at the University of Manchester right now.”

“Gerraway,” I said, gazing into Dolores’ soulful, brown eyes. “You’re never old enough to have a son at university.”

“I kinda like you already,” she grinned.

I watched as she looked again at my papers. Understated make-up; long, intricate dreadlocks framing a face with too much character to be called pretty. You’d look twice though. Skin as smooth as deep brown velvet. The smart, grey uniform had a certain formality but managed to accentuate her slim curves. Not that I was looking that closely. Out of your league, son, I told myself, unattainable, that’s the word.

“I just love your accent,” she said.

So my flat Mancunian vowels were exotic to her ears. What else might she like about me? At least I’m not bald or fat and I’ve still got my own teeth. Maybe my Ole Gunnar Solskaer t-shirt would be a turn-on for her. Yeah, if she had a thing for baby-faced Norwegian centre-forwards.

“You in Memphis on business?”

“No. Celebrating.”

“What are you celebrating?”

“Well, in no particular order,” I said, “my birthday, 50 years of rock’n’roll, early retirement from teaching.”

“Retired? And you so young. I guess you guys get pretty good pensions over in England?”

“Not bad. And I inherited some money from my cousin, Brendan, last year.”

“He left you money in his will? Nice cousin.”

“No, it’s just that I was his nearest relative. He died intestate.”

“Yeah?”

Dolores chewed her pen thoughtfully.

“But once they’ve castrated you,” I said, “life’s not worth living anyway.”

“I guess not,” she chuckled, pressing a few buttons on the computer on the desk in front of her, “is everybody in the UK like you?”

“Oh, yes, Posh Spice, Tony Blair, the Queen…”

“Bob Geldof?”

“He’s Irish,” I explained.

“Is there a difference?”

“Oh, yes. Though I’m a bit of both…”

“Like mixed race?”

“Sort of,” I said, “Irish on my dad’s side. Dark hair and blue eyes, a sure sign.”

“Is that a fact? So where’s…” She looked down at the computer screen on the desk, “…Mr. Quinn?”

“Dan? Came down with appendicitis and had to miss the trip.”

“That’s too bad.”

“Yes,” I agreed, as I thought of Dan writhing woozily in his hospital bed after the operation.

“All I wanted,” he said, “was to meet a gin-soaked bar-room queen who’d take me upstairs for a ride.”

“Serves you right for having impure thoughts,” I told him. “For your penance say two decades of the rosary and a Hail Holy Queen.” He made a Churchillian sign as I left.

“So you’re all on your lonesome?”

I wanted to bottle the loving sympathy in Dolores’ voice.

“Yeah.”

I had invited my son, Georgie, I thought, as I held out my hand for her to return my passport. For some reason he turned down the offer of joining me for a nostalgia fest.

“Hey, I’ve got an idea,” said Dolores as she handed me my room key.

“What’s that?”

“I’m working on a promotional DVD for the hotel. Wanna be in it?”

How did she know I was just an attention-seeking idiot at heart?

“We film you going round Memphis tonight. You say how cool it is and what a great hotel the Eden Gardens is…”

“Which it is…”

“It’s a way of hitting the UK market. In return you get free entrance to a music club with dinner and drinks on the house.”

“Will you be with me?”

“Why, sure, I’ll never leave your side.”

A whole evening with Dolores. Maybe travelling solo wouldn’t be too bad after all.

“A Brit in Memphis,” I said, “starring Pete Doyle. Could win an Oscar.”

I walked into a sweaty, heaving Rum Boogie Café that first night, clutching the free ticket Dolores handed me after my rendition of All Shook Up. Cooking smells floated in the background. A light flashed, drawing me towards it. It lit up a woman in a slinky red dress, mic in hand. Glossy lipstick, hair trailing seductively over one bare shoulder. Dolores on stage.

“I’m gonna wait till the midnight hour,” she sang in a velvet growl.

Her voice soared as she swayed sensuously. The band surrounded her with a funky beat, seeming to lift her up like a wave. Seeing me walking in she waved over to me. I was walking into a Beale Street Blues club and the singer was waving to me!

“Now, Ladies and Gentlemen,” Dolores announced during the guitar break, “I’d like to introduce a singer who’s come all the way from Manchester, England…’

What the hell’s going on, I thought.

“Give it up for Mr. Pete Doyle.” People looked around as Dolores beckoned me to the stage. I stepped forward.

“You have the perfect combination for public performance,” I remembered Dan saying once, “– or making a tit of yourself, as it’s sometimes known. No talent; no shame.”

“I’m glad you enjoyed the show, Pete,” Dolores said later as we arrived at the Eden Gardens and got into the elevator. “Life’s for having fun, right?”

“Sounds good to me,” I said, pushing the button to start the lift’s ascent.

“Tonight’s certainly been fun. I’m gonna wait till the midnight hour,” I sang.

“We don’t have to,” she said, stepping out with me as we arrived at the fifth floor.

