Ballad Of Jackie John, The Baseball Fan
© 2001 Jesse Slokum
When Jackie John, the mechanic, was a boy
His life was rough and his father was rougher
He never knew his mother before she died
Raped by the crazy gang down the street
Rage was the single companion
Jackie John knew he'd have to be tougher
Than any of those whom his father shot
So he learned to scowl at all he'd meet
Vietnam took him young and so tired
The first in line, he was the only fellow
On his block, to come home or be hired
By the corner garage, for not being yellow
A veteran at twenty-one, he was sure
That he knew the answer to the question
Why do you live at all, but to die
He'd just say, "Get what and while you can."
It didn't take him long to find a lady.
For whom soldiers were an obsession
They got drunk, he got married, she had kids.
He got his relaxation as a baseball fan
But to his dismay, his wife was certain
That all that time at the baseball park
Was why their marriage would soon be hurtin'
He started to recall being jumped in the dark
No, he wasn't getting along with his wife,
She would always bitch and shout
"You're a grown man, why do you waste
Your time and our money at the games?"
Ev'ry time he looked at her, he saw a bowie knife
He didn't even know what he would do about
His urge to lunge and jump on her throat.
But the time he spent at games eased the pain.
When the players' strike was announced,
It hit him like a ton of concrete blocks
He heard his hero being denounced
He went to the field feeling empty, like his box.
So he would wait until the season
Began again, if it did resume at all
He got just the thing to do the job
Went to the sports store and bought a duffel bag.
Then he thought about that pampered brat
On a visiting team he wanted to see fall
The one he hated most with no relief
The very one he always called a rotten scummy fag
He could hardly keep his cool that summer
He would go down in notoriety
Why, no All-Star game was the biggest bummer
He would take care of that for all to see
And when 2 rifle shots rang out
The idol of more than a million boys
And some of the nation's finest men
Crumpled in a heap on the ground
And then pandemonium reigned
It came down like flaming hail, the noise
Was deafening, the umpire screamed
"They'll kill us all!" but his cries were drowned
As the stands began to stampede
For all the too few exit gates,
So many children trampled underfeet
Met their ungoldy, grisly fates.
When it was over, one thousand were dead.
The riot squad and the national guard
Were hardly enough to restore order
Rather called it The Circus Maximus,
"Is this Nero's Rome, or the U.S.A.?
Russian Roulette, or just a wild card?
Are we civlized too little, or too much?
How could this happen to all of US?"
Well, NOW...you people have heard the tale
Of a nightmare that struck me flat
It was enough to stop me cold, turn me pale...
Let us Pray, it never turns out like that,
Let us Pray, it never turns out like that,
Let us Pray, it never turns out like that.
This story came to me during the year of the baseball strike,
When I thought about the plausibility of someone snapping like J.J.
did.
It was presented as a prayer that no one ever would, in an attempt
To understand what might gone on in such a head, "bent out of shape
by society's plyers," to quote Bob Dylan's "IT'S ALRIGHT MA - I'M
ONLY BLEEDIN'..."
Author's disclaimer: All persons depicted in this song are purely
Fictional. Any resemblance between them, and anyone living or dead, is
strictly co-incidental.
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