Tom Waits Twenty Nine Dollars lyrics

Little black girl in a red dress on a hot night with a broken shoe
Little black girl you shoulda never left home
There's probably someone that's still waiting up for you
It's cold back in Chicago but in Los Angeles it's worse
When all you got is twenty nine dollars and an alligator purse

I see already that vulture in the fleet wood
With the chartreuse hood
Can see you're trying to get your bearings
And you say, "Hey, which ways the main stem?"
And where ever you say you're from

He'll say he grew up there himself
And he'll come on and make you feel
Like you grew up right next door to him
And you say take a left on central and he throws it in reverse
'Cause you only got twenty nine dollars and an alligator purse

And he'll come on like a gentleman
And you'll be a little shy
You say your ex old man was a sax player
He'll say, "Baby, I used to play bass for Sly"
And you say you like his Cadillac, say honey, I got 2 or 3

He'll say sweetheart you're sure fortunate
That you ran into me
When you've done a dime in the joint
You figure nothing could be worse
And you got twenty nine dollars in an alligator purse

Well, he got Pharaoh on the 8 track
You start smoking a little boo

You thinking getting out of Chicago
Was the best thing ever happened to you
But he ain't no good Samaritan
He'll make sure he's reimbursed
Lot more than twenty nine dollars and an alligator purse

Now when the streets get hungry, baby
You can almost hear them growl
Someone's setting a place for you
When the dogs begin to howl

Well, the streets are dead
They creep up and [unverified] but it was left on the pole
They make suckers always make mistakes
When they're far away from home
Chicken in a pot, whoever gets their first
Gonna get himself twenty nine dollars and an alligator purse

Now the sirens just an epilogue
The cops always get there too late
They always stop for coffee
On the way to the scene of the crime
They always try so hard to look like movie stars

They couldn't catch a cold
You only wasting your dime and she's lucky to be alive
The doctor whispered to the nurse she only lost
A 1/2 pint of blood twenty nine dollars and an alligator purse