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DEAD RINGER

With two dollars in my pocket
I came to Santa Fe,
Thinking just to visit friends
And then be on my way;
But much in need of pocket change
I sought a place to play,
And by chance I came upon
The Ringer Café.
I became the house musician,
Playing every day.

I never had a steady job before,
Playing my guitar.
I played beneath the noonday sun
And underneath the stars;
I played for local residents
And tourists from afar,
With food inside my belly,
And tips inside the jar.
But whenever things seem too good
To be true, they prob’ly are.

I’d been there but a week or two,
It wasn’t very long,
When the owner Phil discovered
That something had gone wrong:
From inside of his cash register
Five thousand bucks were gone!
Phil went looking for a scapegoat,
Someone to blame it on.
I was not a money changer;
I was only singing songs.

One fine September morning
As summer turned to fall,
Phil was throwing coffee cups
And dishes at the wall.
His wife had cleared his bank account,
Robbed him of his all,
And run off with the crooked chef
And his crooked teeth and all.
They were rumored to have gone
To Venezuela with their haul.

So Phil was left with not a chef,
Nor money, nor a wife;
And Phil was left to contemplate
A lonely, single life.
He could not make the payroll,
So he disappeared from sight.
The café’s the Dead Ringer now,
Phil quit without a fight.
Restaurants often fail abruptly,
But seldom overnight.

Greenfield, Massachusetts, 1986