Lose Yourself

I'm in the Budweiser Brew House in the Memphis airport because it's the only place in the airport, other than those disgusting glass-enclosed smoking rooms, where civilized people can smoke. It's 3:00 in the afternoon and I have three hours to kill.

My Sharona is playing on the bar's sound system. There are only two other people in here: men, sitting alone, reading, minding their own business. It's easy to lose myself in the music, the moment. This may be the only opportunity I got to write. So I write.

You can't swing a dead cat in the South without hitting a bottle of Jack Daniels. I wonder where Lynchburg is. I mean, where in Tennessee; how far from Memphis, where I'll be staying for the next few days. When in Rome, do as the Romans. When in the South, drink Jack Daniels.

I order one on the rocks.

The reason I have to kill three hours here is that my best friend since grade 5, Kay, is flying in from Bermuda, where she's lived for the last ten years since she left our homeland, Beamsville. We're spending the next few days here in Memphis. Just for the heck of it. Something we haven't done enough of since we grew up.

The bartender's name is Shannon. I ask her, do you know where the place is, where JD is made? The name Lynchburg has escaped me for a moment. She offers as she thinks it's somewhere right here in Tennessee, but whether it's 8 mile or 80, she doesn't know.

A young man — very young — walks into the bar and sits two stools over from me, my bag occupying the seat in between. Starts talking on his cell. I hear about how he was delayed getting out of Detroit because Bush was there, and how he's missed his connecting flight and is stuck in Memphis. It appears as though this is not the first bar he's visited. He looks like a college football player.

He snaps his cell shut and asks,
- Are you Canadian?

The cigarette pack always gives it away.

I finish writing the sentence above, then reply: Yes.

- Are you a writer?
- Yes.
- What do you write?
- I write about my friends, and people I meet.
- Are you going to write about me?
- I don't know yet. Maybe.

He calls the bartender over and orders a drink. She asks, as she has asked of everyone, do you want to make it a double. He says yes. When it arrives it's a very big drink. Something orange.

He's on the phone again. I go back to writing.

- Want to see a picture? He asks next.
- That depends. Of what?
- Well, I don't want to offend you.
- I'm not easily offended.

He leans closer, over the chair with my bag.
- It's piercings.
- Yours?
- Yes.
- I'm guessing you don't mean ears?
- No.

He opens his phone again, and fiddles with it for a few moments. Finds the picture he wants. Hands it to me somewhat sheepishly.

That's definitely not an ear. And, by the way, congratulations.

There are two studs, right through the... uh... neck. With large balls on each end.

Metal balls, I mean. On each end of each of the two studs.

I consider for a moment, then ask,
- Are they all the way through?
- Yes.
- That had to hurt.
- Not really. But I took them out because I hurt someone else with them. She, um, needed stitches.

I cross my legs. He orders another drink.

His girlfriend is from Canada, he tells me. I ask him to pronounce Toronto.

"T'ranna," he says.

Excellent.

Next he opens his wallet and hands me a laminated card, and says,
- This comes from there.

I see a standard-looking ID card. The only word I can make out, in the dim light and without my glasses, is Ohio. He said he was from Detroit. The photo, though, is clearly him.

- What am I looking at?

He leans in again, and whispers:
- I'm only 19.
- And this card comes from...
- T'ranna. A guy downtown. You know where the big record is?
- Of course.
- Across the street.

- And you know about this place. You live in Detroit. How?
- Everybody in my high school knows about it. Heck, all the teenagers in Detroit know about it.

I had to come to Memphis to find this out.

- My name's Tommy
he says, and offers his hand.

- I'm Sass.

Snap back to reality, oh, there goes gravity.

He asks for my Web site. He hopes to read about himself. I tell him the name. See the puzzled look. Write it down.

He pays for his drinks and leaves. Says he wants to catch a nap before his flight to Florida. Something about a football game.

I could have guessed.

Tommy, if you're reading this, talk to Sass. I've turned on the comments, below.

And email me that picture.

* * *
Go to the next story, in which Postmodern Sass and her best friend, Kay, visit Graceland. Or, go here to learn more about piercings than you'll ever want to know.