Stripes

(album: Hell's Winter - 2005)

Beer cans and cigarette butts cover the floor day
Half gone, he sleeps scared pregnant teen in the doorway
Watching him sleep clutching her belly, little feet kick
to send the teen back to the toilet, spent her last week sick
when little Billy feed her ground up Jesus powder
would've beat her louder if it would've pushed the fetus out of her
Father in the making, crooked M.P. forsaken
The military cop that sells H to bring his cake in
She shaking, praying her labor kicks in before
The doors kicked in for them brown bricks on the floor
I mean, she could tell you exactly how the gutter taste
Father to her kid in custody right when her water breaks
Snitched on his compadres for a few more runs
And the irony in giving a stuffed rat to his newborn son
Dishonorably discharged, no jail time in court
Told to pack his family up and go the fuck back to New York

[Chorus]
Fuck Bill Murray, not the actor, the deadbeat dad the smacked
then left her with rats after he snapped her
The bastard inventor that bent her backwards in winter
with her back against the wall, she can hear death singing in her
With her back against the wall, she still head death singing in her

She's scared to leave him, convinced somehow she really needs him
Back in New York her prison of pain and Billy's freedom
Holding her baby, he'd say crazy shit to break her
When she fell asleep, he'd escape her wits end and wouldn't wake her
He'd sneak out the wallo in it role model to shit
That put his Christian scientist father in debt
Gave him his first stroke, he refused his medication
'Cause it went against his religion, he'd rather his lord take him
Through stroke number two and start withering his flesh
Then lay the emaciated world ware two veteran to rest
Left his family debt turmoil and wreckage
And his grandson to scatter his ash over the U.S. Intrepid
Then little Billy plummets to his knees, still numb from it
Held his kid by the arm with a shotgun to his stomach
When threats to destroy what he created get tucked away
when he looks in his son's face to see he might grow up to say

[Chorus]

Needle through the skin again, inject the rust and cinnamon
Pull off the tourniquet, load up the shotgun and sentence him
He knows that there's a bed in hell waitin for him
But he ain't been sane since he started huffin chloroform
With his shit decorum, he lets off shots the neighbors say shooters
Into the phone to Middletown police and state troopers
While every family member on th premises runs from death
Greeted by dozens of officers with guns and vests
His suicide by cop sweater on get low
Is told to the crowd watching him shoot thru the window
His son clutched in his mother's arms, unaware it's the end
They bring him out in handcuffs but never to be seen again

[Chorus]