If I was your boyfriend. I have tried to photograph Memphis for decades. The bluez will slip secretly between your fingers. I am a failure as a writer, a lover of those jaded eyes, and I have failed Memphis as a subject. Failing Memphis is like failing love. It’s the heat. Something about this music has to do with a failure of our souls. We are intolerant. There was no air conditioning in the hotel room. Only one bathroom glass in Saran Wrap. I had to sneak Billy into the room. If I was your boyfriend. The fire escape. We dragged the mattress out there so we could sleep when things cooled off some. Things do not not cool off anywhere near the bluez. They steam. The steam smells like the sewers. From five stories above a congregation of hookers in the alley, we traded jokes and insults with the women on the sidewalk below. They laughed at us. This was better than a strip joint. I give it to you free. There ain’t nothing free. You got that one. Where are you from. Florida mainly. You boys come down here, we give you the tour. That bar and that bar and that bar and that bar. For every bar, there’s a church. Elvis breath on everything. Your Mama. This is how we talk. Not like people at the New York Times talk. Our talk is porn and spit. The metaphor is the trumpet, and if you can play it, play it, play it tough, play it haunted, play it with the window open. Billy played the piano but just play it. You are your own best story and your own best book. If I was your boyfriend.