The Waking (23 page)

“
Who?”

“
Otis Blackwell, the black man who wrote ‘Don’t Be Cruel,’ ‘All Shook Up,’ and ‘Return to Sender’ for him. Mr. Blackwell also wrote songs for Jerry Lee Lewis. You ever hear of ‘Great Balls of Fire’ or ‘Breathless’?”

“
No.”

“
You
have
heard of Aretha Franklin, right?”

I shake my head.

“
Boy, what have you been listening to?” Rose asks.

Mainly to the voices in my head here lately. I wonder where The Voice hangs out when he’s not being ugly. I hope it’s some place horrible. Maybe The Voice has gone to Graceland. “I don’t have much time for music.”

“
You’re about to make time.” She takes my hand. “You are about to learn an awful lot about everything. You know that Memphis is the home of the blues and the birthplace of rock ‘n’ roll ...”

And while we walk under an overcast Memphis sky, Rose schools me on just about everything, most I’ve never heard about before. We visit W. C. Handy’s little shotgun house on Beale Street and listen to a jam session under his statue in Handy Park. We check out the church nearby that was the first brick church in the South built by blacks. And after we visit the Rock ‘n’ Soul Museum, I know more than I ever wanted to know about how the blues came to Memphis from the Mississippi Delta.

“
How are you doing?” she asks as we leave the museum.

“
Okay.”

“
Too much for you?”

“
No ma’am.”

“
Good, because there’s so much more to learn at the Lorraine Motel.”

I blink at her. “You’re taking me to a motel?”

“
I certainly am.”

“
But Rose, I—”

“
It ain’t like that,” she interrupts. “Didn’t they teach you anything in school?”

They tried, but I wasn’t having it. The chips on my shoulders grew right up to and clogged my ears.

“
The Lorraine is where Dr. King was shot, and now it’s a civil rights museum.”

“
Oh.”

The Lorraine certainly looks like a motel from the outside with its original old-fashioned sign. But once we’re inside, everything changes.

I learn more during the ninety-minute tour than in my entire time in school on the Hill. I learn that Nat Turner was only thirty-one when he led his rebellion, that Harriett Tubman convinced runaway slaves with her shotgun, saying, “You’ll be free or die,” that Ku Klux Klan robes can scare me even if they’re just on display, and that I’ve had it good compared to the Jim Crow South where kids were often reading from
one
book at
one
desk.

The places stream by me like Little Rock, Montgomery, Birmingham, even Memphis where garbage workers carried signs proclaiming, “I am a Man.” I see sit-ins, a burning bus, marchers, a re-creation of Dr. King’s Birmingham jail cell, and Dr. King’s hotel room, unchanged since 1968. The marchers get to me most, though. White plaster statues of black people carry signs and have sure strides, and it makes me think of Freedom Corner and the marchers I thought looked so foolish. They won’t look foolish at all when I get back.

And to think that Dr. King was only thirty-nine when he died. Thirty-nine. All that he accomplished in just thirty-nine years, and I’m only ten years away. What a waste my life has been. And to stand in the place where a great man was shot, to be where Dr. King died, to know about the exact moment in history that would cause the Hill to riot … It’s like I’ve come full circle or something.

“
You okay?” Rose asks as we leave.

“
Not really,” I say.

“
Pretty intense, huh?”

“
Yeah.” And it makes me realize how incomplete my life is. All those people, some white people, too, fought hard for me to have a better life, and what have I done with that life but waste it?

“
It overwhelmed me the first time I went through,” Rose says. “I had lived through much of what you saw, and even though I knew it was coming up on the tour today, it still gave me chills, and it’s still
giving
me chills.” She rubs her arms. “We’ve come a long way, but there’s a whole long journey left to go.”

I wish I knew how long my journey was going to be. I wish I knew where I was going, too.

“
You hungry?” Rose asks.

“
Starving.”

“
I told you we’d get some wet ribs, right?”

“
Sounds good.”

“
I know just the place.”

“
Let’s go.”

We walk into Peabody Place, a huge mall-like complex of stores and restaurants and go to Isaac Hayes Music*Food*Passion. Once we’re seated, I don’t want to leave. It smells so good, and when I look at the menu, I smile.

“
What are you smilin’ about, boy?” Rose asks.

“
Real food.”

She snatches the menu from me. “And mine ain’t?”

“
It is, Rose, you know it is.” I reach for the menu.

“
You won’t need this. I’m taking care of everything today.” When the server comes to us, Rose tells her, “Hot Buttered Soul! for two, please, and keep the ice water coming.”

When the server leaves, I ask, “What did you just order?”

“
You’ll see.”

For the next hour, everything I see, I eat. I eat half of a slab of wet ribs, most of an herb-roasted chicken, coleslaw, fries, cornbread muffins, rolls, baked beans, and something called Memphis Chopped Pork. I drink lots of water and go through at least twenty napkins in the heart of the pork barbecue capital of the world while Rose tells me everything I didn’t know about Isaac Hayes.

“
Good stuff, huh?” Rose asks.

