Mornings in Alabama begin with ritual insect murder: ants in the kitchen, cockroaches in the sitting room, cereal box infestations and window ledge lizard-catching. Then there is the waiting. This is our belated weekend; we worked through Saturday and Sunday, the end of our seven day roadtrip through Alabama, Georgia, West Virginia, Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina, Maryland, Virginia and back. I celebrated turning 23 in four states. We wait until mid-afternoon to be remembered and collected; driven for wine and groceries and back again, to wait until the next day.
I am working for Time Warner, the world’s largest entertainment company, through Murphy Media, the firm contracted for the book we write and research on these trips. From crab-encrusted fried chicken with the aptly-named Tennessee Momma ‘Big Fatty’ to Millie’s, the dark Friday night Richmond drinking joint where I was trapped in a fridge and given a personal city-tour by the owner in a BMW, we are binge-eating our way across the South, adventure by adventure.
We live in a cottage on the woodland estate of a former Goldman Sachs CEO. It is a dog lover’s sordid fantasy; statues, cushions, photographs, calendars, and wax monuments to the cocker spaniel, adorn every surface. This house is a monument to the shaggiest breeds of the panting, wild-eyed and easy to please; fortunate, because we too are transforming into this unfamiliar species, as we worship ever-more at the altar of the Deep South deep fryer. Dangerous.
astrangerinyourmidst 