Preppies

Memphis, unexpectedly, is cold. The tax driver in Memphis tells us the weather doesn't know what it's doing. We go to Gap to buy warm clothes. To Gap! Imagine it! The last place we wanted to go.

The changing rooms have buzzers in them to summon shop assistants. Gap's impossibly cheap. How can clothes be so cheap? In what mess of exploitation have we been caught? But we're cold, we'll have to compromise. I buy a hoodie, W. a cardigan. What do we look like? We look preppy, we decide, without knowing what this word means. We look like preppies.

It's still cold outside. What are we going to do? We rent a pool table. Preppies play pool, we decide. Meanwhile, we're being followed, W. observes, and it's true. The same rough-looking guys we saw earlier are slumped in leather chairs in the pool hall. They hate preppies and want to rid the world of us, W. says. Which is fine, because he thinks he hates preppies and would want to rid the world of them. They should beat us to death, he'd welcome it, W. says. But we outlast our would-be assailants, who tire of watching us play pool badly and laughing.

The word barbeque doesn't mean the same thing over here, says W. over dinner. Nor does the word ribs. He's right. What have we been served? Vast oval plates of red-cooked meat. Chips (they call them French fries) in enormous piles, greater than we've ever seen. It's frightening. I must be in heaven with my enormous greed, W. says. My life must have peaked at this point – has it? I've finally found a country where I won't feel perpetually starved to death.

We watch a band on Beale Street who are playing for tips. There are preppies everywhere, all round us. W. hates them. What are we doing here?, he says. The band've invented elaborate blues names for themselves. Doctor Bones. Medicine Hat Murphy. Between songs, they come round the crowd with a hat. People have to promote themselves in America, we've noticed that. They're not ashamed of it, as they would be back home. There's no welfare state, that's what does it, W. says. But playing for preppies! It's the ultimate indignity, W. says over beer.