as my new favorite side dishes.
Often we’d go by Square Books right in the center of town, where Jimmy was treated as a celebrity, before the giant Faulkner displays. He’d show me all the fruits of the various annual Faulkner conferences and all his talks, with the pride of a man who, late in life, had become a scholar. Faulkner was still more popular than the other big writer in town, Jimmy seemed to proudly grumble, referring to John Grisham, whose massive compound seemed to look down on the city from every angle.
Another time he said he wanted to take me to a ‘juke joint.’ I had no idea what that was and played along. I remember feeling slightly uneasy after we pulled up to what looked like a tin shack off the side of a very green highway, with a bunch of cars crowding a dirt path. ‘Here we are,’ Jimmy said, smiling mischievously. It turned out that this was Chulahoma, ‘Junior’s Place,’ built by the great Mississippi hill country blues legend Junior Kimbrough and now run by two of his sons (he was rumored to have 36 children) since he’d died a couple years before. I was familiar with Junior because Moby had recently released his album Play , and that had got me interested in the blues musicians on Oxford’s Fat Possum Records – who had produced Kimbrough in his final years. I later learned that a ‘juke joint’ was both a lovely and a sad place – something created out of necessity, the refuge of plantation workers and sharecroppers after the Emancipation Proclamation, since therewere still not public spaces that allowed black people to mix with whites. That sadness followed all the way: Just a few months later, the historic juke joint burned down.
But my best memory of all is an early one. In one of my first nights hanging out with him, Jimmy invited me to a family gathering at his favorite place, Taylor’s Grocery. This was a strange sort of rundown mom-and-pop restaurant that had an amazing reputation in town, packed with families and music playing – a sort of cozy, cramped dining establishment full of red checkered tablecloths. Jimmy didn’t ask what anyone wanted, but when the waitress came over, he ordered for all of us. I was too busy taking in the atmosphere to even notice, and soon sweet tea appeared before me and eventually a big plate of … fried catfish.
At that point I’d been a strict vegetarian for eight years, and I had snacks on me at all times for emergencies like this. I knew there was no way I could eat that fish and yet there was no way I could say no. I tried for a second to reach into my purse for a bag of nuts and explain to Jimmy, but he, hard of hearing, was yelling louder than ever in that busy dining room, telling me not to be afraid, I’d love it – he knew it was my first catfish (though not my first meat in ages – we’d never discussed vegetarianism). I realized I had no choice. Gingerly I cut into it and slathered it in sauce and took a bite, cringing. And then another and another. I didn’t pause to think about the taste. Lost in that evening of music and laughter and conversation, I felt a part of Jimmy’s world and so was that food.
I assumed I’d spend the night ill but instead when I got back to Robin’s I lay in bed unable to sleep. I was full of energy, an energy unlike any I’d experienced in ages. This was the beginning of my pescatarianism, which would of course lead to omnivorism – but at least I could say a Faulkner did it to me.
Here was another piece of me. I was a person who could in the moment overstep my own beliefs, who could become someone else. Pia, Italian, New York Girl, fish-eater – none of those things held me back. They only reminded me that I, 22, could perhaps be anyone I wanted, and perhaps even one day in ways that I wanted.
We would sometimes spend eight-hour days together with only bits of silence here and there. Often I’d be asking questions and recording him, but other times we were just two friends
Often we’d go by Square Books right in the center of town, where Jimmy was treated as a celebrity, before the giant Faulkner displays. He’d show me all the fruits of the various annual Faulkner conferences and all his talks, with the pride of a man who, late in life, had become a scholar. Faulkner was still more popular than the other big writer in town, Jimmy seemed to proudly grumble, referring to John Grisham, whose massive compound seemed to look down on the city from every angle.
Another time he said he wanted to take me to a ‘juke joint.’ I had no idea what that was and played along. I remember feeling slightly uneasy after we pulled up to what looked like a tin shack off the side of a very green highway, with a bunch of cars crowding a dirt path. ‘Here we are,’ Jimmy said, smiling mischievously. It turned out that this was Chulahoma, ‘Junior’s Place,’ built by the great Mississippi hill country blues legend Junior Kimbrough and now run by two of his sons (he was rumored to have 36 children) since he’d died a couple years before. I was familiar with Junior because Moby had recently released his album Play , and that had got me interested in the blues musicians on Oxford’s Fat Possum Records – who had produced Kimbrough in his final years. I later learned that a ‘juke joint’ was both a lovely and a sad place – something created out of necessity, the refuge of plantation workers and sharecroppers after the Emancipation Proclamation, since therewere still not public spaces that allowed black people to mix with whites. That sadness followed all the way: Just a few months later, the historic juke joint burned down.
But my best memory of all is an early one. In one of my first nights hanging out with him, Jimmy invited me to a family gathering at his favorite place, Taylor’s Grocery. This was a strange sort of rundown mom-and-pop restaurant that had an amazing reputation in town, packed with families and music playing – a sort of cozy, cramped dining establishment full of red checkered tablecloths. Jimmy didn’t ask what anyone wanted, but when the waitress came over, he ordered for all of us. I was too busy taking in the atmosphere to even notice, and soon sweet tea appeared before me and eventually a big plate of … fried catfish.
At that point I’d been a strict vegetarian for eight years, and I had snacks on me at all times for emergencies like this. I knew there was no way I could eat that fish and yet there was no way I could say no. I tried for a second to reach into my purse for a bag of nuts and explain to Jimmy, but he, hard of hearing, was yelling louder than ever in that busy dining room, telling me not to be afraid, I’d love it – he knew it was my first catfish (though not my first meat in ages – we’d never discussed vegetarianism). I realized I had no choice. Gingerly I cut into it and slathered it in sauce and took a bite, cringing. And then another and another. I didn’t pause to think about the taste. Lost in that evening of music and laughter and conversation, I felt a part of Jimmy’s world and so was that food.
I assumed I’d spend the night ill but instead when I got back to Robin’s I lay in bed unable to sleep. I was full of energy, an energy unlike any I’d experienced in ages. This was the beginning of my pescatarianism, which would of course lead to omnivorism – but at least I could say a Faulkner did it to me.
Here was another piece of me. I was a person who could in the moment overstep my own beliefs, who could become someone else. Pia, Italian, New York Girl, fish-eater – none of those things held me back. They only reminded me that I, 22, could perhaps be anyone I wanted, and perhaps even one day in ways that I wanted.
We would sometimes spend eight-hour days together with only bits of silence here and there. Often I’d be asking questions and recording him, but other times we were just two friends
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