Straight Time

Got out of prison back in 86 and I found a wife

Walked the clean and narrowjust tryin to stay out and stay alive

Got a job at the rendering plant it ain't gonna make me rich

In the darkness before dinner comes

Sometimes I can feel the itch

I got a cold mind to go tripping across that thin line

I'm sick of doin straight time

My uncles at the evenin table makes his living runnin hot cars

Slips me a hundred dollar bill says

Charlie you best remember who your friends are

Got a cold mind to go trippin cross that thin line

I ain't makin straight time

Eight years in it feels like you're gonna die

But you get used to anything

Sooner or later it just becomes your life

Kitchen floor in the evening tossin my little babies high

Marys smiling but she's watching me out of the corner of her eye

Seems you can't get any more than half free

I step out onto the front porch and suck the cold air deep inside of me

Got a cold mind to go trippin cross that thin line

I'm sick of doin straight time

In the basement huntin gun and a hacksaw

Sip a beer and thirteen inches of barrel drop to the floor

Come home in the evening can't get the smell from my hands

Lay my head down on the pillow

And go driftin off into foreign lands