Luyện nghe bài hát The Priest They Called Him

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

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

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

"Reminds me of something a long ago"
The boy, there, his overcoat
Unbuttoned, reaching his pants pocket for the cab fare
The cab drove away and turned the
The boy went inside a

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

He turned into Lincoln
Found an empty place and opened the
Two severed human legs belonged to a young man
dark skin, shiny black leg hairs
Glittered in the dim
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 walked away with the case.
Might bring a few to score

The sniffed suspiciously
"Kind of a funny smell it"
"It's Mexican leather"
"Well, some didn't cure it"
The buyer looked at the case with cold
"Not even right he killed it, whatever it is
Three is the best I can do and it
But since this is Christmas and the Priest"
He slipped three bills the table into the Priest's dirty hand
The Priest faded into the street shadows, seedy and
Three didn't buy a bag, nothing less than a nickel
Say, remember that old Addie croaker told me not to come
I paid him the three cents I owe him
Yeah, isn't 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 put the money 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 doctor's
"I can't you a prescription"
The jerked open 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 expression did not

The doctor added in tones
"After all, I'm a man
And I shouldn't be bothered by people you"
"Is all you have for me? One lousy quarter G?
Couldn't you 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 house
A street, room on the top floor
"These stairs," the Priest
There pulling himself up the bannister
He went into the
Yellow wall panels, toilet
And got his works under the washbasin
in brown paper, back to his room
Get drop in the dropper

He rolled up his
Then he a groan from next door
18, the Mexican kid lived 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 in any language

The had had enough bad news in his life
He heard the again, a groan he could feel
No that groan 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 knocked on the 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 there in his underwear
Eyes black 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 Priest could see the
knots of wood there in the young legs
Dark shiny leg hairs
"A few years ago I damaged in a bicycle race
It was then the cramps started"
And now he has the leg back
With junk interest

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

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