Catharine’s friend was a pure-bred killing machine
Went to war when he was in his teens
Left Vietnam with horrible nightmares and dreams
Felt in love with his friend Catharine when she was a young thing.
He says he's waited his whole life for this,
finding somebody to love him for him
But then he up and threw it all a ways for his friend
Big George who lied one day.
He believed big George instead of what Catharine had to say.
 
Yes, Catharine met him when she was eighteen
when she was a young innocent thing.
He’d just come from the war, thought he was all
Kool and all that. 
 
He couldn’t deal with it when she rejected him
So he came back over and over again
Demanding that she see him for him
And slowly he won her heart.
 
This wonder pure bred killing machine
Was one of the most outstanding human beings
That a girl could ever meet.
As long as she listens to him, stayed at home and didn’t run the streets.
He wanted his woman house bound
He didn’t want anyone else to hang around.
While he ran on his days off work with his friends up down and across town. He was a great provider for his family. A meal ticket for sure.
But he ran around like a man that was free. 
Always seem to be looking for something, and it wasn’t at home where he had committed to be. .
 
He left me one day and married a girl name Johnette.  His second daughter’s mother. Only he didn’t tell Catharine what he had done. A month before she gave him his very first son. His brother Liston was murdered by the cops in Cincinnati, his daddy died in Alabama, his mother nursed Catharine long distances as she cried her heart out for what he had done.  Still he wouldn’t tell Catharine the truth, because he loved her and did what he felt he had to do.
 
He never stopped trying to make her understand. His version of what a man must do, when a man is a man. And so she moved on with her life. Knowing that for her there was nothing there. For with her love for him she would never be his wife.
 
 
It’s almost forty years later now and he’s lying on his death bed he'll be dead before Christmas if the doctors have their say Catharine tried so hard to get him to bow down and pray
But he told her when it’s time to go only Jesus will have
His way, so he has nothing to say.

Catharine’s lover went to war as a personality of joy
Came back a man  as he left behind the boy.
Been fighting all of his life that is since he came home
To the old U.S. of A.  Lionel didn’t know what to do with himself, and he was angry with God. His understanding of God now was not as his Daddy had taught.  The education he had he had first handedly bought.
 
In Vietnam he had gone to hell. He told his sisters and brothers don’t preach to me about hell. Been there, done that, ain’t going back no more. I have spent all my life in one stage or another.  But soon I’d get some rest when I go and meet our father, brother and mother.
 
He uses excuse like I am Lil Lionel backed up by Bolar I was born to fight, I was born a man. And no matter what‘s going on I Lil Lionel is going to take my stand.  Don’t anybody tell me what I can or can not do.  If I am not breaking the rules then you do what you do and I will do what I do.  But to my own self I am going to be true.
 
Catharine’s friend Lionel is dying now but still won’t admit to doing any wrong. As they spoke yesterday on the telephone
He said his time here on earth is gone
And so he told Catharine and their son so long
I never meant to do you any harm or wrong I just wanted to love you. Love doesn’t die girl. And I’ll love you even when I am gone.  Please forgive me for doing you so wrong?
 
It was the Wednesday the evening before Thanksgiving that he spoke to them on the phone.
Poured out his heart about things he knew he had done wrong.
All I did, I did in love boy, do you hear what I say?
I love you and your mother I have always loved you the only way I knew how.  Please forgive me if I hurt you or made you think any different then that. Love isn’t easy for a man like me to show. Hugging, a man was never in me. My daddy use to say.  But there is a lot of things like dad I did do.  Many of those things I wish I hadn’t done unto you.  But it’s to late now to make any changes in that. So accept my apology and know that for me you were a blessing and not a curse. Love you and your mother boy with all my heart.
Then he laid back in his bed and slowly continues to
Wasted away.
 
He’s been fighting since the day he and Catharine had met
But she didn't know what he was fighting for he tried to tell her it was for a worthy cause but not once did he make sense of the things he said. A man is a woman’s head these things came out of his mouth. These things Catherine also knew were true.  But the head of them both is God be it they live in the same house or not. Lionel had this thing about how a woman is to be.  But Catharine told him to go home to his wife and teach her these things and stop trying to force them on me. No cause could be so worthy as to fight with you. When you ain’t my husband and I do not belong to you. You lost your rights when you married your wife.  Now Lil Lionel get out of my life.
 
