How Bukowski

Presently staying in a boarding house in Memphis, Tennessee, about three miles out from Beale Street. Rent is paid by the week, so I paid for a week and signed the “lease.” The $25 deposit was quickly waived once I realized it was non-refundable and told the woman I would be staying elsewhere. The local hostel would be cheaper if the deposit hadn’t been waived, but she took it off the total real quick and I am now a weeklong resident of 1505 Jackson Ave., Memphis, Tennessee. My room is outfitted with a full-sized bed that immediately broke on one side when I sat on it, two dressers, a stout coffee table, end table with a lamp, two small and dirty mirrors, and two windows with cracked glass covered by maroon curtains.

The other tenants are Charles, a lanky man with braids in his late twenties; Larissa, a stocky black woman in her thirties; Larissa’s husband Dre, a small but attractive man also in his late twenties; and Mr. Shaw, a black gentleman who appears to be in his mid-sixties and enjoys television.

They all looked on with great interest while I moved the few belongings I’ve got with me into the room for the week. “You’ve got nice, white teeth,” were Charles’ first words to me, can of Colt 45 in hand.

“You let me know if you need anything,” Larissa said after knocking on my door. So I asked her immediately where the blues clubs were. The real ones are what I’m after, not the Beale Street tourist venues. She directed me to a bar down the street that has no music at all. As luck may have it, this house is actually only two blocks away from the supposed “hidden gem” of Memphis’ blues scene, a bar where the only beverages served are 40s and the only seating comes in the form of long wooden benches. “Located in an old strip mall in the middle of a (somewhat sketchy) residential neighborhood,” says a Yelp reviewer. So far, this house seems like the sketchiest part of the neighborhood.

An attempt to relieve myself in the common bathroom was cut short by the realization that this is the type of joint where everyone uses their own toilet paper and their own soap. From what I can tell so far from my room’s position next to the bathroom, this results in no one ever washing their hands.

After checking out the bar Larissa mentioned, I saw her standing on the lawn sharing a cigarette with a disheveled white man in his late thirties. “New here? Just moved in? Second floor, end of the hallway?” Nathan asked me. “I just moved out of there last week.”

I asked them for directions to the grocery store. Larissa asked to tag along, as she needed to return the headphones she got from the Family Dollar and didn't want to have to take the bus again. She bought them earlier today and they immediately zapped out. We got in the car. “That man ain’t nothin’ but a god damn junkie,” she said as soon as the door shut. “Asshole stole $65 from me and still be denyin’ it to this day.” I thought about the recent activity my room has seen. "Put his cigarettes down on my table next to the money and next thing I know, the money gone. Nearly got me evicted on account of that being my rent money!"

Larissa is a good immediate, tentative ally to have as the only other woman in the house. As I’m writing this, I can hear the buzz of her husband’s tattoo gun as he tattoos her name onto her lower back down the hall. We talked about a variety of things in the car on the way to Kroger, mostly delving into her enthusiastic knowledge of the blues scene in Clarksdale, Mississippi, where she is originally from, once she heard what, exactly, I am trying to do down here. As we turned back onto Jackson Avenue, she spewed forth another bit of wisdom: “Nearly all the bad ones are out the house now, but watch out for Charles; he tellin’ me he gonna kill me last week when me and my husband and him was all drinkin’. Lord, we do stay up late drinkin’! Makin’ a bit of noise!” With this, she glanced at me to gauge my reaction to see whether I am likely to complain to the homeowner or not. “My husband made him apologize but I know he didn’t mean it.”