My girl and I make quite a pair

Her skin dark and smooth

Mine pale and leathery

Her hair black and straight and long

Mine blonde and scruffy and curly

Her body slender and attractive

Mine tall and stocky

Her clothes new and sexy

Mine haggard denim

 

We were bored one dusty summer afternoon

Nothing on television

Not in the mood for lovemaking

No good music on the radio

Not to mention an empty pantry and broken refrigerator

 

So we got dressed up in denim and old shirts

And drove to town

In my grimy red pickup truck

Guess where we went?

To the rock show

 

We pull up to the giant bandstand

A gray dome like a streamlined mountain

Art deco façade

Some guy with a tray around his neck

Yelling at us like we did something wrong

Because we didn’t buy popcorn yet

So I buy her a box and get myself a beer

Cold like an oasis in aluminum can

We wade through the crowd

Hippies and bikers and cowboys

Long hair and leather and denim everywhere

And find a spot in the dry brown grass

Crunching under our step

Like we’re walking through cornflakes

We get right in front of the stage

Huge black monoliths

Well amplifiers really

Flank a gleaming jet-black drum set

And three microphones

Their cables slinking across the stage

As if black snakes were nesting in the orchestra pit

The band finally comes out with their guitars

Two guys and two girls from Detroit

They begin to play

A song about no tomorrow

And wasting all our time

And hatefulness

And pain

 

And we loved every minute of it.

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