Caliche Conscience

[Verse 1]
(A cappella)
Luis, the key to your room at the Sagebrush Inn,
It burned my palm like a mortal sin.
(Instruments enter)
The manager gave me a box and a black trash bag,
Said, "Clear his things out," with a Marlboro drag.
Under the bed, in a Folgers can, red and deep,
Was every last promise you swore you would keep.

[Verse 2]
Seven-thousand, two-hundred, in twenties and tens,
Coated in dust from your workboot lens.
"For Mama," you told me, "and the land by the creek.
The Rio Grande's just a whisper this week."
Now it's my secret, a fault line of trust,
To see a man's whole life settled to dust.

[Verse 3]
And I'm supposed to hand it to a man in a tie?
Watch it erode under a bureaucratic sky?
This ain't their calloused hands, ain't their faded blue jeans,
Just another number for their adding machines.
This kind of honest feels just like a crime,
Like paying a penance for doin' your time.

[Bridge]
It's a long walk to Acuña with this much in hand,
Enough to poison the soul of a good man.
And I'm so damn tired of trying to be good,
Of doing the things that the company said I should.

[Outro]
The can feels cold on the passenger seat.
Just me and your ghost on this empty street.