Latex and Luck

Lyrics

[Intro]
In my hand. The weight of you.
Zero point zero one zero inches of card stock.
The hum of the coolers at the 7-Eleven on Route 1.

[Verse 1]
You smell of solvent and paper dust.
A little gray window printed over the promise.
John Koza thought of you in 1973.
Him and Daniel Bower.
A way to make waiting instant.
A game you play with a coin from your own pocket.

[Chorus]
And the quarter's edge finds the corner.
Just a little pressure.
And you give way.
Latex and luck.
Flakes of gray under my thumbnail.
A one-way street to the numbers.
You can't put the dust back on.

[Verse 2]
It's May 1974 all over again.
Saugus, Massachusetts.
Two seventeen in the afternoon.
I remember the secret they fixed by 1976.
How you could breathe on the first ones, warm and humid...
and the latex would almost turn to glass.
A little cheat against fate.
But they hardened you against me.

[Chorus]
And the quarter's edge finds the corner.
Just a little pressure.
And you give way.
Latex and luck.
Flakes of gray under my thumbnail.
A one-way street to the numbers.
You can't put the dust back on.

[Bridge]
The pattern was always there.
Printed and sealed, waiting.
US Patent 4,174,857.
This scratching doesn't change a thing.
It just opens the door.
It just collapses the wave.
From maybe... to no.
Or maybe to yes.
But only once.

[Outro]
And now... what are you?
A slip of ruined paper.
The numbers are bare.
The game is over.
The dust settles.
Spent.