The Hammer

They say he'd done a bad thing
And he did his woman wrong.

Late night when the cars had gone
And Lily whispered by
He followed with a heavy heart
And liquor in his eye.

Talk was he was a weak man
And she was playing him for a fool.
Talk had got his anger up,
And talk had lost his cool.

He tailed her to the 21
And waited across in a bar,
Pouring oil on his anger
Straight from a whiskey jar.

Thoughts flooded out of him
Like the sweat upon his brow,
Of what she had been doing,
With who, where and how.

As he drank he mumbled
All the things that he would say
And his hand stole to his pocket
And the hammer he'd taken that day.

At last he saw her leave
As the lights fell with the rain,
Walking with another man
Smiling as they came.

He tailed them through the streets
Crept close without a sound
And like the judge in the courtroom
He brought the hammer down,

The man went down first
And Lily's screams were short
There was no mercy in his mind
Just one burning thought

Of his Lily dressed in white
Upon their wedding day
And the man lying dead beside her
Trying to take her away.

But as he stood there in the dark
And the rain kept coming down
The man fell from his thoughts
Leaving just Lily in her wedding gown.

She looked at him with so much love
And asked him what he'd done,
And he knew he had no answer
And he knew he couldn't run.

As the lights and sirens came for him
He didn't move an inch
Didn't struggle as the irons clicked on
Stood dumb and didn't flinch.

He knew the moment he had struck
As clear as in a song
That he had done a bad thing
And done his woman wrong.

As the days went on it came to light
That she'd been out alone
Selling cigarettes at night clubs
And stashing the money at home

Hidden away in a locked box
Where he couldn't spend it on booze
With a crumpled paper advert
For a Mississippi cruise.

The judge let fall the hammer
And his last thoughts as he swung
Were that he had done a bad thing
And he'd done his woman wrong.