Lunchbucket

Men don't struggle for power
That isn't what men do, not if they're civilised
They size each other up and elect the competent to lead them
And they do that at every level of society

I worked in a rail crew, in Southern Saskatchewan
They were rough guys, like a lot of them had been in prison, you know
And, when you first came onto the rail crew
You got a stupid nickname and people teased you

And I remember this one kid called "Lunchbucket"
That was his nickname 'cause he came to the railcrew with a lunchbucket
That looked like his mum had packed it
That was a bad idea
So they named him Lunchbucket, which he wasn't very happy about

Well that was a mistake, he should've taken it with a smile
And then he was always peevish and irritable and
If you asked him to do something, he'd whine

Soon, there's about sixty men on this crew
It stretched down about a quarter of a mile down the tracks
Soon, anonymous harassers were throwing pebbles at him during work
We had hardhats on so the game was
Let's see if we can hit Lunchbucket in the hardhat with a pebble

And then that was purposeful, because he didn't, he couldn't take a joke
It's like, well let's see if he can take this joke, cope
And then he just got more and more peevish
And the pebbles got bigger and bigger

You know a week later Lunchbucket was gone
Having not learned anything from the experience
But you know the men were testing him out
It's like, can you take a joke? Can you be useful?
Can you at least be amusing? Is there something worthwhile about you?

It's like, "No", it's like "Okay well then, you're outta here
Because you never know when we actually might need to depend on you"