Memphis Day 3

Around the corner from Beale Street is The Peabody Hotel, which is a Memphis institution.  It is famous for its ducks.  No, I'm not joking.  

I'm not quite sure how all this started, but the Peabody Hotel, which is the swankiest in Memphis has this fountain in the centre of the lobby which during the 1930's became inhabited by a family of ducks.  They’ve been there ever since.  Every morning at 11am they leave their luxurious Penthouse dwelling on the roof, get into the lift, go to the lobby and walk across the lobby to the fountain while Duck Parade music plays.  Then they repeat the whole thing in reverse at 5pm.  Caro and I craned our necks around the crowd of tourists to get a look and it really was something of a bizarre experience watching a bunch of ducks waddling along a red carpet while flashes went off everywhere like some Hollywood premiere.  All the occasion was missing was Joan Rivers, bitching about their plumage.  Naturally, you can also buy all sorts of duck memorabilia in this place, yet somehow I managed to restrain myself.
 
Right next to the hotel, and newly opened was Peabody Plaza, a brand-spanking-new shopping mall where Caro found Starbuck's thank goodness or my life wouldn't have been worth living.  As we sat and watched the comings and goings, which included various directors of festivities putting up balloons for the grand opening, I couldn't help but think of the film "Night of the Living Dead" in which a bunch of people hole up in a shopping mall in order to avoid rampaging zombies outside.  
 
I'm not being over-dramatic here - I may be paranoid occasionally, but Memphis didn't only feel tense, the guidebook we had bought was full of sentences like, "Take a taxi directly to your destination.  Do not stroll about the streets," and such.  So Peabody Plaza basically felt like this one bastion of safety in what an extremely tense area.  I'm not overstating the case here - there's just something about Memphis that feels run-down and dangerous - where racial tension is just bubbling under the surface.  

Me and Caro experienced it - a little bit - sorta kinda not really. We walked into a cafe to pick up Caro's standard latte and there were a bunch of black guys in there who noticeably bristled when they saw us. We looked around and we were the ONLY white people in there. 

I ordered Caro's drink and the strangest thing happened. The atmosphere changed immediately. Everyone relaxed and the guys asked us where we were from. They were especially interested in Caro's accent and were fascinated by New Zealand. 

They LOVED we had come all the way to Memphis to visit their city. They were very proud of it, and very excited when they heard we were going to New Orleans next. 

"You go to New Orleans, you come away FAT!" they told me. 

I took this as a compliment. It meant I wasn't fat yet. 

Me and Caro reflected on this encounter later. It struck us that the tension isn't necessarily a race thing. Black Americans don't have an issue with whites per se. They have an issue with white Americans. 

Given our experience, that's really sad.
 
Still, everything felt perfectly safe in the Peabody Plaza that afternoon.  We pottered on back to our hotel room, only to be woken up that night by the shriek of sirens.  Turns out someone got shot dead right there in Peabody Plaza.  How we both laughed.  Hysterically.