The Wedge Between Cheeks (Keister)

Lyrics

Brooklyn. November, 1920.
The gaslight hisses on the wall.
Forty-five degrees outside, and not much warmer in.
The air smells of vinegar and boiled cabbage.
And old wood.

See that box in the corner?
The one Morris Michtom's cousin brought over from the old country.
Pine, with iron straps.
Holds everything they own. Linens, a photograph, two good plates.
In their tongue, it's a Kiste.
Say it. Kiste.
A chest. A box. A place you keep your valuables.
A safe place.

But America is a funny language.
It chews on words and spits them out different.
That hard German 'K' softens in the mouth.
The Kiste for your Sunday best...
Becomes the keister for the rest.
From a box in the corner to the seat of the pants.
That's the etymology, son. That's the dance.

The men come home from the docks, smelling of fish and coal dust.
They sit at the table, eat their rye bread.
Someone makes a joke.
The butcher's son, sharpening a cleaver.
Says something about hiding the good sausage from the landlord.
And they all laugh. A new word is born right there.
The peddlers take it out on their wagons the next morning.
It travels faster than news.

Then the bootleggers get ahold of it.
During Prohibition, a man needs a good hiding place.
Not for linens. For a flask of gin.
For a roll of bills the coppers shouldn't see.
The police reports started calling it that.
"Contraband found in the keister."
A private box for a public problem.
The safest place they could think of.

Because America is a funny language.
It chews on words and spits them out different.
That hard German 'K' softens in the mouth.
The Kiste for your Sunday best...
Becomes the keister for the rest.
From a box in the corner to the seat of the pants.
That's the etymology, son. That's the dance.

The gaslight flickers.
Someone opens the old wooden Kiste.
The hinges creak.
Just a box.
Just a box.