THE ELEPHANT ROOM

When you roll into Austin, Tony Gray is right there to meet you within minutes at your choice of downtown watering holes. He arrives with a boisterous greeting and an offer to assist in at way he can to make your stay more enjoyable.

State Rep Rene Oliveira's personable legislative assistant is a jovial and generous host, a gourmet chef and one hell of a storyteller. He's seen and done plenty and has a Homeric way of recounting his adventures, which are remarkable without any embellishment.

In the tradition of great Texas storytellers, he's been known to spin a yarn or two. With a jazz background in his family, he is prone to improvise, to extrapolate, to explore the far-reaching implications of the theme.

In the process of talking to the waitress at the Elephant Room, he was having a little fun with her when he mentioned that I was an official with the Port of Brownsville in town on business. A leak is all it took.

Soon everybody in the joint was expecting me to buy him or her a drink. By the following night I was well-known around the Elephant and started attracting contractors, consultants, legislators and lawyers.

I lost patience and told the hustlers to beat it. The trumpet and sax players were taking turns developing their solos. You wanted to pay full attention. They would never play it exactly like that ever again.