Got out of prison back in '86 and I found a wife   Walked the clean and narrow   Just tryin' to stay out and stay alive   Got a job at the rendering plant, it ain't gonna make me rich   In the darkness before dinner comes   Sometimes I can feel the itch   I got a cold mind to go tripping 'cross that thin line   I'm sick of doin' straight time      My uncle's at the evenin' table, makes his living runnin' hot cars   Slips me a hundred dollar bill says   "Charlie you best remember who your friends are"   Got a cold mind to go tripping 'cross that thin line   I ain't makin' straight time      Eight years in it feels like you're gonna die   But you get used to anything    Sooner or later it just becomes your life      Kitchen floor in the evening tossin' my little babies high   Mary's smiling but she's watching me out of the corner of her eye   Seems you can't get any more than half free   I step out onto the front porch and suck the cold air deep inside of me   Got a cold mind to go tripping 'cross that thin line   I'm sick of doin' straight time      In the basement huntin' gun and a hacksaw   Sip a beer and thirteen inches of barrel drop to the floor      Come home in the evening, can't get the smell from my hands   Lay my head down on the pillow   And go driftin' off into the foreign lands