Badge On

Loaded gun strapped to my chest
My heart beats ‘neath a bullet-proof vest
Shining my shoes, I’m going out tonight

Sit down at Frankie’s, napkin on my knee
It’s just as greasy as it ever used to be
Sitting at our old booth, thinking of you

Caught in the cadence of your memory
I’m just the same man that I used to be
Trying to do right, in the chaos of the night

When I got my badge on
The night lasts so long
It’s so hard to do what they tell me to
When what’s right is so wrong

Is this the way that it has to be?
Keeping our love beneath a lock and key?
I work for the law all night, while you work beneath the red light

Is this some kind of inside joke?
Where the bad guys are good and the good guys are broke?
Someone’s running for reelection, someone’s pushing crack in the classified section

We rendezvous at 3:45
A jaded cop and a prostitute
Your face powdered pink, I’m falling, I’m falling, I’m falling

And as the streets steam
We’re wrapped in bed sheets
The squeak of the bed, the sound of our breath
And I come into a blue dream

I’m wide
Awake and things are very strange
The city is a mountain range
And all at once
I try to run
There’s sirens on a school bus
From my hometown
I’m spinning round and round…

And the boss
Feeds me shots of everclear
I’m putting on my riot gear
And we march
I use my torch
On houses made of cardboard
Smoke rises up
There are demons driving dump-trucks
The city’s just a chain gang
One big judicial gang bang
And then I see your face…

Gazing out into an empty street
I tell the waitress I’m too hungry to eat
Just, sitting at our old booth, thinking of you

Pay for my coffee when I’ve had my fill
A dime, a nickel, a dollar bill
And I’m gone, walking on, into the dawn…