Choctaw Bingo

Album: Delirium Tremolos

Choctaw Bingo

Written by James McMurtry

 

Strap them kids in

Give ‘em a lil’ bit of vodka

In a Cherry Coke

We’re goin’ to Oklahoma

To the family reunion

For the first time in years

It’s up at Uncle Slatons

‘Cause he’s gettin’ on in years

No longer travels but he’s

Still pretty spry

He’s not much on talkin’

And he’s too mean to die

And they’ll be comin’ down

From Kansas and from west Arkansas

It’ll be one big ol’ party

Like you’ve never saw

 

Uncle Slaton’s got his Texan pride

Back in the thickets with his Asian bride

He’s got an Airstream trailer and a

Holstein cow

Still makes whiskey ‘cause he still knows how

He plays that Choctaw bingo every Friday night

You know he had to leave Texas but he, he won’t say why

He owns a quarter section up by Lake Ufalla

Caught a great big ol’ bluecat on a driftin’ jugline

Sells his hardwood timber to the chippin’ mill

Cooks that crystal meth ‘cause his shine don’t sell

He cooks that crystal meth ‘cause his shine don’t sell

You know he likes that money, he don’t mind the smell

 

My cousin Roscoe, Slaton’s oldest boy

From his second marriage up in Illinois

He’s raised in East St Louis by his

Mamma’s people where they do things different

Thought he’d just come on down

He’s goin’ to Dallas, Texas in a semi truck

Caught from that big McDonalds

You know the one that’s built up on that

Big old bridge across the Will Rogers turnpike

Took the big cabin exit stopped and bought a carton of cigarettes

At that Indian smoke shop with the big neon smoke rings

In the Cherokee nation hit Muskogee late that night

Somebody ran the stoplight at the Shawnee bypass

Roscoe tried to miss him but he didn’t quite

 

Bob and Mae come up from

Some little town way down by

Lake Texoma where he coaches football

They were two-A champions now for two years running

But he says they won’t be this year

No they won’t be this year

And he stopped off in Tuska at that pop knife and gun place

Bought a SKS rifle and a couple full cases of that steel core ammo

With the Berdan primers from some east bloc nation

That no longer needs em’

And a desert eagle that’s one great big old pistol

I mean fifty caliber made by bad-ass Hebrews

And some surplus tracers for that old BAR

Of Slaton’s as soon as it gets dark

We’re gonna have us a time

We’re gonna have us a time

 

Ruth-Anne and Lynn come down from Baxter springs

Thats one hell-raisin town way up in

Southeastern kansas

Got a biker bar next to the lingerie store

Thats got rollin stones lips up there in

Bright pink neon

And they’re right downtown where everyone can see ‘em

And they burn all night

You know they burn all night

They burn all night

They burn all night

 

Ruth-Anne and Lynn they wear them cut off britches

And them skinny little halters

And they’re second cousins to me

Man I don’t care I wanna get between ‘em

With a great big ol’ hard-on

Like a old bois’darc fencepost

You could hang a five rail _____ from

Do some sister-twistin’

‘Till the cows come home

You know we’ll have us a time

We’re gonna have us a time

 

Uncle Slaton’s got his Texan pride

Back in the thickets with his Asian bride

He cut that corner pasture into acre lots

He sells them owner financed strictly to them

That’s got no kind of credit

‘Cause he knows they’re slackers

And they’ll miss that payment

And he, he takes it back

He plays that Choctaw bingo

Every Friday night

He drinks his Johnny Walker

At that club 69

 

We’re gonna strap them kids in

Give ‘em a lil’ bit of Benadryl

In a Cherry Coke

We’re goin’ to Oklahoma

Gonna have us a time

Gonna have us a time