Tough Love

There’s a kid in our class

that got himself into drugs in a big way.

He was just a kid like the rest of us

yet he wasn’t either.
I reckon he had a bad home life

though that might be layin’ the blame

on the wrong doorstep.

In any event
he got sent off to one of those tough-love places.

It’s a strange kind of funny

how one day there’s a kid you’ve known all your life

and the next day he’s gone.

Me and this kid weren’t particularly friendly

all the same he was one of us.

~

One Way or Another

Me and Colt load out an old coot

down at the elevator

who was in the Army with Elvis

and taught Elvis how to play the guitar.

So he says.

I reckon it ain’t true.

He may’ve been in the Army with Elvis.

The rest of it sounds unlikely.

Colt says Elvis was playin’ Hound Dawg before all that.

How Colt knows that I don’t know.

I ain’t a big Elvis fan and teachin’ ole Elvis how to strum a guitar

don’t seem like all that much to brag on.

If he did.

Which I don’t think he did.

—

We get that old coot his chicken scratch

and he sets out for the office to settle his bill
and I get the door for him on account of he’s infirm

and damn if he don’t tell the same story to the secretary.

Only instead of teachin’ Elvis in the Army
he’s teachin’ Johnny Cash in jail

and I know that ain’t true

on account of it’s a myth that Johnny Cash did hard time.

He may’ve spent a night or two inside

but that ain’t half enough time to learn how to play no guitar.

I have a notion the coot lays it on thick.
I guess it don’t matter one way or another

only I wish it were true one way or another

on account of it makes a pretty good story.