Luyện nghe bài hát The Priest They Called Him

"Fight tuberculosis, folks"
Christmas Eve, an old junkie selling Christmas
On North Street
The "Priest" they him
"Fight tuberculosis, folks"

hurried by, gray shadows on a distant wall
It was late and no money to score
He into a side street and the lake wind hit him like a knife
Cab just ahead under a streetlight

Boy got out a suitcase
Thin kid in prep school
face, the Priest told himself
Watching the doorway.

"Reminds me of something a time ago"
The boy, there, his overcoat
Unbuttoned, reaching into his pants for the cab fare
The cab drove away and the corner
The boy inside a building

"Hmm, yes, maybe," the suitcase was in the doorway
The boy in sight
Gone to get the keys, most likely, to move fast
He up the suitcase and started for the corner
Made it, glanced down at the
It didn't look like the case the boy had or any boy would
The couldn't put his finger on what was so old about the case
Old and dirty, poor quality and heavy
see what's inside

He turned into Lincoln
Found an empty and opened the case
Two human legs that belonged to a young man
With dark skin, shiny leg hairs
in the dim streetlight
The had been forced into the case
And he had to use his knee on the back of the case to them out
"Legs, yet," he said and walked away with the case.
Might bring a few to score

The buyer sniffed
"Kind of a funny smell it"
"It's Mexican leather"
"Well, some didn't cure it"
The buyer at the case with cold disfavor
"Not even right sure he it, whatever it is
Three is the I can do and it hurts
But since this is Christmas and the Priest"
He slipped three bills under the table into the Priest's hand
The Priest faded the street shadows, seedy and furtive
Three didn't buy a bag, nothing less than a nickel
Say, remember old Addie croaker told me not to come back
Unless I paid him the three I owe him
Yeah, isn't that a fruit for ya, blow your stack about lousy cents
The doctor was not to see him

"Now, what do you want? I you!"
The Priest laid three bills on the
The doctor put the money in his pocket and to scream
"I've had trouble! have been around!
I may my license!"
The Priest sat there
Eyes, old and heavy years of junk, on the doctor's face
"I can't you a prescription"
The doctor jerked a drawer
And an ampule across the table
"That's all I have in the office!" The doctor up
"Take it and get out!" he screamed,
The Priest's did not change

The doctor added in quieter
"After all, I'm a man
And I be bothered by people like you"
"Is that all you for me? One lousy quarter G?
Couldn't you me a nickel?"
"Get out, get out, I'll call the I tell you"
"All right, doctor, I'm going"

Of it was cold and far walk to rooming house
A street, room on the top floor
"These stairs," coughed the
There himself up along the bannister
He went into the
Yellow wall panels, toilet
And got his works from under the
Wrapped in brown paper, back to his
Get every drop in the

He up his sleeve
Then he heard a groan next door
Room 18, the Mexican kid lived
The Priest had passed him on the
And saw the kid was
But he never spoke because he didn't want any connections
Bad in any language

The Priest had had bad news in his life
He heard the groan again, a he could feel
No mistaking that groan and it meant
"Maybe he had an or something.
In any case, I can't enjoy my medications
that sound coming through the wall"
Thin you understand

The Priest put down his
hall and knocked on the door of Room 18
"Quien es?"
"It's the Priest, kid, I live door"
He hear someone hobbling across the floor

A bolt slid, the boy stood in his underwear shorts
Eyes with pain, he started to fall
The Priest him over to the bed
"What's wrong, son?"
"It's my legs, seor,
And now I am medicine"

The could see the cramps
Like knots of wood in the young legs
shiny black leg hairs
"A few years ago I damaged in a bicycle race
It was then that the started"
And now he has the leg cramps
compound junk interest

The old stood there, feeling the boy groan
He inclined his as if in prayer, went back and got his dropper
"It's a quarter G, kid"
"I do not much, seor"

The boy was when the Priest left Room 18
He went back to his and sat down on the bed
Then it hit him like heavy snow
All the junk yesterdays
He sat there, received the fix
And since he was himself a
There was no need to one