Luyện nghe bài hát The Priest They Called Him

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

People hurried by, gray 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 stop ahead under a streetlight

Boy got out with a
Thin kid in prep clothes
Familiar face, the told himself
Watching the doorway.

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

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

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

The sniffed suspiciously
"Kind of a smell about it"
"It's just leather"
"Well, some didn't cure it"
The buyer at the case with cold disfavor
"Not even sure he killed it, whatever it is
is the best 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 faded into the street shadows, seedy and furtive
Three didn't buy a bag, nothing less than a nickel
Say, remember that old croaker told me not to come back
Unless I him the three cents I owe him
Yeah, isn't that a fruit for ya, blow your stack about 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 in his pocket and started to scream
"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 can't you a prescription"
The doctor open a drawer
And slid an ampule across the
"That's all I have in the office!" The stood up
"Take it and get out!" he screamed,
The Priest's 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 have for me? One quarter G?
you lend me a nickel?"
"Get out, get out, call the police I tell you"
"All right, doctor, I'm going"

Of course it was and far walk to rooming house
A street, room on the top floor
"These stairs," the Priest
There pulling up along the bannister
He went into the
Yellow panels, toilet dripping
And got his works from the washbasin
Wrapped in brown paper, back to his
Get every in the dropper

He rolled up his
Then he heard a groan from door
Room 18, the Mexican kid there
The had passed him on the stairs
And saw the kid was
But he spoke because he didn't want any juvenile connections
Bad in any language

The Priest had had enough bad news in his
He heard the groan again, a groan he could
No mistaking that and what it meant
"Maybe he had an or something.
In any case, I enjoy my priestly medications
With sound coming through the wall"
walls you understand

The Priest put his dropper
Cold hall and 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 there in his shorts
Eyes black 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
knots of wood there in the young legs
Dark black leg hairs
"A few years ago I myself in a bicycle race
It was then that the started"
And now he has the leg cramps
With compound junk

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

The boy was sleeping the Priest left Room 18
He went back to his room and sat on the bed
it hit him like heavy silent snow
All the gray junk
He sat there, received the fix
And he was himself a priest
There was no need to one