The Disappearance of Ray Norton

It was like it happened one day
I was walking down the street and all the storefronts had Mexican names
The whole neighborhood had changed
A lot of people were selling their houses
People that lived there since I was a kid
They were buying places farther out in planned estates
My mom, she was too broke
And anyway she liked her house
It was her parents' house, she was born in it

There was a kid I went to school with, who lived four houses down
He lived with his father, and his father's girlfriend
I'd known him my whole life
He hated Mexicans
It was something I didn't know was there, and then suddenly it was there
He hated that they took over the diner on Wells Street
Hated that the grocery store's now a Mexican grocery store
And he hated the laundromat because it was full of Mexican women and kids

Sometimes I'd see him drinking beer in the vacant lot down the street
There was this old vinyl couch, and we'd sit there and stare up at the power lines that ran overhead
He started going on and on how they were moving in
Buying and renting all the houses around us
How they were ruining the property value
How they were ruining everything
He'd get real upset about it and start saying crazy things
So I quit going down to the lot and I quit calling him
Then I heard from a friend of mine that his girlfriend left him
They'd gone out for over a year
She was some sort of hippie, she didn't hate anyone

Then a few months later, he started hanging out with this group of guys who lived behind a bar in an old house
They all had shaved heads and they gave themselves tattoos
And they'd have parties and barbecues
And then he moved in with them

Oh I knew his dad, he was an electrician and he was sick about it
He was ashamed, and he'd get real upset and say he didn't know what to do
Then a while later I heard that the kid had a falling out with the guys in the house
One of the guys got stabbed, I'm not sure if he did it, but he left right after that
And then he tried to move back in with his dad
But his dad said he'd never let him in the house again
'cause of the tattoos he had and the things he'd said
And it got worse

The kid ended up living in the back of his truck
He did that until winter
And I heard from his ex-girlfriend that he'd lost his job
And she wasn't sure where he'd gone
That she hadn't seen him in almost six months
And she was glad she hadn't