One Afternoon In Memphis

By Jeff Segal

Lindy perched on the edge of the motel mattress, her face barely a foot from the weather alert flashing across the TV screen. “What county are we in?”

“Pretty sure it’s Shelby,” said Todd. “Did they say Shelby?”

“Yes.”

“Well then, that would explain the sirens.”

On cue, the distant wail resumed, ebbing and surging as the civil defense horn spun its cautious circle. Lindy whimpered a four-letter word. Todd turned to me, standing in the doorway of their room, and asked me if I was ready for another drink. I said yes.

We were staying at the Graceland Days Inn in Memphis, but we weren’t there for Elvis. We were in town for the three-day Beale Street Music Festival, and day three wasn’t looking too good. Considering the devastation wrought by tornadoes just a few days before, an outright cancellation wouldn’t come as much surprise.

But we weren’t about to spend the last day of our vacation cowering in a motel room.

Drinks in hand, my wife and I made for the deck of the guitar-shaped pool. We wiped down the lounge chairs and lowered the backs so we could gaze at the sky—a seething upturned cauldron of olive green and charcoal grey. They weren’t the kind of clouds where you say, oh look, a rabbit! a kangaroo! More like, oh look, a stampede of gorgons! Here and there sunlight would singe the edge of a cloud, as if the entire churning mass might catch fire and crash to earth like a fleet of doomed zeppelins.

We sat quietly, breathing the wispy, metal-scented air, listening to the Elvis songs on the poolside speakers dueling with the tornado siren. “Love Me Tender.” “Heartbeak Hotel.” “Return to Sender.” When “Burning Love” came on we both laughed—the first Valentine I ever sent her depicted two Far Side scientists examining a flaming, heart-shaped meteor: “No doubt about it, it’s a hunka hunka burnin’ love.”

Secretly, I was hoping to see one of those sinister clouds sharpen into a funnel. Not that I wished destruction on anyone, least of all myself. But ... I don’t know. Seems like you spend half your life scared of abstract what-ifs—is your job safe? will your kid make new friends? does insurance cover that?—but how many times in life do you experience genuine terror? I craved that moment of sky-cleaving panic, daring myself to watch wide-eyed until the very last second before running for cover. I wanted the exhilaration of being scared out of my freakin’ mind.

But soon the siren stopped and the sky lightened into a flat, boring pearl grey. Todd and Lindy came out to the pool and said if we left now we might still catch Gregg Allman. So we piled into the van and took the near-deserted highway into town. The park was a sea of mud and Gregg Allman’s set was lame.