The Weary Boys

Everybody was drunk, the Weary Boys were tearing it up, and no one knew which one came first. But the floor trembled with foot stomps, and couples poured onto the dance floor, tumbling into each other and spilling their drinks. Old men at the bar looked up from their Jack Daniel's. Girls in the back whispered to each other, yelling on the count of three: "Mahh-reee-oooh!" And doe-eyed Mario was singing--his lips curled in a snarl, his hips swiveling, scooping up each country hiccup--and Brian was blazing on the fiddle and Darren was pickin' the acoustic dry, all of them playing that bluegrass like the whole goddamn bar was fixin' to blow. And the music was so fast, so full-throttle that people started pounding the stage, pounding their chairs, going, "Where'n hell did these boys come from?" Not knowing the boys had been in Austin less than a year. Not knowing they were from California, of all places, a little logging and fishing town just shy of the Oregon border. Not knowing they'd played Louisiana State Angola Prison, and probably fit in with the prisoners better than with the hippies who'd come out to see them at Austin's Continental Club that night. Whoo-weee, them Weary Boys can play--the old standards from Ralph Stanley and Bill Monroe, sure, but a fair share of their own songs, too. And those aren't even half-bad. Not that we were too discerning that night, what with the hootin' and the dancin' and the cryin' and the beer. And the beer. And the beer. Damn them Weary Boys.