NIGHT SOIL

[Verse 1]
The Dupont Circle fountain's spitting green in the rain,
Got the same ache blooming in my wrist bone again.
Remember you? That moth-girl, fresh off the Greyhound line?
Thought you'd serve the powerful, watch the city's gears grind.
Five years of gin and tonic, five years of wiping spills,
While the termites in their town cars cash out on Capitol Hill.
You learned to read the tremor in a hand reaching for a light,
You learned the difference 'tween a lonely man and a Saturday night fight.

[Chorus]
I shoulda told you, Zola, this ain't a stepping stone.
This is night soil, baby, where the bitter things are grown.
Shoulda warned you 'bout the quiet that eats you to the bone,
When you're wiping down the counter all alone.

[Verse 2]
The chef, he said last Tuesday, "You got a look I recognize,"
That hollow in the cheekbones when the saving tips don't match the rent bill's size.
I saw a staffer from the K Street lobby, he left his platinum card,
Jawsin' 'bout the working class, then stumbled out the yard.
He left a two-buck tip on eighty, I didn't even flinch,
You woulda burned his photo, girl, you wouldn't give an inch.
But I just add his face to the collection in my head,
Of all the silent arguments I'm having with the dead.

[Chorus]
I shoulda told you, Zola, this ain't a stepping stone.
This is night soil, baby, where the bitter things are grown.
Shoulda warned you 'bout the quiet that eats you to the bone,
When you're wiping down the counter all alone.

[Bridge]
The bar-mat smells like citrus bleach, the alley smells like steam,
I'm cleaning up the last remains of someone else's dream.
But the wasps that nest behind The Sump, they don't apologize,
And every night I lock the door, I see 'em in my eyes.

[Outro]
Yeah. Wiping down the counter.
All alone.