Vic Chesnutt
Ghetto Bells
[Spoken]
Well, here's a little story about Ghetto Bell's
Now, it must have been about, I don't know... Nineteen eighty... err, um
I'm not exactly sure when. But you know, and, um, I wasn't very...how would I say? "Ambitious"
I mean, I did, I did, I did twinkle a bit, I would say. My, uh, whatever my parents gave me, I did twinkle a bit

But, um, well anyway, I found myself homeless, but I only made like two hundred dollars a month from Welfare. And so I was taking that money and mostly
Da-rinking it! And, uh, so anyway, I did have a van

Now, where I used to live, you see, there was a grocery store in the, well, how would I say, not the best part of town. It was a locally own grocery store and they owned a couple of grocery stores. The name of it was Bell's. So anyway the one in the good part of town was called Yuppie Bell's. I didn't shop there

So anyway, I used to always go into the Ghetto Bell's to get my thirty cent loaf of bread and I would shop lift a turkey ham. Yeah, I shoplifted turkey hall

But anyway, I found myself homeless, and so I lived in Ghetto Bell's parking lot, for about four months, in my van. I used to say that the payphone was my office and I told everybody that after four in the morning, if you want me, you know where I am
So, anyway, they closed Ghetto Bell's. They shut it down. I couldn't believe it. They were gonna close Ghetto Bell's. They were closing Ghetto Bell's. They said it was because too many people were shoplifting

Damn, man. I loved Ghetto Bell's! I can't believe that my dirty little dealings shut that place down, man

That's a lot of damn turkey ham!

I guess there’s a moral to this story. It’s pretty easy to see, I must say. Pretty darn easy to see!