Brian Hennessey

Verse Brian Hennessey sat back and let the gypsy read his palm When he saw her eyes grow wide and wild and dark And she whispered through her toothless gums and clutched him by the arm She said, ''Boy, I fear I see the devil's mark.'' Brian Hennessey just laughed and pealed the ten-spot from his roll 'Cause he'd never ever known the taste of fear But he wondered why the summer nights should suddenly turn cold As the gypsy's words come ringing in his ear. ''You can run, you can hide, Brian Hennessey.'', she cried ''But you can't escape the fate that's in your hand. And say how does it feel to have dealt your final deal? Go on lay down Brian you're a dying man.'' Verse Brian Hennessey walked through the doors of the Dining Dog Saloon Where he stopped to have his nightly glass of gin And the one-eyed scar-faced stranger a dealing blackjack in the gloom Winked his ghastly grey glass eye and dealt him in. Brian watched in fascination as the stranger's fingers flew Why he'd never seen such cheatin' done before And his hand closed round a handle of his snub-nose 32 When the gypsy's warning come to him once more. ''You can run, you can hide, Brian Hennessey.'', she cried ''But you can't escape the fate that's in your hand. And say how does it feel to have dealt your final deal? Go on lay down Brian you're a dying man.'' Verse Brian Hennessey just folded up his cards and walked away Holding back the rage that burned his soul And he stopped to have some coffee at the Mockingbird Cafe But that slender blue eyed waitress was his goal. And a few words from his silver tongue soon turned her flighty head She said, ''My husband's out of town, you need not fear.'' But as he pressed her to the softness of her flutty-feathered bed On her pillows he saw written bright and clear. Oh, you can run, you can hide, daring letters clear and wide Said you can't escape the fate that's in your hand And say how does it feel to have dealt your final deal Go on lay down Brian you're a dying man. Verse Brian Hennessey he stumbled down the stairs into the street And from that day on he changed his wicked life And he never drunk or gambled and he never dealt no doop And he never touched another fellow's wife. And years later he met the gypsy when his days were almost done He said, ''Ha, ha, I beat your curse don't you know.'' But when she saw the frightened, trembling, withered wretch that he'd become She said, ''Brian, you died twenty years ago.'' ''Because you ran and you hid that's exactly what you did But you didn't escape the fate that's in your hand. And say how did it feel to have dealt your final deal? Go on lay down Brian you're a dying man...''