In a rage in a cage
Call your marker darker darker

Church of Texas sky paint well born
Strategy of tension through the heart is high Art
In the neck is low-tech proper racial policy

The true source of light in a mirrored room
Doom Baby Doom

Through the brain feel no pain
In the throat no antidote

How do you spell?
Burns returns

(Song ends. HOSS enters with REF, dressed in traditional referee gear and carrying an odd collection of paraphernalia for scoring the “match.”)

HOSS: All right. All right, I hooked this one up off the old Corn Belt circuit. A little praxis but he’ll work.

CROW: Whatever blows your skirt up, pony man. You know how tradition just twirls my ticket.

HOSS: I don’t fancy tap dancers, Crow Bait. I like both feet nailed Joe Frazier–mode. He’s gonna see to it that things stay clean. He’s an absolute neutral Heartland Zombie. One of the best.

CROW: Scarce breed.

HOSS: Points scored and lost on deviation from the zero field state.

CROW: Well, I’d say you already broke the mercury in round one.

HOSS: There was no round one! That was a tune-up. We break when he’s ready.

CROW: I can’t cipher why you wanna play this course, Leathers. It’s a far cry from street screech.

HOSS: Just to—show myself somethin.

CROW: Yerself? Yer own self? Yer self self?

HOSS: Yeah. I don’t know how it is with you—but for me it’s like looking down a long pipe. All the time figuring that to be the total picture. You lift your eye away for a second and see suddenly you been gypped.

CROW: “Gypped”? Coming down from “Gypsy” no doubt.

(Pause.)

HOSS: I’m gonna have fun skinnin you.

CROW: If narrow in the eyeball is your handicap then runnin a todos match figures perfect suicide.

HOSS: We’ll see.

CROW: It took me all of thirty seconds to suss your gait. Ran it down to Skip James via Ginger Baker.

HOSS: I’m an open book.

CROW: Paranoid Skip James. Lowdown was he died a cancer of the balls from trying to hide his licks from all them white imitators. Like you for instance, maybe.

HOSS: I see you turnin me in. I’m stickin with this route, Gypsy. And that’s exactly what you want so can the horseshit. There’s no Marker on the planet can outgun me with any kind of weapon.

CROW: We’re runnin Mind Trains, Hoss. Your choice.

HOSS: That’s right! That’s exactly right. Mind Trains.

CROW: Dig deep, booty. Put yer game face on. Yer about to feel the maniac.

(REF blows his whistle and steps up.)