MEMPHIS, TENN: It’s hot and muggy and I’m tired. I drove all day today from Chicago to this fair city, with my partner-in-navigation Melisa riding shotgun. We stopped in Salem, IL, for a sandwich lunch at a picnic table by the side of gas station. We also tried to stop in some town that didn’t exist, after following a sign which was blank except for two arrows pointing east.
We saw corn and soybeans. All day.
I am an excellent driver.
We saw the Mississippi River twice, once when passing from Illinois to Missouri, and then passing from Arkansas to Tennessee. We can see it from our hotel’s lobby.
When the (otherwise unstoppable) cargo van finally stopped, we had a chance to explore Memphis. Drunken goats, fried oysters, and “stranded” “war veterans” whose “wives” are “in the park” and who need money--that is what we found. It wasn’t all bad. It was all hot, though. The air is like steam.
We met a nice girl named Lauren who was working her first day at Silky O’Sullivan’s, who warned us that we should be aware when walking to our car (“people aren’t nice down here”). She talked me into a glass of whiskey, because she wanted to serve alcohol for the first time. Melisa was eaten by mosquitoes. They didn’t touch me, probably because I smell bad.
Probably.
Tomorrow we drive the rest of the way to New Orleans, and my new apartment in the Big Easy. But right now, Billie Holiday is crooning us to sleep.
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