where
this being Memphis
the shelves were stocked with blues CDs of every kind
Mississippi delta blues
jump blues
Memphis jug blues
city blues
and many more
I have never seen a larger collection of blues.
As we walked in the door
we saw an old man sitting behind a card table
carefully dressed in a brown suit and a white fedora
carefully dressed like yesterday
among the customers in their blue jeans,
sweat pants, and running suits.
There was a stack of CDs on the card table
and the proud old man called out to anybody who would listen
“That’s my music playing on the speaker.
Yessir, that’s me
back in the day
and I have that song and a lot more like it
right here on these CDs.”
The music on the speakers was a little too smooth for my taste
more vocals than I cared to hear
a bit too much trumpet in the background
and I continued browsing the shelves.
As we left
the card table was blocking my exit
and the old man caught my eye.
“That’s my music playing on the speaker”, he said
and handed me a piece of paper that described his career.
I read the words as he watched me and I handed it back to him.
“Very nice”, I said “Thank you” and I stepped out the door.
It wasn’t until a week later that I thought about what I had seen
and what I had done.
That old man had gotten up that morning
and put on his best suit
the same type of suit he had worn for fifty years
picked up the carefully boxed CDs,
his carefully typed papers
and his snappy white hat
no longer able to fill a Memphis club
no longer able to charm any girl in the audience with his smile and a wink
but still proud of his music
proud of his attire
proud of his career
reduced to sitting behind a table
not asking for a handout
but hawking his memories
to people who really weren’t interested.
What I should have said to that old man
when he handed me that paper
instead of saying “Very nice”
is
“Is that you singing?
You have style, don’t you”?
and I should have bought one of his CDs for twelve dollars
and I should have asked him to autograph it for me
and I should have shaken his hand on the way out of the store.
Would that have been patronizing?
Looking back, I just don’t think so.
I spent a lot of money in Memphis.
Some of that money went for beer
for games of pool
and for more food than I needed to eat
and for some reason
I decided twelve dollars was too much to spend
to let that tired old blues man know
that somebody realized he had done something special with his life
doing something that most people couldn’t do then
and most people can’t do now
making his kind of music
wearing his kind of suit
and his white fedora perched jauntily on his head.