Imagining "The Talk"

After visiting Tyre Nichols’ South Memphis neighborhood, I almost called it a day and headed back to my hotel.  Imagining the details of chaos and mayhem has that effect on me.  Makes me want to hide away in a safe place.

But, as I got farther from the scene of the crime in Memphis that pull began to fade.  I’d nothing to eat since a do-it-yourself waffle at breakfast.  When we were in Memphis years before, my wife and I found a good BBQ joint close to the National Civil Rights Museum.  I had no idea of its name or address.

Instead of using Google Maps I just drove in that direction hoping for the best.  I thought if I put myself in the general area, I’d find my way to the restaurant by recognizing something familiar.   Time didn’t matter.  It was mid-afternoon and I had nothing to do but drive into Mississippi the next day. 

There’s an old part of town past Beale Street that’s being made new.  Good old buildings shown some love are coming back from near death.   I turned down one of those streets and there were a pair of white Cadillacs from the 60’s parked by an old building.   Above them was an open balcony.  Hanging from the balcony rail was a large wreath. My plan worked.  I knew where I was.   

It was the Lorraine Motel, and the balcony was the site of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination on April 4, 1968.  The Lorraine Motel is part of the National Civil Rights Museum.  Also included is the building across the street from where Dr. King’s convicted killer, James Earl Ray, fired a single bullet that ended the life of America’s greatest civil rights leader and activist.

I was sure I was near the BBQ joint.  I went around the block, expanded my search, circled around for a while longer, and found nothing.  I drove by the white Cadillacs again.

As I remember that day years before, after my wife and I ate at the elusive BBQ joint, we walked to the museum, spent a long time there, and upon leaving found a brand new bar down the street that had just opened.   The bar and stools were in place, but the bartender was unpacking glassware and arranging bottles.  Another guy was setting up tables and chairs.  If I couldn’t eat BBQ, I reasoned, perhaps I could find that bar, have a drink, and regroup. 

I parked the Chevy and strolled down the street.  It felt familiar.  I walked two blocks, looking in the windows and trying to recall the bar I imagined from the past.  No luck.  I stood on a corner by an old brick building painted bright red, Pearl’s Oyster House.  Past that corner, neighborhood improvements began to peter out.  The prospect of a well-stocked bar looked dim farther on. I was 0-2 in my quest to visit old haunts.  But the possibility of oysters was appealing.  I went in.

The middle of the afternoon wasn’t busy at Pearl’s.  Two tables were occupied by couples having lunch and the bar was completely empty.  I’m not self-conscious about being alone, but the bar seemed like the place for a guy by himself to be.

As I picked out a comfortable stool, one of the couples caught the bartender’s attention and drew him to their table.  After a short exchange, he headed towards the kitchen, speaking to me as he walked past.

“Sorry.  Be right back.”

The bartender was also the waiter. 

As I waited, I scanned the bottles behind the bar.  Lots and lots of liquor up there.  Some bottles I knew by their shape or the color of their labels.  I needed more light to read the labels well. 

The bartender brought a bottle of hot sauce to one of the couples and took his place behind the bar.  I swear that smiling kid didn’t look old enough to be serving alcohol.  Does everyone look younger and younger to you as you age?  Or is it just me?

“Sorry ‘bout that.  What can I get you?”

“I think you got Old Grand Dad up there.  I’ll have him.”

“OK.”

He turned and scanned the bottles.

“I know it’s here.  I poured some last week.”

“Orange label, black letters, a little green in the background.”

He kept looking.

“Picture of an old guy in gold.  Could be up there on the right.  See?  Second shelf?”

“Yep.  Knew it was here.  I got 80 proof and 100 too.  Which’ll it be?”

“Hundred.  On the rocks.”

“Good choice.  More bang for your buck right?”

Bottle in hand, he scooped up ice in a rocks glass and filled it full of bourbon. Big pour.

“Want a water back?”

“Sure.”

“Need a menu?”

“I might.”

“Here’s one in case.”

He laid a spiral-bound sheaf of laminated pages on the bar stool next to me.  Pearl’s Oyster House has a big menu.  I looked through it quickly.  One of the couples paid their bill and left.  I checked my phone.  No messages.  The bartender began to wash glasses and dry them carefully, holding them up to the light from the window to check for smudges. I had a sip of Old Grand Dad.  Nice and cold.  My Dad kept a bottle of OGD on the farm.

