Intro
Fourth floor window, radiator hiss and hum
Doss keeps a notebook, that's where the real bank comes from
Verse
Composition book behind the register, blue lines, my mama's name
Doss let us eat on trust when the check came late again
Said your word is weight, boy, heavier than paper ever was
Crossed out debts in pencil, never once in blood or cuz
He knew Renny's uncle, knew the weight his silence brings
Knew a favor owed in summer turns to ice by winter things
I was twelve when I first carried bread and eggs on his account
Learned the ledger wasn't numbers, it was who you could count
Every dollar that we didn't have got measured out in trust
Every debt got paid in showing up, in keeping promise or bust
Watched a grown man's hands shake, couldn't cover his own tab
Doss just nodded, wrote it down, said pay me back in grab
Bags for old Miss Coretta, shovel snow off Ms. Fran's stairs
That's the interest rate round here, it's sweat instead of scares
Fourteen years that ledger ran on nothing but our name
Hook
Round here your word's the only currency
Spend it wrong, ain't no bank gon' cover me
Trust is the only tender that we trade
Broke is a promise that you never made
Verse
Renny came home different, chain heavier than his smile
Started cashing favors fast, spending trust like it was style
Borrowed forty off my cousin, said he'd flip it, called it quick
Three weeks passed, no forty, phone stopped picking up the click
Doss stopped writing Renny's name down in the composition book
Told him find another bank, boy, somewhere else to overlook
Whole
