Текст песни
Manuel Garcia, a proud youthful father
Was known on his block as a hard-working man
With a wife and a family, a job and a future
He'd everything going according to plan
One day, Manuel Garcia, complaining of stomach pains
Went to the clinic to find out the cause
His body was found to have cancerous tissue
Ignoring the order of natural laws
So Manuel Garcia, of Milwaukee County
Checked into the medical complex in town
Suddenly, seeing his 39 years
Like the sand in an hourglass plummeting down
"What are my choices?" cried Manuel Garcia
"You've basically two," was the doctor's decree
"Your cancer untreated will quickly be fatal
But treatment is painful with no guarantees."
And so it began, Manuel's personal odyssey
Long sleepless nights in a chemical daze
With echoes of footsteps down long lonely corridors
Tolling his minutes and hours away
With the knowledge that something inside was consuming him
Manuel Garcia was filled with despair
He'd already lost 40 pounds to the cancer
And now to the drugs he was losing his hair
After nine weeks in treatment, the doctor came calling
Said, "Manuel we've done about all we can do
Your cancer could go either way at this juncture
It's out of our hands and it's now up to you"
He looked in the mirror a sad frightened stranger
So pale, so wrinkled, so lonely, so scared
Diseased, isolated, and feeling unlovable
126 pounds and no hair
He dreamed of his Carmen at 60 without him
His four little children not having their dad
Of Thursday night card games at Julios
And everything else he'd not done that he wished that he had
Awakened from sleep on the day of his discharge
By shuffling feet going all round his bed
Manuel opened his eyes and thought he was still dreaming
His wife and four friends with no hair on their heads
He blinked and then looked again, not quite believing
The four shiny heads all lined up side by side