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

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

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

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

He turned into Park
Found an empty place and opened the
Two severed human that belonged to a young man
dark skin, shiny black leg hairs
Glittered in the dim
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 sniffed suspiciously
"Kind of a funny smell it"
"It's Mexican leather"
"Well, some joker cure it"
The buyer looked at the case cold disfavor
"Not even sure he killed it, whatever it is
Three is the I can do and it hurts
But since this is and you're the Priest"
He slipped bills under the table into the Priest's dirty hand
The Priest faded into the street shadows, and furtive
Three cents didn't buy a bag, nothing less a nickel
Say, remember that old Addie 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 three lousy
The was not pleased to see him

"Now, what do you I told you!"
The Priest three bills on the table
The doctor put the money in his pocket and started to
"I've had trouble! People have around!
I may my license!"
The Priest sat there
Eyes, old and heavy with of junk, on the doctor's face
"I can't you a prescription"
The jerked open a drawer
And slid an 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 by people 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 cold and far walk to house
A shabby street, on the top floor
"These stairs," the Priest
pulling himself up along the bannister
He went into the
wall panels, toilet dripping
And got his works from under the
Wrapped in paper, back to his room
Get every drop in the

He rolled up his
Then he heard a groan from next
Room 18, the Mexican kid lived
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 mistaking groan and what it meant
"Maybe he had an or something.
In any case, I can't 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 next door"
He could hear someone hobbling across the

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

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

The old Priest stood there, 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 when the Priest left Room 18
He went back to his room and sat on the bed
Then it hit him like heavy silent
All the gray yesterdays
He sat there, received the fix
And since he was a priest
was no need to call one