June Song Vignette: Grimalkin

[Dr Archeville]

(This little scene take place in May the week before Memorial Day [making Grimalkin the very first victim of the effect!], on a largely deserted street in Riverside; the tune is original, and I’m hoping to have my sisters record it as a duet.)

 

 

Sometimes when he touched her, she’d melt beneath his fingertips, but other times she flinched like a whipped dog. He thought he’d drown in her eyes like pools of dark brown coffee, except those days when all he saw was ice and fear. He finally decided to ask her about it on a warm spring night in Riverside after a movie, when her mood was light as cotton candy, and a street corner combo played guitar, pedal steel and fiddle. For a while she was quiet as she stared down at the sidewalk between her toes, and then she began to sing.

 

Long Train to Nowhere (Grimalkin’s Song)

 

When I was growing up back in New Jersey

I always dreamed of heading out West

Stuck out in a trailer

My daddy was a failure

And Momma never gave him a rest

But I thought if I could make it to the railroad

I could leave that sadness far behind

 

I was riding the long train to nowhere

Hoping and praying I was not found

There’s a thousand miles between me and you

But somehow it still feels like you’re around

 

I met you in a camp outside Altoona

You held me at night when it got cold

To you, it wasn’t much

But I shivered at your touch

Remember I was just fifteen years old

So we lived from train to train out on the railroad

A freedom that I thought I’d never find

 

Yes we’re riding the long train to nowhere

Hoping and praying we don’t get found

There’s a thousand miles between me and you

But somehow it still feels like you’re around

 

Then somehow it all changed out in Montana

You tried to take something I could not give

My back against the wall

You were twice as tall

And I found out just what I’d do to live

Well I thought I would be safe out on the railroad

But the strangers that you meet aren’t always kind

 

So I’m riding the long train to nowhere

Hoping and praying I don’t get found

There’s a thousand miles between me and you

But somehow it still feels like you’re around

 

Now I find myself back in New Jersey

And I see you in the eyes of every man

It’s the price I’ve had to pay

Never give my heart away

I might dance, but lonely I will stand

You can try to hide yourself out on the railroad

But you can’t run away from your own mind

 

I’m still riding the long train to nowhere

Hoping and praying I don’t get found

It’s a thousand lonely miles back to your grave

But somehow it still feels like you’re around