Ruby & Carlos - James McMurtry

Ruby said you’re gettin' us in a world of hurt

And down below the Mason Dumb Ass line the food gets worse

I can’t go back to Tennessee That NASCAR country’s not for me

Go on if you think you must

Carlos packed his drums up in the dark of night

Ruby standing just outside the front porch light

Chain-smoking Camel straights

The sky off to the East got grey

And he rolled off in a cloud of dust

The grey colt nickered at the gate

She said «you're right it’s gettin' late

You and me got work to do

We can’t be burning daylight too»

She took down the long lead rope

And stayed off that slippery slope

The aspen trees were turning gold up top

The talk was buzzing round the beauty shop

«Wasn't he barely half her age?»

«Well that’s just how they do nowadays

We should all a’been so lucky»

By spring she’d had the run of all the freeborn men

Ruby turned fifty in a sheep camp tent

Her body still could rock all night

But her heart was closed and locked up tight

Potato fields all muddy and brown

The gossip long since quieted down

After one more Coggins test

Pouring coffee for the county vet

Pictures on the ice box door

Of Carlos in the first Gulf War

Black eyed, brown and youthful face

Smiling back from a Saudi base

Then Carlos on the big bay mare

Heavier now and longer haired

Looking past the saddle shed

From way on back inside his head

The old vet said one day Rube

That colt will break an egg in you

Now and then one comes along

You just can’t ride then he went on home

The storm door didn’t catch

It blew back hard As she struck a match

But she cupped it just in time

Then she sent that ash tray flying (

Holding back the flood

Just don’t do no good

You can’t unclench your teeth

To howl the way you should

So you curl your lips around

The taste of tears and a hollow sound

That no one owns but you

No one owns but you

Carlos took the road gig and he saw it through

He rode the tour bus while the singer flew

Managed out of Music Row

Carlos never saw the studio

Session guys had that all sewn up

He looks out the window as it starts to sleet

Layin' on a friend’s couch on Nevada Street

Lately he’s been staying high

Sick all winter and they don’t know why

They don’t know why or they just won’t say

They don’t talk much down at the VA

Ruby’s in his thoughts sometimes

What thoughts can get out past the wine

He feels her fingers on his brow

And right then he misses how

She looked in that grey morning light

She never shaved like they all do now

He sees it all behind his eyes

His hands go searching but they come up dry

Halfway in that waking dream

Carlos lets the land line ring

He’d never have guessed it was Ruby calling

A pin in her hip from the grey colt falling

Figure eights in a lazy lope

Stumbled on that slippery slope