Luyện nghe bài hát The Priest They Called Him

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

People by, gray shadows on a distant wall
It was getting and no money 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 a suitcase
kid in prep school clothes
Familiar face, the Priest told
from the doorway.

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

"Hmm, yes, maybe," the suitcase was there in the
The boy nowhere in
Gone to get the keys, likely, have to move fast
He picked up the suitcase and 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 put his finger on what was so old about the case
Old and dirty, quality leather and heavy
Better see what's

He turned into Park
Found an place and opened the case
Two severed legs that belonged to a young man
dark skin, shiny black leg hairs
Glittered in the dim
The legs had been forced into the
And he had to use his knee on the back of the case to them out
"Legs, yet," he and walked quickly away with the case.
Might a few dollars to score

The buyer sniffed
"Kind of a smell about it"
"It's just leather"
"Well, joker didn't cure it"
The looked at the case with cold disfavor
"Not right sure he killed it, whatever it is
is the best 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 buy a bag, nothing less than a nickel
Say, remember that old Addie croaker told me not to come
Unless I him the three cents I owe him
Yeah, isn't that a fruit for ya, blow stack about three lousy cents
The was not pleased to see him

"Now, what do you want? I you!"
The Priest laid 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 sat there
Eyes, old and heavy with of junk, on the doctor's face
"I write you a prescription"
The jerked open a drawer
And slid an ampule 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 doctor added in tones
"After all, I'm a man
And I shouldn't be by people like 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 and far walk to rooming house
A street, room on the top floor
"These stairs," coughed the
There pulling himself up along the
He into the bathroom
Yellow panels, toilet dripping
And got his works under the washbasin
Wrapped in paper, back to his room
Get every drop in the

He rolled up his
he heard a groan from 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 want any juvenile connections
Bad news in any

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

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

A slid, the boy stood there in his underwear shorts
Eyes 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 Priest could see the
Like knots of there in the young legs
Dark shiny black leg
"A few years ago I myself in a bicycle race
It was that the cramps started"
And now he has the leg back
With compound interest

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

The boy was sleeping the Priest left Room 18
He went to his room and sat down on the bed
it hit him like heavy silent snow
All the gray yesterdays
He sat there, the immaculate fix
And since he was a priest
was no need to call one