“
The best.”

As darkness falls, the party begins. We go a short distance to Beale Street, where the neon isn’t as flashy and harsh as it is in Pittsburgh. It’s restrained neon, if that makes any sense. It doesn’t scream at you. It beckons you, calls you, waves a hand at you, saying, “Come on in, the party’s just gettin’ started.” And though we’re inside the Rum Boogie Café, the party goes on outside on Beale Street as well, with hundreds of people listening to outdoor musicians, drinking, laughing, and dancing right there on the street.

“
Get ready to jump,” Rose says as the Boogie Blues Band starts laying out some hot rhythm and blues.

“
This place is a poem waiting to happen,” I tell Rose.

“
Then write it.”

“
No paper.”

She hands me a napkin and asks a passing server for her pen. “Knock yourself out.”

And I do:

I hand it to Rose, and she reads it. “You got all
this
out of this place?”

“
I have a good imagination.” And I feel this place. It’s talking to me.

“
I’ll say, and ‘gin air’ is right. We got to get up out of here.”

But when an old stomp song comes on, Rose drags me to my feet. “You ain’t heard nothin’ till you heard this, boy. Get your feet a-stompin’.”

Rose knows all the lyrics, something about a mannish boy who’s going to be the greatest man alive, and the song speaks to me, talks to me, whispers in my ears, and shouts in my head.

Ba-BOOM-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch, ba-BOOM-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch.

And Rose is the stompin’ queen, wearing the finish off the floor in her bare feet. They could play this song all night. That harmonica speaks of the railroad, the bass speaks of the sea, the—

I write those lines down.

“
What are you doin’?”

“
Some lines popped into my head.”

She tears me away from the napkin. “I’m gonna pop your head myself if you don’t dance with me.”

“
Sorry.”

“
Don’t leave me hangin’ like that again.”

“
I won’t.”

And I don’t. I work off all that barbecue, dancing sober with people of every race and culture. I could live right here at the Rum Boogie Café where the music is groovin’ and the people are movin’—

I add those lines to my napkin, too.

Rose has to tear me away from the Rum Boogie Café a little after midnight, and on the walk back to the
American Queen
she stops me in front of a phone booth.

“
You’ve got to call her, Emmanuel.”

“
Nah. Mary’s probably working.”

She hands me a calling card. “Well, call somebody. Share some of this night with someone.”

“
I’m sharing it with you.”

“
That’s sweet, but call, what was her name?”

“
Auntie June.”

“
Call Auntie June.”

I press in a series of numbers until the phone rings.

“
This had better be good,” Auntie June says.

Oops. I woke her up. “Auntie June? It’s me, Emmanuel.”

“
Emmanuel? What time is it?”

“
A little after midnight, Auntie June, and I’m in Memphis.”

After a short silence, Auntie June says, “Emmanuel isn’t here.”

“
I’m
Emmanuel.”

“
Huh?”

“
Auntie June, it’s me.”

“
Emmanuel?” Auntie June always was a hard sleeper.

“
Yes. I just called to talk to you. Did you get my letter?”

“
Sure did.” She sounds more awake now. “And I tore up that check.”

“
Why?” I turn to Rose and whisper, “She tore up the check.”

“
The destruction of money must run in your family,” Rose says.

“
I tore up that check because you can’t fool me, boy,” Auntie June says. “I
know
you’re not clean, and you aren’t working on any boat. I couldn’t even get you in the water at the YMCA when you were a little boy. You’re just into something different is all, writing bad checks like that. And now you’re trying to get
me
arrested for cashing it, huh? Have you no shame?”

Wow. “Auntie June, listen to me. I am working in the galley, the dining room, and the laundry room on a boat called the
American Queen
.”

“
What kind of name is that for a boat?” she asks.

“
It’s the name they gave it, I don’t know.”

“
Let me speak to her,” Rose says.

“
Auntie June, I’m here in Memphis with my boss. Would you like to speak to her? Her name is Rose.”

I hand the phone to Rose, who immediately gets to work. “Hey, Auntie June, how you doin’? I’m Emmanuel’s boss on the boat … No, I am not a harlot.” She covers the mouthpiece and whispers, “She thinks I’m a harlot. Are all your people this crazy?”

The few that I know, I guess.

She uncovers the mouthpiece. “Your nephew is an outstanding worker, and— Yes, he’s clean. I’ve been making sure of that … We’re just out after a night at the Rum Boogie Café. It’s a blues club … No, we didn’t drink any rum … Right, in Memphis … How can I prove it to you?” She covers the mouthpiece again. “She says she has to see it to believe it.”

Auntie June’s faith must be slipping.

She uncovers the mouthpiece again. “We’ll send you a picture or two, all right? And we’ll send you another check … He earned that money the old-fashioned way, Auntie June, with blood, sweat, and muscle. He’s a very good cook, and what’s that? Don’t tear up the next check. Promise me … All right … Okay. Here’s Emmanuel.” She hands me the phone. “Crazy doesn’t fall far from the tree in your family.”

“
Hey, Auntie June.”