Wright arrives in Memphis at night but is lucky enough to find lodging on Beale Street (the reputed birthplace of the blues) right away with a kindly landlady, Mrs. Moss, who lives with her naïve seventeen-year-old daughter, Bess. He is shocked when both Bess and her mother seem intent on Wright marrying Bess. When Bess later offers to have sex with him, he concludes that they are simple-minded people—peasants, really—who take people as they are and only strive to make enough money to survive. Wright finds that going from being a pariah to being respected and desired is too big a change to accept easily. Wright secures a job as a dishwasher. On his first day out, he falls for a scam when two thieves use him to move stolen liquor under the pretense of having just found the liquor on the side of the road. This incident drives home to Wright that he may be more naïve than he thought.

On the strength of a promise of a recommendation from the optical shop owner in Jackson, Wright manages to get an even higher paying job at a Memphis optical shop. Between his work cleaning the shop, Wright earns tips for running errands for the white men who work there.