Bummer

His mama was a midnight woman

His daddy was a drifter drummer

One night they put it together

Nine months later came the little black bummer

He was a laid back lump in the cradle

Chewing the paint chips that fell from the ceiling

Whenever he cried he got a fist in his face

So he learned not to show his feelings

He was a pig-tail puller in grammar school

Left back twice by the seventh grade

Sniffing glue in Junior High

And the first one in school to get laid

He was a weed-speed pusher at fifteen

He was mainlining skag a year later

He'd started pimping when they put him away

In jail he changed from a junkie to a hater

And just like the man from the precinct said

?Put him away, you better kill him instead

A bummer like that is better of dead

Someday they're gonna have to put a bullet in his head?

They threw him back on the street, he robbed an A and P

He didn't blink at the buddy that he shafted

And just about the time they would have caught him too

He had the damn good fortune to get drafted

He was a-one bait for Vietnam

You see they needed more bodies in a hurry

He was a cinch to train 'cause all they had to do

Was to figure how to funnel his fury

They put him in a tank near the D.M.Z.

To catch the gooks slipping over the border

They said his mission was to search and destroy

And for once he followed and order

One sweat-soaked day in the Yung-Po valley

With the ground still steaming from the rain

There was a bloody little battle

That didn't mean nothing

Except to the few that remained

You see a couple hundred slants

Had trapped the other five tanks

And had started to pick off the crews

When he came on the scene

And it really did seem

This is why he'd paid those dues

It was something like a butcher going berserk

Or a sane man acting like a fool

Or the bravest thing that a man had ever done

Or a madman blowing his cool

Well he came on through like a knife through butter

Or a scythe sweeping through the grass

Or to say it like the man would have said it himself

Just a big black bastard, kicking ass

And just like the man from the precinct said

?Put him away, you better kill him instead

A bummer like that is better of dead

Someday they're gonna have to put a bullet in his head?

When it was over and the smoke had cleared

There were a lot of V.C, bodies in the mud

And when the rescued men came over

For the very first time they found him smiling

As he lay in his blood

They picked up the pieces

And they stitched him back together

He pulled through though

They thought he was a goner

And it force them to give him

What they said they would

Six purple hearts

And the Medal of Honor

Of course he slouched as the chief white honkey said

?Service beyond the call of duty?

But the first soft thought was passing through his mind

?My medal is a mother of a beauty?

He got a couple of jobs with the ribbon on his chest

And though he tried he really couldn't do 'em

There was only a couple of things that he was really trained for

And he found himself drifting back to 'em

Just about the time he was ready to break

The V A stopped sending him his checks

Just a matter of time 'cause there was no doubt

About what he was going to do next

It ended up one night in a grocery store

Gun in hand and nine cops at the door

And when his last battle was over

He lay crumpled and broken on the floor

And just like the man from the precinct said

?Put him away, you better kill him instead

A bummer like that is better of dead

Someday they're gonna have to put a bullet in his head?

Well he'd breathed his last, but ten minutes past

Before they dared to enter the place

And when they flipped his riddled body over they found

His second smile frozen on his face

They found his gun where he'd thrown it

There was something else clenched in his fist

And when they pried his fingers open

They found the medal of honor

And the Sergeant said

(Where in the hell, he get this?)

There was a stew about burying him in Arlington

So they shipped him in box to Fayette

And they kind of stashed him in a grave in the county plot

The kind we remember to forget

And just like the man from the precinct said

?Put him away, you better kill him instead

A bummer like that is better of dead

Someday they're gonna have to put a bullet in his head?