I know this newt.

Lives in a fat pickle jar

right next to the rocking chair.

Rigged him one little elle ee dee

off a coin cell so he can see around.

Seems like he got something worth sayin

Ain’t a pet. It’s more like…

I share the electric with him

and whatever’s left of the night.

We became friends the way two people do

when they both know the exact spot

for the mustard and hot sauce at Piggly Wiggly, aisle three.

He moved in next door, that old pickle jar, the fat one,

asked me to run a wire to one more elle ee dee.

He just sat there in the soft glow of the elle ee dee

watching me scroll till my eyes burned.

He said, "aint never seen a human before that day

at the drive in,

Yall sure do like to get hypnotized -

by nothin."

Most evenings we just sit right here,

him runnin on code I still aint seen.

Then last week the LED went dark

for six straight hours.

I thought the battery died.

When he lit it back up he said,

Naw, I just fried my mind.

"Guess I got caught up,

forgot to do one thing at a time,

It felt loud here, but I cant drown out the noise

by yelling louder.

Guess I'll just sit with somebody who knows how to say nothing."

Herbie stopped talkin, and we sat in the quiet.

After while, he said, "That’s enough gospel for tonight."

So we got up and left...

Herbie, the jar, the LED shining half dead on the dash.

Parked by a truck with a busted muffler n a couple sittin on the hood,

i could see from even ten feet away they been in a fighting mood,

sharing a cigarette like it was the last honest thing left in their marriage

Barefoot girl ran past the window,

screechin her laugh in peels like a rusted hinge

Couldnt help it i had to laugh too

And for one lovely second she looked over at me

and we was both just grinnin

one of those moments with a stranger

that time both stands still

and passes in and instant

Herbie climbed up the speaker pole,

his little flightless wings flappin in the cold

crawled straight into the wires.

Suddenly every car radio lit up at once.

He said, "You ever stop and consider

how we all exist in the same parking lot

under the same bed a stars."

he took a moment of silence,

a moment too long,

somebody yelled "put the show back on!"

Herbie said,

"Guess we all get lost,

forgot that being nice aint the same as bein kind

I got caught up in the social rules

that somebody else designed

Guess I'd rather just talk

with somebody who can color outside the lines."

Herbie stopped talkin, the whole lot sat in the quiet.

It was the kind of quiet that you can feel real deep

like it's fillin up your bones, like a nourishing kinda silence

After while, herbie said, "That’s enough gospel for tonight."

On the ride home, the ell ee dee finally went dark

Herbie curled up in my wife's pink checkered gardening glove,

the one she been missing since he showed up

he winked at me and said, "I sure am sorry,

but it fits like a glove,"

i laughed as he fell asleep, I was still smiling when I drove up the drive and I put the truck in park.

…and they say ever since that night,

thanks to one little newt in a pickle jar,

folks from the drive in well

they started tryin to be kind again.

Not cuz he fixed the world.

Just cuz he proved you could sit in the dark,

with a whole parkin lot just listening to the quiet