Adrian Matejka - Hurt Business lyrics

Willie Morris was much larger than me & struck me in the jaw for no apparent reason. Grandmother Gilmore saw the whole thing & and said, Arthur, if you do not whip Willie, I shall whip you. It's always better to whip than to be whipped, so I took the fight straight to the bigger boy. Not long after, fighting became a way to make money: on the Galveston docks, the fresh smell of fish & stevedores sweating out lunchtime booze. Thirteen & I was already strong enough to toss a cotton bale out of the way like it was a bad idea & I could jump five feet backward from flat feet. My fists weren't good Then & those men gave me the kind of beatings that made me want to go back to the schoolhouse.