A Man Needs A Vocation

The trip was pretty bleak

But it was cheaper than the train

Disembarked during a summer storm

Got hammered by the rain

As he hobbled down the frontage road

With a footlocker and in a fair amount of pain

From a payphone at a the station

He called on some old friends

And a guy that he'd played football with

Said he could take him in

On a blanket on a mattress

In the basement by the furnace

He was home again

But he'd been gone for long enough that something wasn't lining up

This distance didn't exist before the plexiglass at liquor stores

The wretches in the parking lots, the torches in the smoking shops

Everything felt twice as hot to him

Started ringing up the register

At a Sinclair down the street

Started saving up and bought a truck

Started sleeping in the backseat

In the morning when he wakes up

There's a pamphlet on the windshield

With a cartoon of a shepherd

Tending to some cartoon sheep

It said, "We'll walk you through the paperwork

The course takes twenty weeks

With a military discount

The divinity comes cheaply and discreetly"

In classrooms in an office park, fluorescent lights against the dark

Long rows of unsteady desks, he memorized the sacred texts

That earned him the certificate, that led him a place to live

And though he didn't believe in it, he was quite convinced a man needs a vocation

So he drove out to Fishersville

Without saying goodbye

There was never really anything to say

'Cause the guys that he played football with

Were all starting to die

And it still felt pretty pointless when he prayed

'Cause he'd been there for long enough to know the savior won't show up

The distance between everything and Daniel back in Washington

The way it hung above his head, the wretches in the tanning beds

Turning up the torch again, Virginia with your rolling hills

The cities with their easy thrills, the clinics with their sliding scales

Scratching out prescriptions

They said you can't help somebody else until you take care of yourself

He never really fell for it, but he was quite convinced a man needs a vocation