“What brings you down to Memphis?  Graceland?”

Down to Memphis.  He’d immediately pegged me as a Yankee.

“No, I was to Graceland last time I was here.  I’m driving to Florida to meet my wife.  I stopped mostly to learn more about Tyre Nichols.”

“What are you finding out?”

“Not much.  He shouldn’t have died.  I’m sure of that.  I’m trying to figure out why the cops stopped him and why they were so angry.”

“Where you from?”

“Small town in Illinois.  About 90 miles southwest of Chicago.”

“Chicago cops killed a kid like Tyre, right?  Laquan McDonald?  Only Laquan got shot. 16 times, I think. They held back the video for months.”

“More.  They delayed releasing that video for over a year.  The Mayor’s Office and the States Attorney held it up till after the mayoral election.  After that the mayor didn’t run for another term and that States Attorney got beat.  Yeah.  That was a while ago.  Let me Google that.”

“I was in high school I know.”

This is why smartphones are addicting.  No need to wonder about anything.

“Laquan was killed in 2014.”

“I would have been 15.  I’m 24 now.”

“So, you been keeping track of these things for a long time.”

“Hell yes.  When you’re a black kid in America it’s self-protection.  We gotta learn from each other’s mistakes man.”

“What was Tyre’s mistake?”

“He ran.”

As the bartender was saying that, the last couple came up to pay their bill.  After they left, he bussed their dishes, carried them to the kitchen, wiped down their table, then came back to the bar.

“You need another bourbon?”

“No.  But I think I’ll have something to eat.  How’s that oyster po boy sandwich?”

‘Great.  The oysters are fresh from the Gulf.  Hand shucked.  We make our own remoulade.  Spicy.  The cook is serious about the details.”

“I’ll take it.”

“Fries with that?”

“How about double Cole slaw instead of fries?”

‘You got it.  Let me put this in.”

He left for the kitchen.  I was still thinking of him listening to the news as a black kid growing up in America and keying in on other black kids getting killed.  The bartender came back with silverware and hot sauce.

“So, you think if Tyre hadn’t run from the cops, he’d be alive now?”

“He woulda had a better chance.  Used to be, before the cameras and shit, if you ran, they’d just shoot you.  The official line would be ‘Shot while fleeing police’ or ‘disobeying a law officer.’ Cops never got charged.  All they had was police reports to go on.  Reports the cops wrote.  Now we can see what happens with our own eyes.  Makes it all different.  But it keeps happening.”

“I watched those videos over and over.  The cops were all over Tyre from the get-go.  There was no civil conversation.  They pulled him over and yanked him out of the car right away.  Put him on the ground and started in on him.”

“That I can’t figure out.  Maybe it wasn’t his car?  Maybe he had a warrant?  Nobody knows.  But every black kid in the South knows you can’t run from the cops.  You do what they tell you and take their shit.”

“How’d you learn that?”

“My parents.  It’s all part of “the talk".  You’re a guy that knows stuff.  You’ve heard of the talk, right?  Ta Nehisi-Coates wrote about it.  Barack Obama talked about it.  And all of a sudden, it’s a thing in America.  It took a hundred years for white people to realize black parents sit their kids down and teach them about police brutality so that they won’t get killed.  I’m hoping if I ever have kids, I won’t have to do that. But the way things are going I bet I will.”

Sometimes I get stuck thinking and can’t talk.  I was thinking of him as a kid listening to his parents.  I was imagining myself giving that talk.  I’ve handed out plenty of advice to my kids, but nothing on that level.  But then I didn’t have those fears as a white parent in our community.  He went on.

“Think of the long talks black parents must have had with their kids to keep them alive during slavery.  Think of keeping your kids alive during Jim Crow, so they didn’t get lynched.  Explaining those rules.  Teaching them how to go all Uncle Tom.”

“You remember your talk?  You remember what it felt like?”

“I remember my parents’ faces.  My dad was pretty matter-of-fact, but my mom was looking at me so close.  She was scared.  I don’t think I’d ever seen her so serious.  She wanted to make real sure I understood.  It worked.  Scared me, and I never forgot it.”

