Our first taxi driver in Memphis, who picks us up from the bus station, has a sign on his sunshade saying, It's My Birthday Today. He's a fat man, very fat, and it's as though he's been poured into his taxi. How fat he is!, we marvel to ourselves. But he seems very comfortable wedged into his car, as though poured there. Memphis, unexpectedly, is cold. The weather doesn't know what it's doing, he tells us.
Our second taxi driver, who picks us up from the hotel to take us to Graceland, is wearing what appear to be pajamas. Comfortable for driving, we surmise. Hearing our British accents, he asks where we're from. Nottingham, says Sal. We're from Plymouth – and Newcastle, W. and I tell him. Nottingham, says the taxi driver. Robin Hood and his Merry Men, they're from Nottingham, he says. Do you know them?
Then he gets a phonecall. I've got some passengers from Nottingham, says the taxi driver. You know, Robin Hood and his Merry Men? He has to go now, he says, on the phone. And then to us, that was my brother. We grew up on Robin Hood and his Merry Men. The Sheriff of Nottingham. The Adventures of Robin Hood, that's what it was called on TV. Is it a true story, Robin Hood and his Merry Men?, he asks. It's an amalgamation of different stories, W. tells him.
It's My Birthday Today, says the sign on his sunshield. Is it your birthday?, we ask him, when he drops us off at Graceland. It is. Happy birthday, we say. He's got a barbeque later, he says. He's getting together with his brother and his family.
He tells us we should take his card, and to call him when we're through with our tour. When he picks us up later, coming straight from his barbeque, he tells us about Elvis. The young Elvis used to come up to the black clubs on Beale Street, he tells us. He was no racist, he says, when W. asks him. He was the only white boy there, on Beale Street.
He tells us Beale Street was almost entirely rebuilt in the 1980s. Back in '68, when Dr King was assassinated, he tells us, he city authorities demolished Beale Street, home of the blues, and the surrounding areas, because they said there would be trouble. But there was no trouble, the taxi driver tells us, no riots.
He drives us past the Civil Rights Museum, right next to the hotel where Dr King was shot and waves to a woman who's kept a 25 year protest against the demolition of black businesses there. It's not what Dr King would have wanted, says our taxi driver, the demolition of the black businesses.
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