(for Adam Baldwin)
He’s big and bad and vulgar, and accomplished in the trade
Of making other people hurt and bleed
If he only could stop thinking, he would really have it made,
‘Cause a conscience is one thing he doesn’t need.
He’ll say it’s love of money that keeps him in the game,
When he’s shot, or stabbed, or beaten black and blue;
Cause it’s sure not altruism or a hope of lasting fame
That keeps him running with Mal Reynold’s crew.
He knows he loves the game itself, and that keeps him in the life,
Though he’d never say that even to himself;
He’d much rather talk of money, or tell tales of deadly strife,
Or show off the captured firearms on his shelf.
He was promised ten points off the top and a cabin of his own,
Back in the day when he joined Reynold’s gang.
It’s weird that they’re the closest thing to family that he’s known;
He’s more used to men who’d laugh to see him hang.
And the thing that really bothers him, as he sits and hones his knife,
While Serenity is drilling through the sky,
Is that Mal would take on Hell itself to save his sorry life;
He knows it, but he can’t imagine why.
Paul Haynie
1/22/2003