Luyện nghe bài hát The Priest They Called Him

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

People hurried by, gray on a distant wall
It was getting late and no to score
He turned into a side street and the lake 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
from the doorway.

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

"Hmm, yes, maybe," the suitcase was in the doorway
The boy in sight
Gone to get the keys, most likely, have to fast
He picked up the suitcase and started for the
Made it, glanced down at the
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 about the
Old and dirty, poor quality and heavy
see what's inside

He turned into Park
Found an empty and opened the case
Two severed 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 knee on the back of the to shove them out
"Legs, yet," he said and walked away with the case.
Might bring a few to score

The buyer suspiciously
"Kind of a smell about it"
"It's just leather"
"Well, some joker didn't it"
The buyer at the case with cold disfavor
"Not right 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 under the table into the Priest's dirty hand
The Priest into the street shadows, seedy and furtive
Three cents buy a bag, nothing less than a nickel
Say, remember that old Addie croaker told me not to back
Unless I paid him the cents I owe him
Yeah, isn't that a fruit for ya, blow your about three lousy cents
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 to scream
"I've had trouble! have been around!
I may my license!"
The Priest just sat
Eyes, old and heavy years of junk, on the doctor's face
"I write you a prescription"
The doctor jerked open a
And slid an across the table
"That's all I have in the office!" The stood up
"Take it and get out!" he screamed,
The expression did not change

The added in quieter 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?
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 rooming
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 from under the washbasin
Wrapped in brown paper, to his room
Get every in the dropper

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

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

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

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

The Priest see the cramps
Like of wood there in the young legs
Dark shiny 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 interest

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

The boy was sleeping when the Priest Room 18
He back 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 since he was a priest
There was no need to one