Once on a short trip to Nashville, I made a point of asking just where not go if I wanted to keep myself out out trouble. I do this everywhere I go; not for want of danger but just for frame of reference. (One never can be too careful.) Most people I asked shrugged this question off, probably believing me to be some kind of dangerous or possibly deranged person but finally, in a hamburger shop somewhere down Charlotte Avenue, I got my answer from a young couple who, I imagine, was otherwise trying to enjoy a nice Saturday lunch:
“Oh, that’s easy,” they said. “West Nashville for sure.”
I nodded, thanking them and making a mental note. It was a nice city; this seemed like a good idea.
So what does one encounter in this awful, mystical monsterscape of West Nashville? What horror? What injustice? What monument to human suffering?
Vanderbilt University. And then you realize what they mean: it’s not that west Nashville is really bad in the way one might think of the bad part of St. Louis or Chicago; they mean west Nashville, you know, that’s the part of town where those people live. Kids, hippies, minorities, democrats: whoever they are, that’s where they’re hiding. Talk about a disappointment.
I later retold this to a bartender somewhere else across town, and she just nodded, almost laughing as I spoke. “That’s not what you meant, was it?” she asked.
No, I said.
“You mean like the nasty part of town?” she asked.
Yes, I said.
“Oh, you want the dirty south.”
Yes, again.
“Yeah, you gotta go to Memphis for that.” And now, finally, three years later, I am happy to report she was right.
+++
Anyone in the Chicago area, I’ll be back at Essay Fiesta on Monday, November 21, 7pm at the Book Cellar. The show is free; I promise my words will be worth at least twice that.
Thank you as always for reading,
AMR
Memphis, TN & Chicago, IL / October 1 & 21, 2011