EL GATOAbajo hay una cuenta poquito sobre nuestros días como hijos creciendo en Dallas.
Yo las escribí después de oír las palabras de una canción.
Jay
—
Little story about them Taco Bueno years in Dallas
I remember first hearing of this song at 6637 Saint Anne Court in Dallas,Texas, on that tube radio I painted black.
Bought it at Pam & Norty garage sale. Dad took me to Skillern’s next to that Safeway where he won the grand-opening shopping cart of stuff and where we took empty glass bottles for 5 cents return refund each, eventually next to Taco Bueno and the liquor store where after England Jonathan & Jon Marc played Asteroids endlessly and masterfully.
In Skillern’s they had Dad’s Marlboros, your Benson & Hedges, Markee’s asthma medicine and by the front door a standup radio-tube tester. Sure enough, my tube was tits-up.
We bought its successor. Ran home with lightning splitting shearing from one horizon to the other.
Dad laid out his yellow voltmeter and his soldering iron, like six-shooters from days when christ-champing god-fearing temperate Texas was dry, on the faux-bamboo yellow kitchen table.
He showed me how to rewire the radio dial. I put it on the yellow plastic book case where I staged my Revell model tanks in diorama with real sand for battle.
When Dean Strauser of Donnie and I had a slumber party, we brought it into our fort and talked about Stephanie Von Tempske and Elizabeth Temple.
Every school morning before walking to Brentfield with my blue house key, KLIF 1190 AM radio sung Springsteen and Kansas from that little black box.
Jaybird
———
Lyrics to “For You”:
Princess cards she sends me with her regards Barroom eyes shine vacancy, to see her you got to look hard
Wounded deep in battle, I stand stuffed like some soldier undaunted
To her Cheshire smile, I’ll stand on file, she’s all I ever wanted
But you let your blue walls get in the way of these facts
Honey get your carpetbaggers off my back
You wouldn’t even give me the time to cover my tracks
You said “Here’s your mirror and your ball and jacks” but they’re not what I came for and I’m sure you see that too
I came for you, for you, I came for you, but you did not need my urgency
I came for you, for you, I came for you, but your life was one long emergency
And your cloud line urges me and my electric surges free
Crawl into my ambulance, your pulse is getting weak
Reveal yourself all now to me girl while you’ve got the strength to speak
‘Cause they’re waiting for you at Bellevue with their oxygen masks
But I could give it all to you now if only you could ask
And don’t call for your surgeon, even he says it’s too late
It’s not your lungs this time, it’s your heart that holds your fate
Don’t give me my money honey I don’t want it back
You and your pony face and your union jack
Well take your local joker and teach him how to act
I swear I was never that way even when I really cracked
Didn’t you think I knew that you were born with the power of a locomotive
Able to leap tall buildings in a single bound
And your Chelsea suicide with no apparent motive
You could laugh and cry in a single sound
And your strength is devastating in the face of all these odds
Remember how I kept you waiting when it was my turn to be the god
You were not quite half so proud when I found you broken on the beach
Remember how I poured salt on your tongue and hung just out of reach
And the band they played the home-coming theme as I caressed your cheek
That ragged jagged melody she still clings to me like a leech
But that medal you wore on your chest always got in the way
Like a little girl with a trophy so soft to buy her way
We were both hitchhikers but you had your ear to the roar
Of some metal-tempered engine on an alien distant shore
So you left to find a better reason than the one we were living for
And it’s not that nursery mouth I came back for
And it’s not the way you’re stretched out on the floor
‘Cause I’ve broken all your windows and I’ve rammed through all your doors
And who am I to ask you to lick my sores
And you should know that’s true
I came for you, for you, I came for you, but you did not need my urgency
I came for you, for you, I came for you, but your life was one long emergency
And your cloud line urges me and my electric surges free