With trembling hands he rolls his J's
Through fingers blue and stiff;
Pearl coughs and stares
With bloodshot gaze and puffs through blistered lips.
And as she reaches out her hand for another stick of gold
The Kid, he gasps, "Dammit Bitch! There's nothing left to roll!"
"Nothing left to roll?!" screams Pearl. Is this some twisted joke?!
I didn't come here to fuck around! Man I come here to SMOKE!"
And she reaches across the table and grabs his bony sleeves
Crumbling his body between her hands like dry and brittle leaves,
Flicking out his teeth and bones like useless stems and seeds.
Then the rols him in a zigzag and lights him like a roach,
And the fastest man with the fastest hands goes up in a puff of smoke.
In the laid back California town of sunny San Rafael
Lives a girl named Pearly Sweetcake; you probably know her well.
She's been stoned 21 of her 24 years and her story is still widely told
How she can smoke 'em faster than any dude can roll.
While off in New York City, down a street that has no name
Lay the hands of the Calistoga Kid in the Viper Hall of Fame.
And underneath his fingers there's a little golden scroll
Which reads: "Beware of being the Roller when there's nothing left to Roll."
Excerpt from Shel Silverstein's "The Great Smoke-Off"
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It was such a waste of everyone’s time and money that even the Tokyo stadium’s rape robots apologized– something they were programmed specifically never to do.