“How old were you?“

“I think like twelve?”

“I can’t imagine.”

“No, you can’t.  There are your parents saying don’t stand up to the cops.  Be meek.  My Dad is a tough guy.  But there he was telling me to do whatever they say.  If they hit you, they hit you.  Don’t fight back and whatever you do don’t run.  I don’t know what it feels like to be a parent but to realize how much they believed in following the rules put down by white people. It’s…”

His voice trailed off.

“It’s rules that apply to me but not to you.  It’s demeaning man.  I didn’t even realize how small it made me feel till I got older.  And then it felt so wrong.  You don’t get over that stuff.”

Someone from the kitchen appeared with my oyster po boy and set it in front of me.  It was big.  The remoulade was in a small bowl on the side.  Next to it was a big mound of Cole slaw. 

“Anything else we can get you?”

“I think I’m good.”

He went back to the kitchen.  The bartender filled my water glass.

“Sorry if I got carried away there.”

“It’s OK.  I think you had good parents.  They risked appearing weak to protect you.  They were preparing you for life.”

“I know.  And here I am.  24 and still alive.  I got to say, I haven’t had much trouble in Memphis.  Not with cops, not with anybody.”

“Is this your full-time job?”

“Part time.  I finally got back into school.  I’m at Southwest Tennessee Community College.  Hoping to transfer somewhere in the fall and get a degree in business.”

“That sounds like a great idea.”

I spooned some remoulade over the deep-fried oysters nestled in a warm French roll, sprinkled some drops of Crystal, a Louisiana hot sauce, over that, and had a bite.  To quote many wise men who have gone before me “it don’t get no better than that.” 

The bartender went on.

“Something else about Tyre.  He was from Sacramento.  Maybe it’s different in California.  I hope it is.  Maybe in his world, you could run from the cops and get away with it.”

“Think of this,” I said.  “There are the cops with his car.  Surely, they identified him.  Why not go to his house later and arrest him.  Track him down at work.  What could be so urgent?  Why run him down and beat him like a dog?”

“Because they’re cops, and he pissed them off.  I don’t think they probably believed they were killing him.  But if you beat someone that badly it’s always possible.  They were out of control.  But until they show me different, I'm  believing that’s what cops do in the South.”

“I’m afraid cops do that all over.”

“We’ll know the details about Tyre at some point.  But for now, what happened to him just reinforces what black people have always thought about the police down here.”

I had some Cole slaw.

“I’ve been trying to learn more about the South every year on these trips.  I’ve gone to a fair number of Civil Rights Museums, been to Birmingham, Montgomery, Selma.  Done some reading.  Along the way, I came across something both weird and disgusting.  I could have gone my whole life without learning this, but that’s the way it goes.”

“When black people were slaves in the South, their owners didn’t want them to die because they were their property.  They whipped them and some treated them like animals, but they rarely killed them.  So, the risk for black people being killed by whites actually went up after the Civil War.”

“The way white folks came to control black people shifted to terrorism. That’s when the lynchings started. That’s when the Klan was formed.  And police officers as agents of white governments were an extension of that entire process.  The whole deck was stacked against you, all the way through to the courts. There was no way out.”

“Yessir, the great state of Tennessee!  We got Memphis with Graceland and Beale Street, Nashville the Country Music Capital of the World, Jack Daniels Whiskey in Lynchburg, and the birthplace of the Ku Klux Klan; Pulaski, Tennessee.”

“No kidding?”

“Yep.  Dirtball town south of Nashville.  Don’t bother going there looking for no Klan history.  They don’t own up to it.  Big thing for them is the Wild Turkey Festival.  Real birds, not the whiskey.”

I shook my head.

“You learn something every day.”

I took the last few bites of my sandwich and finished the slaw.

“It’s been good talking to you.”

“No problem.  An old guy who trained me to tend bar says it comes with the job. He says bartenders used to be the therapists of their day.  Paid to listen, he says.  But today I’m afraid I did too much of the talking.”

“It’s OK.  I got a lot to learn.”

“Enjoy the rest of your trip.”

“I will.  Good luck to you.”