I met Fuzzy Ouilette

in a bar.

He’d lost his last job,

his wife just left him,

his dog had been killed

by a car!

Poor Fuzzy had

no lucky star.

No, Fuzzy had

no lucky star.

Don’t upset yourself

thinkin’ of Hal.

He got struck by lightning,

his balls caught on fire,

there was no one to say,

“Sorry, pal!”

You better not

dwell on poor Hal.

No, don’t ever

dwell on poor Hal.

I last saw Bill Brown

in L.A.

His bike blew a tire,

his dick got run over,

he could never go out

and get laid!

The poor guy would

never get laid.

No, poor Bill would

never get laid.

The dumb fucks had

no lucky star.

No, dumb fucks have

no lucky star.

That night at the Gallows, you would have thought that was the funniest song my uncles had ever heard. When we walked them back to their hotel, they sang “No Lucky Star” the whole way.

When we were saying good night, Uncle Johan expressed concern for me—that I wasn’t with someone. That was when Uncle Martin told me, “You can find anyone you’re looking for in New York, Adam.” Even an old Austrian zither-meister, I was thinking.

Of course I was remembering my mother’s wedding—how Uncle Johan had cried, “Wagner’s Lohengrin on a zither!”

Uncle Martin and Uncle Johan were killed on the Kancamagus Highway when their truck went off the road. Kancamagus, which means “Fearless One” in Algonquian, was the last sagamore of one of the Pennacook tribes. “The Kanc,” as the locals call New Hampshire Route 112, winds through the White Mountain National Forest; in a series of turns, the road crosses the Kancamagus Pass. Uncle Johan, who was driving, drove straight off one of the turns. Nora always wished she didn’t know the last song her father and Uncle Johan had been singing along with, on the truck’s radio. I always thought that “No Lucky Star” would be a hard song to have in your head for the rest of your life.

Damaged Don had complained; he’d had to clean up the lyrics before “No Lucky Star” could be heard on the airwaves. Poor Hal, who’d been struck by lightning, had his hair catch on fire—not his balls. Poor Bill had his head run over, not his dick. And, somewhat diminishing the scale of Bill’s bad luck, it was not the case that “he could never go out and get laid”; instead, it was only the last day he would get paid. As for the final stanza, the dumb fucks were changed to dumb guys. Censorship never made anything better, as Nora knew.

“Less bad ain’t better,” Damaged Don said.