It was the summer of 1976. I was sitting on my haunches making beetles fight each other in the middle of the gravel road out front of my family's Ohio homestead. My granpappy leapt out of his rocking chair and faced the road with a grin wider than the Gateway Arch. I didn't know what the hell he was looking at, but I heard it soon enough.
Out from the south came a pillar of dust flanked by twin black Harley Davidsons. They didn't look like they'd any intention of stopping. I stood up, stick in hand, and braced myself to see everlasting light. They came closer and closer, their engines bubbling like tar pits kicked into overdrive. The two long-haired sons of bitches holding onto the motorcycles had cigarettes dangling from their lips, God knows how they held onto them at the speed they were going at. They were so close now I could see their dirty fists rip back even further on the throttles. I closed my eyes as I was caught in the twister. Convinced I'd been smothered so quickly by those black steel raiders I couldn't even feel it, I opened my eyes to look at Heaven -- and saw instead a vinyl record twirling around the stick in my hand. Pressed into the center was the word "brothers".
"Look at them ol' boys," Granpappy said. "Let's go put that thing on!"
\\Album review + mp3s from Brothers after the jump//
