Class Songtext
von Andrea Gibson

The Hangout parking lot was in the center of town

In the parking lot there was a gas station
A car wash, and a convenience store
In the convenience store there was a fried
Chicken place that doubled as a pizza shop
In the pizza shop Peggy had one tooth left

She was chain smoking while making pizza in a hairnet
When that tooth fell from her mouth
And landed on my medium green pepper
She closed the lid to the box and said
"Kid, you have no idea what these gums can do to a man in bed
Trust me, teeth just get in the way"

I had just enough bite to believe her


It was my third summer working in the convenience store freezer
I wore a snowsuit in August and smelled
Like a truckload of frostbit Budweiser cans
But I knew love
At noon every Sunday when I took the locks off the beer case
Even the preacher came straight from church to call me an angel
I listened to the bells on the door
And stole more than enough bottles for myself to understand
Everyone′s chest is a living room wall
With awkwardly placed photographs hiding fish-shaped holes

I was seventeen years old
My boyfriend was a butcher at the IGA

My body was a hotel safe I didn't trust
My bedroom window was so close to the ocean
Everyone I knew had salt in their wounds and a rifle in their truck
I carried most of what was shot in my tear ducts
But where I come from you never let what you carry fall

You carry your grandmother′s laundry to the clothesline
Where she will teach you
Always hang your underwear hidden between the towels and the blankets
My grandmother had a Bible, a root
Cellar, and an ashtray on every table
My mother had a sweater from JCPenney's on layaway
My cousins had trouble with the cops
Until the day they left for a rock
And I had a heartbeat that sounded like a good
Old boy taking a baseball bat to a mailbox


Like a mill worker on the picket line talking
About the size of the trout his daughter caught
Like my father smoking a Marlboro Red while
Cutting the grass after a twelve-hour day

That is always what I think of when I think of class
His blue collar against his red neck
You know where that word comes from, right?
The sun beating against his back
And come every Sunday when that collection
Plate found its way to my family's lap
They would fill it with every dollar they didn′t have

While I stared at the light in their stained glass
Not knowing someday I would spend these Sundays
Sipping lattes in coffee shops with
People who talk radical art and politics

While making no mention of the amount of privilege it takes
To have the option to not shop at Walmart
To have the option to not fight a war

When there isn′t a job in your town
That will heat your home all winter

My father put wood on the stove he built with his own hands
My neighbors caught their dinner in their ice fishing huts
I knew nothing about the poem in my mouth
Except how to say "I want to go home"

To where Peggy's punching the time clock
Like someday she might actually knock it out
To that field beside my house with the strawberry patch
And the lightning bugs and the bumblebees
My uncle had a Sears TV with eleven channels
My aunt was the high school hot lunch lady
And even in school none of us ever talked about degrees

Unless we were talking about what the weather was

Honestly, it′s been a long, long time since I've been warm enough