L J Booth - Blow The Carbon Out

They were breaking their agreement
Not to argue on vacation
Rolling past the roadside rows of corn
When a southbound truck comes drifting 'cross the centerline
Ray jerks the wheel and hits the horn

Petty conversation fades so quickly
As that wave of adrenaline splashed
They rest for a moment on the shoulder
Peg says "Lets stop and get some gas"

Oh there's something about the timing
As they pulled off into town
When no one comes out from the station
Peg goes in to look around

Inside, Peg can hear a conversation
From underneath a truck up off the floor
One voice echoes in the wheel wells
Says, "Bill I don't know what to do no more"

There's a silence as Bill's ratchet stops in mid-swing
"Carl," he says, "I never thought you ask"
"I hear you crawl by my station four times a day
With never more than one toe on the gas"

"Stop messing with your timing
Well it ain't your points or dwell
Let that engine feel it's power
Once a while just give her hell
And blow the carbon out"

Peg's been looking at a poster for a barn dance
As that fender well discussion turned her ear Until a disengaged part, 'tween her head and her heart
Quietly slips into gear

She says, "Ray, what do we pay for therapy?
Seventy five, maybe a hundred an hour?
It seems the more we analyze every little thing
The more it seems that everything turns sour"

"Too much thinking about our timing
And on all these points we dwell
What we really need is this barn dance
Lets get a room, we might as well
Blow the carbon out"

That night, Peg could swear she's seen the fiddle man before
It's something about the way he stands up there
But it isn't until he leans down to take her request
That she smells transmission oil in his hair
Fiddle Bill can see it's been a long time since they've danced
It's written in the light across her face
He thinks, what a shame someone could leave their fiddle
Locked up that long in its case

Oh, they move in perfect timing
Dosey do, a left and right
Shadows dancing in the rafters
Gypsy moth around the light
Blow the carbon out

Down along Tomorrow River
In the mom, at the motel
Ray says, "Peg I can't remember
When I slept so well"
Blow the carbon out