Midnight in Memphis

It was midnight.  Midnight in Memphis. The bad part of Memphis.  The part of Memphis where the newspaper said an average of one person died every night.  Dark, street lights shot out. A few cars on the street but they had no tires.   Been stripped clean.    

I (rodeo’s number one rock star and Brad Pitt look alike) was lost… again. Rental car running on the left side of E. Scared. Thinking that if things didn’t go just right—this might be it.   Rationalizing that the newspaper headline I’d seen meant that an AVERAGE person died every night in this part of Memphis and therefore ME being a rodeo bull rider certainly wouldn’t qualify as being average.   In fact, next to Elvis… I was probably the coolest person in Memphis.  Of course, Elvis had "left the building".   Reminded me that I could use a rest room.   Nah, gotta figure that somewhere in the darkness someone is watching.   If I stop, I’m dead and this car is on its way to a chop shop.  

Been praying the last fifteen minutes.  Hadn’t been to church since the Congregational Church sold their pool table and Billy Jane Moffett (the only girl in the eighth grade with real breasts) moved.   So my prayers were kind of a jumbled mess of every prayer I’d ever heard, “Hailmaryfullofgrace... forgive me for trespassing in the valley of death... yea though I walk where the water runs cool clear & deep.... tell me my entry fees are paid... etc... Finally I just said “GOD, get me the hell outta Memphis”.

No sooner than those words were uttered car lights appeared in my rear view mirror.  Coming fast…. swerving.    On the sidewalk… back across the street… hit a burned out car …  back to the center… going faster…  Bearing down on ME.

 @$$@%@#!$…  I’m dead.   Street gang for sure. I can see a guy leaning out the back seat window on my side.  My bullet ridden body is destined for tomorrow morning’s front page. Guess the newspaper meant “averaged one dead person a night”.   This was September… that is going to make me number two hundred and something.  Crap… what a way to end up—just another frickin statistic.

They gotta be doing 60.   Whatever is going to happen is going to happen fast.   I slump down like my Granny in her big Buick 98… left nostril glued to the bottom of the steering wheel…. take my foot of the gas pedal… figuring they might blow by me.

MUSIC.  Loud music.   Ain’t Amazing Grace either.   I ease over to the side close to the curb….  they slow down and pull up along side.  Well, I figure, if the SOB’s are going to shoot this pretty boy’s @ss at least I’m going to see who done me in. 

I glance over to see the shooter… the guy hanging out the back window.   A BLOOD?   A CRIP?    No… a CRICKET.    A SCREAMING cricket.   A cricket being held by his legs and dangled out the window for fun by his gang of drunk buddies.   In fact, he’s now a puking cricket.

The blaring music?   CHRIS LEDOUX

The car?    One of those ten year old, big as a Rose Bowl float, LOVE BOAT sleds that they could set the cruise control on 80… turn up the music… let the beer  in the cooler chill a magic 8 minutes in a solution of 50% ice and 50% water… and do 1,000 miles a day in.

A car load of Rodeo Crickets.   By the way …. Rodeo Crickets are what I call bareback riders.   Ballsy, irritating little suckers that make lots of noise, you can’t kill um, and it’s usually daylight when they crawl into, between, or under something to sleep until the sun goes down again and they can party again.  GOD created Man, Woman, and CRICKET—and I’m not certain of the order.

I sit up straight. I know that guy riding shotgun. He knows me.  Heck, he should -- I’m almost famous.   He motions for me to roll down my window.   I do.  A full can of Budweiser bounces off my left ear.

“Hey @hithead, you lost?””

“I’m runnin on empt….”  

Didn’t matter… I was speaking into the blue smoke of a tail pipe. I floored it.

So I discovered GOD in Memphis.   Who else but GOD could have created a car load of drunk bareback riders and dumped them in the baddest part of Memphis… after midnight… on that one particular dark street… and then been gracious enough to let my rental car make another 5 miles with the pedal to the metal? 

Minutes later…

I’m on foot now… outside the door into the lobby of a Holiday Inn.   A Holiday Inn with the biggest NO VACANCY sign I’d ever seen.   I notice the Rest Room arrow.  Look down.   Realize I don’t need it any more.   Bet John Damned Wayne woulda peed HIS pants if them had ever been real Injuns.  I tip the can and spill some of the beer on myself in order to concoct a reasonable alibi.  

The Bud slinging cricket has stopped a guy delivering the morning’s dry cleaning and laundry.   Finds a name he recognizes.  Goes in and uses the house phone. Comes out…waves his gang around to the back of the building.   I follow but at a safe distance.  As a rule of thumb, never get too close to a drunk cricket.

A few minutes later….

I was the last one in the cricket room.   A cricket colony in fact.   Crickets in the chairs… under the desk…. in the window well.  Couldn’t take a step without endangering a slumberin’ cricket.   Two double beds.   One occupant per bed.  Two dudes in white T shirts and matching white Fruit of the Looms (not a pretty sight).   So white that they glow in the dark.    No pillows or covers (crickets are similar to locusts in many regards).   Two SNORING dudes.   Crickets are actually moving to and fro with each blast.   Like being on deck of that fishin boat in the movie… The Perfect Storm.    The Brooks and Dunn of snoring.   Live… in concert.   And unfortunately, I have a back stage pass.

In the light from the hallway, I noticed judging vests hanging in the closet.   I notice a smoke cloud over the left bed.   Must be Royce.  Figures… crickets would seek an ex-cricket in their time of need.   Right bed?   Hmmmm.   Big dude.   Must be BIG BUD.    BIG BUD is doing some serious snoring.   SERIOUS SNORING.

Well, being a bull rider and therefore extremely intelligent, after a quick shower I curled up in the bath tub using towels as pillows and cricket NFR jackets for covers and mattress. Put on my head phones with my Creedence Clearwater Greatest Hits tape…. and chilled.  Locked the door of course. Pretty smelly room the next morning. Crickets cannot be house broken.

That was a while back… that night.   I just glanced up at my wall clock.  11 o’clock.  That would be Midnight in Memphis. 

And this night BIG BUD is lying in a bed in the bad part of town.   Fighting leukemia.   No calls allowed.   No visitors allowed except for Sue.   Sue who gets up at 2 AM in order to drive to the hospital, then drives back to work all day, then in the dark feeds their momma cows, then goes home surrounded by that dull cloud of pain, and uncertainty scarier than any dark, deserted street in Memphis, and then does it all again.   Too tired to answer or return phone calls.   Knowing you care and really appreciating it but without the time or energy to acknowledge your kindness.  

You can’t send flowers because flowers use up oxygen and BUD needs every bit of it to breath.   He CAN read cards though if you would send them to 5383 Myers Road, Byhalia, Mississippi 38611.   Bud’s doing the thing he always did which is-- doing the best that he can.   He’s tough.   He’s never been a quitter.   This fight has been going on a good while.  

BIG BUD is lost in MEMPHIS.    A man of integrity, a true professional, a credit to our sport and to mankind--a good man… a friend.   And I wish I could see him.  I’d even sleep in the bath tub in a room full of passed-out crickets and a guy who smoked more than the Yellowstone Fires.   I’d take some ear plugs along, unless I could get a Clearwater CD.      

One thing for sure…. GOD resides in Memphis.   I been there—I know. Although I’ve seen a few churches since that night, I’m still not very good at praying. I guess if I had one prayer left it would be… GOD, get BIG BUD the hell out of Memphis.

Bryan McDonald