The 6th day of the second decade of the 21st century
Feels like 1972 to me
Just pick a house - any house - at random
Like the one where...
Sly Stone says to the encyclopedia salesman at the door
"Only need K through O. Got everything else.
Ain't buying the rest of the alphabet
Nothing's changed since '68 anyway"
The salesman can smell the royalty checks and stands down
But Sly knows the music's not infinite
Which means the money's not infinite
Besides
He doesn't live here
He's just visiting
Staying with some lady
She's missing K-L
She's missing M
She's missing N-O
Sly's new girl is picking up her only son, her only child
From the new elementary school up by ELAC
He's in 1st grade
Doesn't know Sly Stone from Sky Saxon
And believes what his dad says about his mom
More than he believes his mom
"The guy your mother's dating ain't no rock star
He just looks like one
He's got that crazy hippie vibe
His name's Victor
Just got done with doing time
Sits around all day
Writes manifestos
Hides them in the middle pages of mid-alphabet encyclopedias
His name's not Sylvester or Sly or Sky or Sy or Spy vs. Spy
It's Victor"
Mom takes the kid up north
Car breaks down halfway up
She sells some gold for a Gremlin
Sly - not Victor - gets tired of waiting
In a neighborhood that isn't his
He packed up his three suitcases
Takes a cab to a train to another train to Oakland
Forgets his medication
Forgets to re-tape the pages he tore out about Papua New Guinea
When he finally gives up on finding her, that runaway, that run-fast-and-far-away mother
It had been seven days
Six mail days and the letter came
In penmanship that never needs lined paper
She wrote:
"Thank you for
Giving me a moment to think
Letting me be a threat
To no one but
Myself
I belong to no one
Again"
Sly wondered how she knew to send it to his house
He looks at the postmark
San Luis Obispo
So she sent it on her way back down
So she took he coastal route
What she said on her way back down
She belongs to no one
She belongs to her only son
At the Grammys, in the dead spot between
Best New and Best Old
The session musicians sneak out back and the subject
Always come back to Sly and if he's okay or if he's Sly, high and goodbye
Between bourbon coughs, the bassist from the Valley shakes his head slightly
And the drummer from Covina says "maybe it's time to intervene"
The mom and her son heard he'd be here but he's home
300+ miles away, but they stay for the end of it anyway
The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face wins it all
Back home she picked up that half-piece of paper where Sly wrote the note
Back home she picked up that half-piece of paper where Sly wrote the note
She wondered why he couldn't use a full sheet and what he meant when he wrote
"Come into my kitchen, there's fire and water in here"
"Come into my kitchen, there's fire and water in here"
1.6.10
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