Luyện nghe bài hát The Priest They Called Him

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

People hurried by, shadows on a distant wall
It was late and no money to score
He turned 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 clothes
Familiar face, the Priest told
Watching the doorway.

"Reminds me of something a long ago"
The boy, there, with his
Unbuttoned, reaching into his pocket for the cab fare
The cab away and turned the corner
The boy went a building

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

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

The buyer suspiciously
"Kind of a smell about it"
"It's just leather"
"Well, some joker cure it"
The buyer looked at the case cold disfavor
"Not even sure he killed it, whatever it is
is the best I can do and it hurts
But since is Christmas and you're the Priest"
He slipped three bills under the table into the dirty hand
The Priest faded into the shadows, seedy and furtive
Three cents didn't buy a bag, nothing than a nickel
Say, that old Addie croaker told me not to come back
I paid him the three cents I owe him
Yeah, that a fruit for ya, blow your stack about three lousy cents
The was not pleased to see him

"Now, do you want? I told you!"
The Priest laid three on the table
The doctor put the money in his pocket and to scream
"I've had trouble! People have 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 open a drawer
And an ampule across the table
"That's all I have in the office!" The stood up
"Take it and get out!" he screamed,
The Priest's expression did not

The doctor added in tones
"After all, I'm a man
And I shouldn't be by people like you"
"Is that all you have for me? One quarter G?
you lend me a nickel?"
"Get out, get out, I'll call the police I you"
"All right, doctor, I'm going"

Of course it was cold and far walk to rooming
A shabby street, on the top floor
"These stairs," coughed the
pulling himself up along the bannister
He into the bathroom
Yellow wall panels, dripping
And got his works from the washbasin
in brown paper, back to his room
Get drop in the dropper

He rolled up his
he heard a groan from next door
Room 18, the Mexican kid there
The had passed him on the stairs
And saw the kid was
But he never spoke he didn't want any juvenile connections
Bad news in any

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

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

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

The Priest see the cramps
Like knots of wood there in the young
Dark shiny leg hairs
"A few years ago I damaged myself in a bicycle
It was that the cramps started"
And now he has the leg back
With compound junk

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

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