Luyện nghe bài hát The Priest They Called Him

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

People hurried by, gray on a distant wall
It was getting and no money to score
He turned into a side street and the lake wind hit him like a
Cab stop just under a streetlight

Boy got out with a
kid in prep school clothes
Familiar face, the Priest himself
from the doorway.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Of course it was cold and far to rooming house
A street, room on the top floor
"These stairs," coughed the
There pulling up along the bannister
He went into the
Yellow wall panels, dripping
And got his from under the washbasin
Wrapped in brown paper, to his room
Get drop in the dropper

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

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

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 could hear someone across the floor

A bolt slid, the boy there 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 could see the cramps
Like knots of wood in the young legs
Dark black leg hairs
"A few years ago I damaged myself in a bicycle
It was then that the started"
And now he has the leg cramps
With compound junk

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

The boy was sleeping when the Priest left 18
He back to his room and sat down on the bed
Then it hit him like silent snow
All the gray yesterdays
He sat there, the immaculate fix
And he was himself a priest
There was no to call one