White hat' stained black

I’m always doing the wrong thing,

Hanks always told me

Like the time I gave the finger

To that asshole with Florida plates

For cutting me off as I changed lanes

And he pulled a gun

Or the time I cut off

That Paterson mobster by accident

And had to drive the wrong way

Down a one way street

To keep him from killing me.

Or worse that time I walked

Down Hollywood Boulevard

With my hippie chick girl friend

And told a pack of bikers to buzz off

When they tried to take her,

My back bleeding for a week

From the chains they hit me with

Hank said I never think about what I’m doing

Before I actually do it,

But sometimes I actually do,

Seeing myself as doing the right thing

When time proves I was wrong.

Painting myself as the cowboy in the white hat

Riding to someone’s rescue when often

The only person I manage to rescue is myself

Like that time the sixth street prostitute

Robbed her own pusher to get the drugs

To bring me down from my bad trip,

I still love her for that even though

I couldn’t save her when she flipped out

And threw scalding water in her pusher’s face

When he refused to give her a fix,

He burning down her apartment building

With her in it for revenge.

Or that aging go go dance in Passaic

Who used to buy me drinks

Because I laughed at her comedy act

When nobody else would,

A lone laugh track in a bar full of raging hormone

Or the barmaid with terminal cancer

I would sit up with after hours

Because we both loved Thurmond Munson

And she needed someone to see her off

Someone who meant more than a big tip

When she knew nobody else but me

Someone to cry over her at her funeral

But could not stand watching her put into the grave

Or the host of other lost causes who have

Left their indelible finger prints on my once white hat

Staining it so thoroughly that it becomes difficult

To tell if I am a good guy or a bad guy

Or just one more lonely rider from some cheap spaghetti western

Riding off into some Arizona sunset hoping for the best.