The+Beale+Street+Playboy

Beale Street was an old street in Memphis, Tennessee, famous for whore houses and bars, that got largely burned down in the 1970s. Hugh Ruppersburg writes in his book //Reading Faulkner: Light in August// that the street was "famous in spirit and notoriety to Bourbon Street in New Orleans. Because Beale Street was mainly a black night-life center, Max likely intends by calling Joe a 'Beale Street Playboy' to suggest that he is not only a regular whore house customer, but also a black man" (120).

//"'Here's Romeo at last,' he said. 'The Beale Street Playboy.' Then he spoke a little louder, saying Romeo quite loud. 'Come in and meet the folks'"// (LIA 213).

Source: Ruppersburg, Hugh. //Reading Faulkner: Light in August//. Mississippi: University Press of Mississippi, 1994.