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Authors: Matthew Chapman
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earn a living wage. And the cops have gotten pretty bad too—think they’re God or something. The only drawback to living in the country is you get less opportunity.’
I refer to my book on the South which gives definitions of Southern types. A Southern Belle seems to be a kind of aristocrat who has a coming-out party. The cognoscenti don’t call her a belle, referring to her instead as ‘a real cute girl.’ Adult Belles are known as ‘ladies.’ ‘Women’ are workers and whores.
A ‘Bubba’ is a Southern man who’s not too bright but not necessarily low class. A ‘Redneck’ drives a pickup truck. He’s rural, profoundly conservative, enjoys guns, Country and Western music, fighting, fishing, and camping. A ‘Good Ol’ Boy,’ though he may come from either end of the social scale, seems to be in better shape financially. He’s into guns (everyone is), fishing, football, and women, all of which provide grist for the many anecdotes he tells his buddies with whom he may have bought land for a hunting club. The ‘Good Ol’ Boy,’ unlike the other two categories, takes expensive foreign vacations.
Late in the afternoon, after two days of more or less constant travel, I arrive in Chattanooga. It’s a pretty town with a gracious, civilised air. It has an opera and a symphony orchestra and private schools and there seem to be a lot of trees and wide streets. Site of one of the most decisive battles of the Civil War, it became, after the war, a place where veterans from both sides settled together amicably. To me it still seems amiable and relaxed, like a resort or a spa town.
I check into the best hotel, the Reade House, another big downtown hotel that’s seen better days, but this is more typically
Southern somehow, grander, less to do with industry and farming and more to do with pleasure and politics. There’s even a black shoeshine man in the lobby. He’s in his mid-twenties and he smiles at me every time I go by, so after a couple of passes I figure I’ll get my shoes shined and chat with him a while. I climb up onto a beautiful stand with brass footplates and he starts working on my shoes. He tells me this used to be his father’s spot.
‘Now he’s up the street. I also do the airport, but I come in here coupla times a week ’cause I’m also a bellman.’
I ask him how long he’s been doing it.
‘Been doin’ it since I was twelve. Used to be a good business, but, man, it’s slowed down. Different people these days. Businessmen. I shoulda done somepin’ else, but there it is, I stuck a fork in it.’
‘“Stuck a fork in it”?’
‘It’s off the grill. Stick a fork in it. It’s done.’
He gets back to work on the shoes. He’s brushed in the sweet-smelling polish and now reaches for a long piece of lambskin.
‘Okay,’ he says, ‘now it’s time to take these shoes to ultra-space, where they ain’t never been before.’
In the evening, I walk down wide, empty downtown streets to Sticky Fingers, a rib joint a few blocks from the hotel. I’m tired and contented. It’s still early but the restaurant has already slowed down. I sit outside on a terrace and munch away at some stringy but tender beef drenched in barbecue sauce. A couple of middle-aged women sit nearby, talking and drinking. A group of young people, good-looking, ill-matched but expectant, finish their dinner and stroll away. You see people enjoying themselves in New York, but there’s usually something frantic about it, squeezing in pleasure between important matters of ambition or survival. Here, this evening at least, pleasure seems to be an end in itself.
I finish the food and then go into the empty bar to have a drink. The bar itself is an oblong with a barman in the middle. The place has more the atmosphere of a college-town bar than
anything redneck. A pretty blonde girl comes in to meet a friend working in the restaurant. They order two shots of something and then stand around on the short end of the
I refer to my book on the South which gives definitions of Southern types. A Southern Belle seems to be a kind of aristocrat who has a coming-out party. The cognoscenti don’t call her a belle, referring to her instead as ‘a real cute girl.’ Adult Belles are known as ‘ladies.’ ‘Women’ are workers and whores.
A ‘Bubba’ is a Southern man who’s not too bright but not necessarily low class. A ‘Redneck’ drives a pickup truck. He’s rural, profoundly conservative, enjoys guns, Country and Western music, fighting, fishing, and camping. A ‘Good Ol’ Boy,’ though he may come from either end of the social scale, seems to be in better shape financially. He’s into guns (everyone is), fishing, football, and women, all of which provide grist for the many anecdotes he tells his buddies with whom he may have bought land for a hunting club. The ‘Good Ol’ Boy,’ unlike the other two categories, takes expensive foreign vacations.
Late in the afternoon, after two days of more or less constant travel, I arrive in Chattanooga. It’s a pretty town with a gracious, civilised air. It has an opera and a symphony orchestra and private schools and there seem to be a lot of trees and wide streets. Site of one of the most decisive battles of the Civil War, it became, after the war, a place where veterans from both sides settled together amicably. To me it still seems amiable and relaxed, like a resort or a spa town.
I check into the best hotel, the Reade House, another big downtown hotel that’s seen better days, but this is more typically
Southern somehow, grander, less to do with industry and farming and more to do with pleasure and politics. There’s even a black shoeshine man in the lobby. He’s in his mid-twenties and he smiles at me every time I go by, so after a couple of passes I figure I’ll get my shoes shined and chat with him a while. I climb up onto a beautiful stand with brass footplates and he starts working on my shoes. He tells me this used to be his father’s spot.
‘Now he’s up the street. I also do the airport, but I come in here coupla times a week ’cause I’m also a bellman.’
I ask him how long he’s been doing it.
‘Been doin’ it since I was twelve. Used to be a good business, but, man, it’s slowed down. Different people these days. Businessmen. I shoulda done somepin’ else, but there it is, I stuck a fork in it.’
‘“Stuck a fork in it”?’
‘It’s off the grill. Stick a fork in it. It’s done.’
He gets back to work on the shoes. He’s brushed in the sweet-smelling polish and now reaches for a long piece of lambskin.
‘Okay,’ he says, ‘now it’s time to take these shoes to ultra-space, where they ain’t never been before.’
In the evening, I walk down wide, empty downtown streets to Sticky Fingers, a rib joint a few blocks from the hotel. I’m tired and contented. It’s still early but the restaurant has already slowed down. I sit outside on a terrace and munch away at some stringy but tender beef drenched in barbecue sauce. A couple of middle-aged women sit nearby, talking and drinking. A group of young people, good-looking, ill-matched but expectant, finish their dinner and stroll away. You see people enjoying themselves in New York, but there’s usually something frantic about it, squeezing in pleasure between important matters of ambition or survival. Here, this evening at least, pleasure seems to be an end in itself.
I finish the food and then go into the empty bar to have a drink. The bar itself is an oblong with a barman in the middle. The place has more the atmosphere of a college-town bar than
anything redneck. A pretty blonde girl comes in to meet a friend working in the restaurant. They order two shots of something and then stand around on the short end of the
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