The girl behind the counter was mixing light beer and Seven-up
And the dimpled smile and teeth were like an advertisement
Like the faces on the walls of that small roadside restaurant
While my secret dreams were being roared away by the trucks

Beautiful, with her own unripe beauty, blonde without seeming so
Almost sad, like the flowers and grass on a railway embankment
The silence was only scratched by my fantasies
Which I traced with a finger inside the circles of the glass

The low sun on the horizon colored the window
And printed flashes and footprints on the gas pump
She mirrored her childlike face in the soda-fountain
And I felt a nearby unhappiness

Feeling ashamed, but only a little, I put a record in the jukebox
To feel almost in a scene from an old Fox movie
But to not throw some useless cliché in her face
I was tapping a tin Indian from a tea box

But in the game I should have told her: "Listen, listen I want to talk to you"
Then taking her hand over the counter
I don't know how to start
Don't you see, don't you touch today's melancholy?
Let's not let it overflow: come on, let's go, let's go away

My atmospheric record ended in a squeak
A drip was heard in that neon and heavy air
My suspended phrase overpowered the clatter
And then, a surprise couple arrived

And in an instant, as often happens, the face of everything changed
The pink nylon curtains suddenly erased every reflection
The white road called me
How much is it? I asked, and I paid
I left her a nickel tip, took the change and left

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