America is a country of great ambitions but even greater divisions. Reason enough for photographer and filmmaker Robin de Puy to look for 'the American'. Who is that? Who represents this country? Episode 1: The tire shop of Jamario and Damaj.
In the center of Clarksdale, Mississippi, where Highway 61 and 49 intersect, Robert Johnson sold his soul to the devil in 1930 in exchange for the art of playing the guitar. For a moment, I fear that Robert didn't just sell his own soul but also that of this city.
We wander through empty streets in search of someone who can let us hear the promised blues. Due to our slow pace and my blank stare through the car window, people quickly think we are the police. And believe me, you don't want that. Dejected, we try to shake off the day in a hairy pool at our hotel.
In the evening, the city still seems quiet, but the light seeping through the cracks in the wooden walls of seemingly lost buildings betrays the presence of more. Finally, there's the blues, hidden beneath a plastic-covered ceiling. A toothless singer, unintelligible when he speaks but not when he sings, welcomes us – his only audience. He gives us a private concert, and his voice makes us not want to leave for a while.
The next morning, in search of coffee and nice mugs, we drive past a tire shop. Jamario (20) and Damaj (17) sit under the awning waiting for their first customer. Damaj is the owner, born in Yemen and brought to America by his father. The boy gets everything he wants as long as he goes to school. Damaj sees it differently; he doesn't want to go to school. He wants to work. His dream? To have as many as five hundred tire shops across America within ten years. "Something like Starbucks or McDonald's."
"And you, Jamario? What's your dream?" I ask him. "Tomorrow, I'll turn 21, and then I'm enrolling in the Police Academy. And I'll become a father in a month."
I then ask Jamario countless questions in which I seek confirmation of my own biased view of his life, but he reassures all my doubts. The dreams here are big, but rarely misplaced - as long as you see them through the eyes of an American.
And, don't forget: if you can't make it on your own, you can always sell your soul. Soulless, you can go far. Just look at Robert.
