That Band Down There

M. and I go see the girls play whenever we get the chance. We call them the girls even though F. and his battered Martin stand front and center when they play their magic. But those girls, man. Up there in all that young and pretty and pick-your-jaw-off-the-floor-Mister talent. LM has more young than the rest. She was only 15 when M. first found them playing for tips down there. Carried herself real mature and professional though and even then you'd have sworn she was every bit of 20 at least. The kind of girl that'd make you sympathetic to the ways of Appalachia. Ol' M. looked crestfallen and snake bit when he learned her real age. I laughed at him. We all did. LM is a fiddle player is what she is. Me, I fell hard as a diamond for S., the dark-haired beauty on mandolin. Ethereal is what she was and is. She carries that mandolin slung low below her waist and wears it all out effortless like she was Keith Richards or somebody. AD over there on the right's on fiddle too and she's as good as LM and probably better. She's crazy as bat shit too and the kind of fun you wish you could be even once in your life. Sometimes her short hair is blue or pink but usually California blonde. She's got a real high voice that should be annoying but isn't. It'll make you smile if you are given to smiles. And F. He's a little guy. Wild all over hair and bears more than a pass at a young Charles Manson. The boy can play. He looks three quarters fucked up up there, grinning crazy or lost behind heavy-lidded eyes or white sunglasses. But he won't pass by you during break that he won't smile or stop and talk if he must. He's got some shy to him but he steps around it, always, for the band and fans. And he's Kind, like you wish folks could be. So kind it makes you want to do better yourself. Did I tell you the boy can play? Yes. M. and I don't talk much when we go down there. But about 33 times a night we'll turn and grin like simpletons at each other over a special lick or note or jam or whatever. It doesn't seem possible, even years later, that a band could be so tight and right--family or no. So we drink bottle beer and listen and grin and move our feet to the music. Wishing it would never stop.