“Don’t have to what?”

She smiled in exasperation.

“Are all you Brits so slow? We don’t have to wait till the midnight hour. My room’s right around the corner.”

“Í got myself pregnant at 17,” she said, as we lay together in tired wakefulness in the early hours, lit by the pale glow of her bedside lamp. The soft, safe dark of the rest of the room seemed to invite confidences.

“You got yourself pregnant?”

“Well, maybe I had a little help,” she giggled, lightly caressing my stomach with the tips of her fingers. “I had two more kids pretty quickly.”

“Must have been tough,” I said, cuddling up to her.

“I guess. Worked all the hours the good Lord sent and did my music thing to put me and my 3 boys through college. My husband was long gone by then.”

As I listened to her telling me all this with a distinct lack of self-pity I could see my index-linked existence climb to the top of the League Table of boring lives.

“Any ambitions?”

“Just to keep on keeping on, baby.”

“What about your music,” I asked, remembering how good she was. “Ever thought about giving up the day job?”

“Could never afford to. What about you, Mr. Englishman? What do you want out of life?”

I pictured for a moment all the things I’d done stacked up in neat piles in a series of in-trays: Need the Money; Feel Obliged to; Something I Believe In.

“From now on I’m gonna devote my life to selfish pleasure.”

“You’ve made a good start.”

“At one time I just wanted a better world.”

“Don’t we all?”

“I’ve been a Trade Union activist in my time,” I said, “got involved in Amnesty International, Anti-Apartheid, the Peace Movement. You name it.”

I thought of all the shoes I must have worn out on demos, how I used to tell people I had to pay the cobbler by direct debit.

“I done some of that,” she said. “You’re here for a week, right?”

I nodded.

“I’m working during the day while you’re doing the tourist bit,” she said. “I’m on sleep-in duty at night but that’s only for emergencies. So…”

I smiled and kissed her.

“We can get together then.”

Where would I find the stamina? How was I going to appreciate the iconic monuments of Memphis while constantly longing to be back with Dolores? You’re old enough to know better, I kept reminding myself, but I wouldn’t listen.

There are hundreds of ways of saying goodbye. None of them seemed right on my final day in Memphis. In the kitchen adjoining her room, Dolores cooked me dinner.

“Great burgers,” I said, as she sat there grinning at me.

“You Brits kill me,” she laughed, “so polite.”

“What?”

“I eat my burgers with a knife and fork, like so,” she said, mimicking my movements and trying out a ‘British’ accent that hovered between Dame Edna and Dick Van Dyke, “with a little red wine.”

I drank some Californian Merlot and grinned.

“Beer and Hands,” she instructed, handing me a freezing cold Newcastle Brown to emphasise the point. Obediently I picked up the burger and swigged from the bottle.

“So, you had a good time in Memphis?”

“Great. I’ve got a lot to think about.”

I thought of the tacky magnificence of Graceland, Elvis’s mansion; of standing on the spot in the Sun Studios where he laid down those first tracks; the Soul Museum celebrating Stax Records and its ethos of multi-racial creativity; the Museum of Civil Rights inspiring both impotent fury and hope for the future.

“Well,” I began after we’d eaten.

The feeling of loss was as physical as the taste of the food. She took my hand. I looked around at the framed photo of Dolores in Seventies gear, the Stevie Wonder poster on the wall, the red mug dripping coffee onto the scarred coffee table. My last visit to Dolores’ bedroom.

“I’ll think of you,” I said in the middle of one of those anguished conversations people of our age aren’t supposed to have any more.

She smiled sadly and took my hand.

“Yeah, me too.”

We were both almost whispering. We left the possibility of meeting again hanging in the air like a ghostly question mark. I might see her when she comes over to see her son. And then again. Goodbyes should be short so I kissed her and left.

I flew back with a Blue Hawaii shower curtain for Dan, Elvis T-shirts for everybody else, and a headful of thoughts jostling like kids in a schoolyard fight. About the power of music; what America’s done for us; and why the colour of somebody’s skin should be so important.

My wife drove me home from Manchester Airport, smiling and chatting as she battled through the traffic. She’s all right, is Maureen, everybody likes her. I like her. What’s the problem then, Pete, another part of me asked. I don’t know, I tried to answer, it’s the lack of…well, it’s hard to come to grips with how you feel about a woman you’ve spent 35 years with. One thing I do know. It’s definitely nothing to do with what happened in Memphis. That was just an episode, as ephemeral as the tank top Dolores was wearing in the photograph on her bedroom wall.

Why then am I still attacked by restless excitement, aching nostalgia and confused, almost adolescent longing? Still haunted by an Elvis quote etched in white on the plate glass window of Laskys, where the King of Rock ‘n’ Roll bought clothes for Jail House Rock? Something he said when he was in the army:

“Somebody asked me what I miss most about Memphis and I said ‘everything’.”

THE END