But Lil Lionel couldn’t give Catharine up.  He followed her where ever she went for almost forty years. She knew he loved her and he knew she loved him. But together they just could not be. Even when the wife he married cease to be. Catharine said unto him for us it just can’t be. For She now belonged to Jesus. And a them they’ll never be. Her life she had given unto Jesus who had come and sat her free. The life with Lil Lionel was now history.  Catharine had to leave him behind. See Lil Lionel could not commit himself to what he did not believe. And he wasn’t ready to go before the Lord on his knees. Things like giving up his beer, his alcohol and women and drugs.  Lil Lionel road dogs were all mostly thugs. Yet to Catharine he swore his undying love.  He said God knows I love you girl. But I ain’t ready to make a change.  I got to do things my way understand me Catharine I am a Man.

He’s never was into drug so this wasn’t one of his loves
But he felt into awful stuff like sex, alcohol, and cigarettes Lil Lionel loved him some beer and booze these things he loved to use.
When he woke up in the morning he couldn’t stand to be sober this is one of the main ways we knew he was hooked.
With a cigarette lingering from his lips he pushed away the Good Book.
 
If hope is a song, she still believed for him Lil Lionel never gave up hope; even though his lips said different his conversation never changed
As he laid in his bed he silently did pray. Asking “The Lord’s please come on have Your way. Let Your Will be done.  Lord this I pray.
I am tied of hurting; I am tied of all this pain.  For over forty years now I have been stricken in pain.  It’s only through your Grace Lord I am still considered sane.
I guess soon it will be all over and I will be gone. Lord my will is to see Your face for I know I am now blessed as You take me to rest.  Let my children know that I did what I thought was right.  Let them know Lord with them I did not want to fight.  I just wanted to teach them the things that were right.  I just wanted for them Lord to have a good life.
 
But as for Catharine, she prayed both night and day. A girl can hope can’t she that a miracle will take place in Lionel’s life. She was his long time friend never his wife. But in spirit she knew they was one. His heart belonged to her and her alone.  He regretted all those things that to her he had done wrong. As he confessed these things to her she had a feeling he was sick.  But she never would have believed cancer was it.
 
Lil Lionel spend his whole life fighting Invisible forces that we can’t see.
After he spend time in Vietnam his name went down in history.

How does one have faith when they know they are dying?
How does one have faith when they believe it’s their time?
How does one have faith when they say Jesus have your way?
For him faith was a crime in which he had served time for. His Faith he left in Vietnam. And his demons had come to the states. They met him morning, noon and night.
He never allowed anyone near him I hear after Catharine and he parted in seventy nine.
I don't want to die he said to her. I don’t want to leave you behind but it’s my time to go now. I guess God’s not on my side after all, so darling stop your crying.
 
Catharine tried to tell him the good news that hope never dies. But he laughed at her and smiled. Honey you just now told me some lies.
If God's on our side, then God is a joker he said as he opened his eyes. See Catherine the God you serve must be asleep on the job he told her one day. He save me from the war, then leave me to die this way.
 
They gather his children from state to state to be by his side.
All but three that is. For two he didn’t know where they might be while Lionel Junior was sitting in jail. 
Looking out his window, up in to the sky Lil. Lionel said while talking to Catharine on the telephone. I don't want to die.
I am not ready to meet that man up in the sky.

Girl for every man who wants to rule the world
there’ll be a man who just wants to be free a man who’ll
Want to live a little longer just like me.
A man that will want to live and not in so much misery.
There’s no cure for this disease that ails me. Catharine can’t you see. God didn’t hear me when I called out to him.  He just wasn’t here when I needed him.
 
But he gave you almost forty years after the war. Catharine said.
Did he Catherine, did he give that to me?
I came home in pain and since then I have lived in misery.
Shell shot you called it. All ways afraid.  All ways on my toes
Fighting to stay alive. Tell me again how blessed I am and tell me how without adding to it lies?  I left as a boy to fight this man’s war, and here they let me die.  I know they didn’t try as hard as they would have had I some cash. But it does not matter now. My life is all gone.  Maybe in the other world I will find some peace. But no longer will I have to wonder about where I’d belong. Because down here on earth day after day, night after night I have fought the evil beast.

And so, everybody's gone to Cincinnati, but Catharine and hers. The girl he made a woman of and the one that left him behind. The son that’s behind bars that he never gave his name but gave him most of his time, who loves him more then life in whom he loved without shame.
He fought Catharine and his son Lionel all his life and they never understood why. Or what he was fighting for
They’ll never tell you it was for a worthy cause No cause could be so worthy as to be left on the outside.
That Wednesday before Thanksgiving Lil Lionel said to his son Lionel and his love Catharine good bye. As he whispered in the telephone See you all in Heaven’s son know I don't want to die If God's on our side, then soon I’d find some rest
As he drifted off into that other world he sang to Catharine one more time “Lil Johnny” her favorite song. Only this time it wasn’t Jesus this is Johnny it was Jesus this is Lil Lionel as he heard the Lord say and Lil Lionel this is Jesus as He took him home.

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