Windy Night
Outside the yellow cab is honking, engine running, portable radio tuned into
Classic Oldies medleys
Freddy and the Dreamers on Furman Street
'I'm Telling You Now' far past midnight, streetlights shot out again-all the better
not to see you in--
And the cabbie is waiting for the girl in the house across the way with no power,
not three minutes inside, dropped off by another cab
Same company different driver his tail lights barely vanished
Him barely settled into the primo spot in Dunkin' Donuts parking lot where he
counts his cash, arranging the bills, hearing the call for Furman, same
address, same empty house, so what? she tips big time,
No questions asked this time of night
A fare is a fare
A tip is a tip
Especially a big one
Though if he had to testify--
Well that's another story for another time and place
And she's on her cell, talking as she locks up, hustles to the new cab, backpack
she didn't have when she went in slung over one shoulder
As she slams the door, giving an address across town, in The Projects
No Man's Land
For pizza delivery guys, sub shops, Chinese take out
No man's land ever since the last guy got wasted at a bogus ghost town vacant apartment address
Four juvenile offenders with baseball bats
Not Louisville Sluggers, aluminum bats,
"Motherfucker dented my bat" One kid said
Another said, "We didn't mean to waste no dude. Just wanted to like mess him up a bit like."
Like
Like what
Like for fun:
Two broken kneecaps, ten fractured ribs, shattered jaw, compound this and that,
caved in skull, disarticulations
Dead father of three children with a widow at home waiting for a police report
That would read, "Manslaughtered in the first degree."
For what?
Twenty-three dollars, two orders of egg rolls, four cans of Diet Pepsi, a combo dinner,
Shrimp and Snow Peas, General Tsao's Chicken--
They drank the sodas
Got high
But they didn't touch the food.
Outside the yellow cab is honking, engine running, portable radio tuned into
Classic Oldies medleys
Freddy and the Dreamers on Furman Street
'I'm Telling You Now' far past midnight, streetlights shot out again-all the better
not to see you in--
And the cabbie is waiting for the girl in the house across the way with no power,
not three minutes inside, dropped off by another cab
Same company different driver his tail lights barely vanished
Him barely settled into the primo spot in Dunkin' Donuts parking lot where he
counts his cash, arranging the bills, hearing the call for Furman, same
address, same empty house, so what? she tips big time,
No questions asked this time of night
A fare is a fare
A tip is a tip
Especially a big one
Though if he had to testify--
Well that's another story for another time and place
And she's on her cell, talking as she locks up, hustles to the new cab, backpack
she didn't have when she went in slung over one shoulder
As she slams the door, giving an address across town, in The Projects
No Man's Land
For pizza delivery guys, sub shops, Chinese take out
No man's land ever since the last guy got wasted at a bogus ghost town vacant apartment address
Four juvenile offenders with baseball bats
Not Louisville Sluggers, aluminum bats,
"Motherfucker dented my bat" One kid said
Another said, "We didn't mean to waste no dude. Just wanted to like mess him up a bit like."
Like
Like what
Like for fun:
Two broken kneecaps, ten fractured ribs, shattered jaw, compound this and that,
caved in skull, disarticulations
Dead father of three children with a widow at home waiting for a police report
That would read, "Manslaughtered in the first degree."
For what?
Twenty-three dollars, two orders of egg rolls, four cans of Diet Pepsi, a combo dinner,
Shrimp and Snow Peas, General Tsao's Chicken--
They drank the sodas
Got high
But they didn't touch the food.