Chinatown
There was a ghost of a rainbow
Cloaked in fog and shadow off the Frisco shore
And I was watching a game show
Through the window of an old department store
Then the swirling colors through the glass
Melted into images and sound
And then somehow I could see, my poor father’s memory
Of a tragic night in Chinatown
It was back in 07
Dad’d been a beat cop for about a year
When a 7/11
Got held up at gunpoint not too far from here
Dad was scared and way too quick to shoot
There was blood and money on the ground
When that robber left this world, he left a teen-age girl
Crying all alone in Chinatown
After that came photo ops with football players
Interviews with Action News and then the mayor
Pinned a coupla medals on my father’s chest
Just last Friday in some dealer’s house they raided
My dad’s partner swore my father hesitated
Then he took four rounds above his Kevlar vest
Today I went back to where it began
And I poured my father’s ashes on the ground
Then I knelt down and I cried, because two men really died
On that awful night in Chinatown
Then I stood on a sidewalk
Watching TV till I caught a cable car
Where the hustlers and nighthawks
Think that life is just a fading shooting star
Who can say but even if that’s true
Time burns hottest when it’s winding down
And so out there by the shore, I knocked on a door
Like a ghost who escaped Chinatown
Well, at first she didn’t wanna talk about it
Then we took a walk somewhere that wasn’t crowded
On the wharf where we could watch the twilight ships
She was wary and she guarded her emotions
Then I tossed my father’s medals in the ocean
And she kissed me on the forehead with her fingertips
And it’s funny how our fathers’ graves
Gave our homeless hearts a common ground
And we learned the meaning of, life and death and crazy love
From a twist of fate in Chinatown
