Turn The Key And Run

He left the keys on the hook
by the door like he always does
He has left them there every single day
for the seven years I have been here
There is a car outside
that cost more than
I will make this decade
He calls it his and it was paid
for out of what we did
I have swept that floor
and I have carried what he sold
And he has never once
come down the stairs
to say a word to me
Tonight the building is empty
and the keys are on the hook
And I have been looking at them
for about eleven minutes
There is a coast four hours from here
that I have never once seen

I am not a thief
and I have never taken anything
Not a pen not an hour
not a single thing that was not mine
But there is a difference
between stealing and collecting
And I have been owed
for seven years and nobody is paying
So do not tell me what the word
for this is going to be

I am going to turn the key
and run and I am not coming back
Down the ramp and through the barrier
and out onto the road
Let him find the empty space
in the morning and work it out
Every mile of this is one
that I have already paid for
He can call whoever he wants
and tell them what I took
And I will tell them what he took
and we will see who they believe

My father talked about that coast exactly once
and then he never went
He worked for a man
like this one for thirty one years straight
And at the end of it they
gave him a clock and shook his hand
He put the clock in the garage
and he did not wind it up
I found it after he died
and it said twenty past eleven
It has said twenty past eleven
for nine years in a drawer
I have got that clock in my bag
and it is going in the car
And when I get to the water
I am going to throw it in
And I am going to stand there
until I cannot hear the road

I am going to turn the key
and run and I am not coming back
Down the ramp and through the barrier
and out onto the road
Let him find the empty space
in the morning and work it out
Every mile of this is one
that I have already paid for
He can call whoever he wants
and tell them what I took
And I will tell them what he took
and we will see who they believe

I know exactly what happens
and I have thought
it all the way through
There is a road and a night
and a morning
and then there is the rest
It is not clever and it is
not going to end the way it should
But I have done it the correct way
for seven straight years
And the correct way got me a hook
by the door with somebody else's keys
There is a version of a man
who puts them back and goes upstairs
I have been that man since March
and I am not being him tonight

I am going to turn the key
and run and I am not coming back
Down the ramp and through the barrier
and out onto the road
Let him find the empty space
in the morning and work it out
Every mile of this is one
that I have already paid for
He can call whoever he wants
and tell them what I took
And I will tell them what he took
and we will see who they believe