Part of the Memphis Scene

Part of the Memphis Scene

       by Manitoba Slim

              "Somebody out there has all the beach

                        towels and guitar picks."

             

Unannounced, having got in by the back door, Wilbert felt inconspicuous and perambulatory enough to look in Elvis's sock drawer. The Big Bopper was playing a song with Buddy Holly in the Wisteria Room. Janet Joplin, who had not yet made a name for herself, reclined on a Persian rug of huge value and moderate beauty underneath an imitation of Renoir's "But We Are Kings." Through the half-closed doorway, far out on the other side of the house in the kitchen, Big Daddy Dave Duvet and Ronnie Hawkins, both attired in cream-coloured Stetsons, ate their fill of bambitos, large glasses of Orleans Red in their hands. From the bedroom connected to Elvis's no sounds came, so Wilbert assumed that people in there were loving or snoozing. Maybe Elvis himself was sleeping it off or just taking a break from the crowd. Wilbert pocketed a pair of yellow diamond socks, double soled ones with the elastics slightly stretched, and rummaged around for another pair of contrasting color. Not finding one, he grabbed two white pairs and put them all on. He put them on quickly, in case someone should surprise him. Wearing five pairs he felt a bit wobbly as he walked in and introduced himself to whomever he met.

       "I am Wilbert Loewen," he said and kept talking. "I have no fixed address. Yeah, yeah, I play the guitar. When I first came to the States I thought people would be somehow more sophisticated than they are. Americans remind me of old Ratcatcher Remple who snuck looks in his neighbor girls' drawers when they weren't home. In those days people didn't lock their doors the way they do now. Remple would just walk in and call if anyone was home and then go into their bedrooms and open their underwear drawers. He'd take out a pair or two at a time and smell them and rub himself with the material. He was careful to fold them and put them back in exactly the same way he found them. He suspected that girls could tell if someone had been in their drawers. Girls were in a constant state of testing for intrusions. Remple knew where everyone's drawers were. He'd memorized each village girl's room and layout over the years. This is the layout of Amsterdam Village, north to south, the ones who have girls. The Wiebes in the first house, an old two and a half story, the Loewens with their eight girls in the next, a little place, but neat, the Buhlers who have only the one girl, Emma, but five big boys, the Dribbles and their four, all a bit shy and maybe not quite normal, the Toews's with their blond girls (especially Tina), the Zacharias's with only the old maid, and then also the Neufelds, the Penners and another Neufeld at the end of the street. That's how Americans are I used to think. Knowing what and where all the secrets are, and you have to be careful. But, you don't really. They are, well, not that keenly aware; more concerned with big things. Wars interest them. Presidents do, too. What this or that senator has to say. Who is making big money in music these days, and that sort of thing."

       In this way Wilbert met quite a few of Elvis's guests. He slept in a bedroom in the house with impunity. The party continued for a number of days. He left, heading north, when the guests had mostly gone. He felt that he was part of the Memphis scene now, and that he'd scored a reputation somehow.