Well you can buy me a drink and i'll tell you what i seen

And i'll give you a bargain from the edge of a maniac's dream

That buys a black widow spider with a riddle in his yarn

That's clinging to the furrow of a blindman's brow

I'll start talking from the brim of a thimble full of whiskey

On a train through the bronx that will take you just as far

As the empty of a bottle to the highway of a scar

That stretched across the blacktop of my cheek like that

And then ducks beneath the brim of a fugitive's hat

And you'll learn why liquor makes a stool pigeon rat on every face

That ever left his shadow down on saint marks place

Hell i'd double cross my mother if it was whiskey that they payed

And so an early bird says nightsticks on the hit parade

And he ain't got a prayer and his days are numbered

And you'll track him down like a dog

Well it's a tough customer you're getting in this trade

Cause the nightstick's heart pumps lemonade

Well whiskey keeps a blindman talkin alright

And i'm the only one who knows just where he stayed last night



He was in a wreckin yard in a switchblade storm

In a wheelbarrow with nothing but revenge to keep him warm

And a half a million dollars in unmarked bills

Was the nightstick's blanket in a febuary chill

And as the buzzard drove a crooked sky

He was dealin high chicago in the mud

And stackin' the deck against a dragnet's eye

A shivering nightstick in a miserable heap

With the siren for a lullaby singing him to sleep

He was bleeding from a buttonhole

Torn by a slug fired from the barrel of a two dollar gun

That scorched a blister on the grip of a punk by now

Is learnin what you have to pay to be a hero anyhow



He dressed the hole in his