Southwind_E01 – 31. 12. 2020
We were leaving Memphis even more confused than when we arrived. The successive meetings with the “kid” then “Scooter” had not helped us to form an opinion on how things were standing.
We made a break during our stay with a night in Clarksdale to visit the Blues Museum, attend concerts and take the pulse of the city. We’d already been there several times during the preparation of our project. This is the town where Robert Johnson sold his soul to the devil at the famous Devil’s Crossroads, and it’s also the only place where we had good espresso. For us it was the quintessence of the spirit of the blues, but in reality, we entered another poor city where life is punctuated by the influx of tourists during a music festival. At each of our stays we went to a sort of restaurant that had clandestine written all over it. There you’d get pieces of grilled meat and beer.
Every time we visited, this place seemed even stranger. To get in you push the front door directly from the street and enter a living room, with brown carpet on the floor and on the walls, garden furniture alongside a sofa from another time. There a grandmother has eyes fixed on the TV screen placed in front of her. Her husband, seated in a nearby chair, sips a beer staring into space, occasionally replacing his cap. This scene leaves you with the feeling of entering someone’s home without being seen.
A young woman comes to us, partly bleached hair, nails with experimental manicure, neon leggings exaggerating her few extra pounds, t-shirt size XXL, what would you like to drink?
We sit on the garden furniture, next to a table where men are playing poker. Two beers arrive, followed by red beans, mashed potatoes and grilled chicken.
In this 30m2 room there is the grandmother sitting on her sofa, her husband, the table of poker players, the young woman who serves and her younger brother. All are white.
The dishes arrive through a serving hatch cut into a door at the back of this room. I ask if I can use the bathroom, and the young woman tells me that I must go through this door, the serving door. There I come across a kitchen as large as the living room, one man is at the stove while another is preparing ribs in a sink, there’re also two others and they’re talking. All are black.
Like a mirror with two reflections, one white, the other black, separated by a bathroom and serving hatch.
I step into the kitchen, there’s a cutting board, sinks, a freezer, a fridge, an ironing board. I start a discussion with the man who prepares the ribs, I ask him what his recipe is, try to exchange banalities and then ask him the questions that are on the tip of my tongue. Yet despite the warmth of this young man, our conversation remained sterile. Impossible to get to know more, I was on the wrong side of the serving hatch, and they let me feel it.
We then went to Red’s, a hotspot for the blues in Clarksdale, and there too the same unchanging divisions: blacks play music and serve beers, whites dance and drink. No exceptions, none.
Back on our boat we set sail for Greenville, it seems to be a marina at the bottom of a fjord there. Again, we come across a port half destroyed by the last flood, only a prefabricated building put up in an emergency stands near the pontoons dotted with a few boats. They’re pontoon boats or house boats, nothing in between. The weather is gloomy, a little threatening. It’s humid and the sun sometimes pierces the thick layer of clouds and burns us.
The film crew joins us with a new rental car, the last one having been involved in an accident due to a mistake when changing gear. This incident adds to the overall tense atmosphere. It’s true that our course had been monotonous for some time. Is it because of this, or some other reason unknown to me that our film crew was getting bored? In any case it was becoming difficult to manage in addition to the rest of the trip. The assistant in charge of the sound recording simply stopped doing his work. Eyes on his phone. Tinder and Instagram had become more important than the organisation or artistic concerns.
Their new car was black, and we took it to drive downtown, share a meal there and even attend a concert where the atmosphere was, despite everything, fraternal. Then they dropped us off at the marina before heading back to their Airbnb.
On the way back to Southwind we passed a boat where I’d noticed a sign on its windshield saying “if you need to reach me, call ...” followed by a phone number. The windows of the boat were closed from the inside with thick curtains that let nothing through but the barking of two or three dogs.
I decided to call and try to get in touch with the harbour master’s office and sort out our stay by paying, if necessary, for our place at the quay.
A man answers the phone but gives me very little information. The next day we meet him while passing by his boat again. It’s Sunday, when he organises a barbecue with his wife and neighbours. We spontaneously engage in conversation, explain our project, and he ends up telling us that he works for a corn farm and is willing to take us there. An appointment is made.
Satisfied with our efficiency and our appointment, Mark and I walked to the town to enjoy a few beers.
We pass a huge building on stilts partly on the water. The river is about ten meters below, which lets you to see how high it can rise. It’s a casino, everything inside is sparkling, from the floor to the ceiling, air conditioning is at full blast, no windows, everything done in order to make you stay there and not see how time flies and money slips away. The room is crowded with poor or very poor customers. Some are visibly drugged.
We exchange a few words with a guard who explains that the monthly social support has been paid and so it’s a big day, everyone comes to try their luck until their last penny is gone.
When we went to bed, we found two bottles on our bunks, each with a different date written in felt-tip on tape. It’s moonshine that one of the barbecue guests picked up from his house and left us as a gift. This is the first illegal moonshine we’ll drink, and legend has it that you should only drink what you produce, or you risk ending up blind or worse.
But who cares? This level of attention touches us, even more so these last days when the violence of the gulf separating the communities has been taking its toll.
In the early morning we are already in front of the neighbour’s pick-up when he arrives, in t-shirt, shorts, cap, Crocs. His dog takes its place between the two front seats, Mark sits in the back, I take the seat next to the driver. We stop after a few minutes to refuel and take the opportunity to have coffee and snacks. The man asks us to stay in the car while he’s paying, and on his return, he tells us that you should never leave a car open, that people are ready to do anything to steal even unimaginable things, that they’ll kill you for two dollars here.
Your life is worth two dollars.
He describes the city, how in a few years everyone lost their jobs, their homes, their bearings. And the arrival of methamphetamine, a hugely addictive, inexpensive drug that competed with crack and heroin. He explains how he himself ended up living on a boat, it was the last thing he could afford, he didn’t want to be in a mobile home in the middle of junkies, and at the marina he considers himself a little away from the turmoil.
I noticed a wound on his left arm, a bullet went through his hand, the bone in the arm diverted its course and it came out there, missing his head by few inches. It was his mistress’s husband who shot him a few years ago, and when I asked him if he knew that his mistress was married, he replied “...”
After driving for more than an hour in the Mississippi Delta, he explains that there were tumuli built by the Native Americans visible from the road, but the authorities have planted trees to make them disappear. These tumuli were used by the people settled here to take shelter in the event of a flood. He then explains the privileges available to the descendants of these tribes in their reservation: bonuses, the absence of taxes, authorisation to sell alcohol and tobacco. To hear him talk about it, they’re doing better in their daily lives than he is.
We finally arrive at the foot of the silos where corn is spread on the ground, he gestures for us to come and pick up as much as we need, and a few moments later we leave in his pick-up, the dog still sitting between the two front seats.