Rheostatics: Queer

Dave Bidini and Dave Clark

You woke the wrecking yard hounds
When you slammed the passenger side.
Father watched you from the yard
With his knuckles wrapped in ice.
Now the screen door is still broken
Since you kicked your Kodiaks through it.
But we left the Christmas tree standing
In case you turned around.

Now I've heard you've got a good job
Pitching had down in Salmon Arm.
Maybe I'll hike there from the coast
When the weather starts to warm.
K.D. called on the weekend;
She was crying on the telephone,
'Cause father said as far as he's concerned
You've been stricken from our home.

He's gone out of his head.
(She's gone out of her head.)
He's gone out of his head.
(She's gone out of his head.)
He's gone out of his head.
Sometimes choices aren't so clear.

Father raged like a soldier.
He put his fist through the kitchen door
When I said it would have been better if
You had split on your own accord.
I don't care about the damage,
But I wish you were there to see it
When I scored a hat-trick on the team
That called you a fucking queer.

Gonna find me another home.
The things you'll never know.
The things you'll never feel.
The things you'll never see.
The times you'll never know.

(I'm in the country now, among the rattlesnakes and the sage-brush. The concrete and asphalt and glass are gone, and in its place is well water and black spruce and gravel roads which snake and curl and wind through the valley. I wish you were here to watch the sun sneak above the mountains and play with the pure light across the farmland; it'll fuck your mind up. But I'm glad I'm here and not there. If I had stayed, I would've killed him. I would have come home and found him asleep on the couch, and walked up to him and pressed the gun against his head, and watched it explode in a glorious watercolor fountain, all thick and red and gory. I would have used it to paint the picture I'm seeing now.)