Luyện nghe bài hát The Priest They Called Him

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

People hurried by, gray on a distant wall
It was getting late and no money to
He turned a side street and the lake wind hit him like a knife
Cab just ahead under a streetlight

Boy got out a suitcase
kid in prep school clothes
Familiar face, the Priest himself
Watching the doorway.

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

"Hmm, yes, maybe," the suitcase was in the doorway
The boy in sight
Gone to get the keys, most likely, 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 on what was so old about the case
Old and dirty, poor leather and heavy
Better see what's

He turned into Park
Found an place and opened the case
Two severed human legs that to a young man
With skin, shiny black leg hairs
in the dim streetlight
The had been forced into 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 dollars to

The buyer suspiciously
"Kind of a funny smell it"
"It's just leather"
"Well, some joker didn't it"
The buyer looked at the with cold disfavor
"Not even sure he killed it, whatever it is
Three is the I can do and it hurts
But since is Christmas and you're the Priest"
He slipped three 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 old Addie croaker told me not to come back
Unless I paid him the cents I owe him
Yeah, isn't that a fruit for ya, blow your stack about three lousy
The doctor was not to see him

"Now, what do you want? I you!"
The Priest three bills on the table
The doctor put the money in his pocket and started to
"I've had trouble! People been around!
I may my license!"
The Priest sat there
Eyes, old and heavy with years of junk, on the doctor's
"I can't you a prescription"
The jerked open a drawer
And slid an ampule 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 in quieter 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?
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 rooming
A shabby street, room on the top
"These stairs," the Priest
There pulling himself up the bannister
He into the bathroom
Yellow panels, toilet dripping
And got his works under the washbasin
Wrapped in brown paper, to his room
Get every drop in the

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

The Priest had had bad news in his life
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 can't enjoy my medications
With sound coming through the wall"
Thin you understand

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

A bolt slid, the boy there in his underwear shorts
Eyes black with pain, he 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
Like knots of wood there in the young
Dark shiny black leg
"A few years ago I damaged myself in a bicycle
It was then that the started"
And now he has the leg back
With junk interest

The old stood there, feeling the boy groan
He inclined his head as if in prayer, went 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 back to his room and sat down on the bed
Then it hit him like silent snow
All the gray junk
He sat there, the immaculate fix
And since he was himself a
There was no need to one