Two stories tangentially related to Little Milton

I was somewhere in my mid-to-late-twenties and getting by on a mix of freelance writing, temping, catering and tending bar at the Center for Southern Folklore. Yes, the Center for Southern Folklore, a non-thriving non-profit run by an inept incompetent. For a time, it was fortunate enough to have a lease on a club space on Beale Street and had a license to serve beer. They had occasional shows--Luther and Cody Dickinson used to play there.

I'd done an internship there in college, now I worked the front desk sometimes, until my paychecks started bouncing. But working the bar, I could make decent tips--sometimes. Rufus Thomas used to come in and ask me to make him a strawberry milkshake--which I did, which he would not pay for or tip for. But hell, it was Rufus Thomas.

Sometimes we had a doorman/bouncer on the weekends. Sometimes, the bouncer in question was Scrap Iron. I can't remember his real name--Robert, maybe? Very big, dark, fiftyish. He was the illegitimate son of Dwight "Gatemouth" Moore, who was a preacher and singer on Beale Street back in the day.

Scrap Iron was Little Milton's road manager and worked on Beale Street when Milton was off the road. He drove a late-70s gold LTD. He was always on the make and he had lots of women. He hit on me and I blew him off, but that made him want me more. Before long, he was telling me about how I was special to him and how the other women didn't mean anything to him. He was always after me to go out with him.

And one night I gave in. It just seemed wimpy to pass up the chance to go out on the town in Memphis with Scrap Iron, Gatemouth Moore's son and Little Milton's road manager. It seemed a way to establish my authentic blues bonafides, I guess.

We went to Raiford's Hollywood Disco, just a few blocks south of Beale Street. There was one night a week, I think it was Friday, when white hipsters would go to Raiford's. Honky night. There was a message painted on the side of the building: "Absolutely No Discrimination."

(I just discovered that Raiford's now has a webpage in this terrible new world: www.raiforddisco.com--tried to make a link but it didn't seem to work. The webpage seems to verify what I'd heard, that it has been taken over by white college kids, as often happens. And apparently it's really Hollywood Raiford's Disco, but that's not what we called it.)

Anyway, it wasn't Honky Night that night. I think it was a Sunday. The decor at Raiford's was out of a extra-low-budget blaxploitation movie, and (I regret to say) that night the crowd was, too. The only two other white girls there were obvious prostitutes. A young man came to the table offering to sell us whatever we might want to smoke or snort. We just ordered setups for the Crown Royal that Scrap Iron had brought.

I can't remember what we talked about, or if I could even hear or understand anything that was said. I remember that everyone treated Scrap Iron like he was a king, an old-school big-baller. And I was nervous, because he seemed like way too much for me and I wasn't prepared to see the evening to the conclusion he expected. I think the point of going out that night was to prove I wasn't a scared white girl, except I was such a scared white girl.

We left, got in his car and he told me to slide down and sit closer to him. Oh shit. Then he put the key in the ignition and turned it and... the started made some noise but the engine didn't turn over. He tried again. Again. He got out and popped the hood, fiddled around underneath, tried again, no luck, fiddled some more, I said I could just take a cab home, and he finally got it to turn over. But now he was worrying about his car and his mind wasn't on me. He drove me to my house and said he couldn't come in because he didn't want to shut the car off. So I got out and waved goodbye from the porch and felt exceedingly relieved.

And that was the end of our romance.

But a year or so later, I was living in the Mississippi Delta, working for a small newspaper. My social life was a little bit better than I expected it would be there. I'd just started dating DS, who later helped me move to New Orleans, but got payback by breaking my heart and dating my narcissitic neurotic coworker at the pubs office. But that's another story.

I was also friends with a young girl named Betsy, who was only 19 or 20, bright but lost and stuck in this crappy small town, who helped out at the paper. The editor had taken a liking to her and had her write small stories and take pictures. She was a cute, bubbly blonde, as befitting her name.

Little Milton was scheduled to appear at the now-defunct Flowing Fountain in Greenville. DS couldn't make it, so I got Betsy to go with me. It was her first introduction to nightlife.

It took an hour to get there, but one of the features of living in the Delta is driving forever to get anywhere. People thinking nothing of driving a hundred miles to go to a weekend party.

Scrap Iron was at the door when we got there, and he just about fell out over Betsy, her young blonde self. She was the star of that night. Everyone wanted to dance with her and buy her drinks. Scap Iron was almost gentlemanly, keeping the more predatory elements at bay. We danced and drank and had a good time. Milton dedicated a song to her.

On the way home, Betsy gushed about how that was the most fun she'd had in her whole life. I was happy. I thought she needed to break out and experience more of life. However, when the editor got a job at a paper in a small town in Nevada, he talked Betsy into going with him. Once there, she got knocked up by a convenience store clerk and decided to marry him and keep the baby. I felt bad about it. Maybe she needed to stay a little more sheltered a little longer, and I felt guilty about encouraging her to go out and try new things.