Project Overshadow

I wasn't Arrested
So much as Arrescued
Cuffed hand to hand
The right to remain silent is sacred
Your silence isn't appreciated
Your silence isn't rewarded 
Your silence is expected
Because silence is its own reward


We were all of us seasoned cowboys
We rode the range together for years
There was nothin' to see here folks 
A lot of cast-iron and concrete
Wall-to-wall fuck-all
I'm trying to distract these guys
My partners and now my co-accused
But they notice
They talk quietly with each other
at the the little metal table nearest the TV


It turns out even when we were alone we were never alone
When we were whispering we were never unheard
When we were hiding we were never unseen
The question hung in the air unasked and overdue 
Was it him?
Was it he?
Was it who?

Was it me?
Was it her?
Was it you?

And then I envision it
My recorded voice being broadcast  
Echoing through the courtroom
I hope I didn't say any stupid shit
Of course I said stupid shit
 I said at least 10 stupid things on the phone before I got off toilet every morning
I open my mouth and it's a rushing river of pure fucking shit 
I pray they weren't listening that Wednesday morning
The phone sex line 
What if they play it on the court sound system 
Front page of the Sudbury Star:
SEXUAL DEVIANT DRUG TRAFFICKER MAKES BARN ANIMAL SOUNDS ON INTERCEPTED PHONE-SEX CALL
And that's if they just have my phones
If they have my computer? My ISP?
Oh. Oh man.
Oh my God I'm so going to jail
Again


My partners notice my weight loss
and burnt fingertips
But nobody is blaming anyone
There's just slight nods and knowing smirks
Nobody is blaming anyone
It's strangely peaceful here under this bus.
 

A convenience store stick-up man teases me about telephones
I was a cellular simpleton
I was a roaming retard
I was a flashing red homing beacon
 
The consensus was
It was me that brought us all down (it hadda be me)
It was me that burned it to the ground (who else could it be)
It was me that sunk the mighty ocean liner (my co-accused tacitly agreed)

This stick-up man mocking me
He's here because he robbed a Pinto
And not just any old Pinto
He robbed the Eyre Street Pinto
He robbed the scuzziest fucking Pinto in town
 
I no longer had a seat at the cowboy table
I was no longer invited to hushed conversations
There were no bitter accusations
(we were proud criminals, not animals)
I just generally accepted
that these were immaculate gangsters
Who never slipped up
Or spoke out of school

For the next six months
I slept the listless sleep of the cyclops
I dreamed in sodium arc lamp yellow
I attempted to convert to Judaism
Just to get different meals
I stopped looking for big brothers
And I learned stand up alone
I forgave myself for my weaknesses
And began to atone
For all the alleged mortal sins
I must have committed on that phone


And when the call logs were delivered
thousands of pages of transcribed conversations|
It wasn't just phones they had scoped out and tapped
They had homes and they had cottages
They had little devices in our vehicles
That gave our locations when they zapped

They were all over us for months
Before our season shut down
I was arrested cracked-out in  Windsor
And brought back to this town


The intercepted communications had a ninety day time limit
I read the table of contents over and over
There was was no tap on my phone
and as far as this investigation went
I was barely mentioned in it

My former partners were truthful
they rarely ever used their phones
But they incriminated themselves plenty
Talking in their vehicles and homes

These men blamed me
cursed and berated me
made me out to be a fool
But I did end up quitting crack forever though
So that was pretty cool