Verse
Odell's store on Ashgrove, bell tied with a shoelace
Fluorescent light humming over milk crates and old face
Kept a spiral notebook underneath the register
Every name we owed him wrote in pencil, never bitter
My mother's name sat in there when the check ran short in winter
Odell crossed it slow, said pay me back whenever
I was eight years old watching how the trust got carried
Nobody signed a thing but everybody's word got married
Pre-Chorus
What's a promise worth when the rent's still due
What's a name worth when the times turn cruel
Odell never asked, just erased and let it slide
Said the block remembers who paid theirs on time
Chorus
Corner store scripture, pencil not the pen
Cross a name off once the debt comes back again
Everybody's owed here, everybody's owed there
That's the only gospel that the whole block swears
Verse
Store almost folded when the rent hiked up in autumn
Odell's hands too tired, ledger dust, and nothing's caught in
I walked in with an envelope, said this covers Tuesday
Every name still owing, told 'em pass it forward, do me
that same favor someday when your own tab's running heavy
Turned out debt was never paper, it was how we married
loyalty to hunger, kept the shelves from going empty
I got my line erased the week I turned twenty-plenty
Pre-Chorus
What's a promise worth when the rent's still due
What's a name worth when the times turn cruel
Odell never asked, just erased and let it slide
Said the block remembers who paid theirs on time
Chorus
Corner store scripture, pencil not the pen
Cross a name off once the debt comes back again
Everybody's owed here, everybody's owed there
That's the only gospel that the whole block swears
Bridge
Now I keep my own book, hidden under the counter
Names of cousins, strangers, kids who need one more quarter
Odell's in a home now, doesn't know my face no longer
But the pencil's still moving, and the ledger's getting longer
Chorus
Corner store scripture, pencil not the pen
Cross a name off once the debt comes back again
Everybody's owed here, everybody's owed there
That's the only gospel that the whole block swears
