The Sob In The Carvel Truck

The SOB in the Carvel truck
Passed me on the right doing 75
Heading up the beach to Manteo, on a Friday late
I got outa the way, I wasn't in no rush
& I watched him sway and skitter and bounce
I didn't hear no bells or see no kids
But I kinda wanted me a chocolate cone--
After he'd disappeared

It was late in the season, just before Labor Day
And they roll em up when that gets past
And then it's just guys layin' out on the beach
With a pole or three and a box of Busch
The sun in their eyes, and salt on their faces
Tough old birds and women the same
Tending a fire and sliding bait on a hook
Or sometimes when the tide's just right
Tossing a net out into the surf

I was a couple of miles past Canadian Hole
There was a guy in a Speedo out on a board
And some people with glasses, looking for birds
And I wondered just where those old salts came from?...
That you'd see out there in a month or two
With nothing to say and a distant stare
A torn plaid shirt and an old beach chair
Brown as bats, as leathery too
Laying out in the wind like an old canoe

I could feel the pull myself, sometimes
To just stand on the sand and look and look
I'd tell myself it was dolphin I sook
But I'd find my eye straying out too far:
To that farthest line, to the edge of the earth
And my fingers would itch to feel the twine
The hum and twang as it searched the surf
The slightest twitch when a cold fish mouth
Leaned in close to kiss the hook

And then I shook my head, and gripped the wheel
Thinking: "That was a close one buckaroo!
Yep, that's the answer to your mystery--
It's a deadly vortex, a Bermuda effect
Sucking you out of the life you own
And dropping you down on some spit of sand."
It made me sad for those haunted old salts
Caught in a Rapture they couldn't comprehend
And I made me a left over Roanoke Sound
Stopped at a Mart for a chocolate cone
And aimed my old Ford for some more solid ground