Luyện nghe bài hát The Priest They Called Him

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

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

Boy got out with a
Thin kid in prep school
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 away and turned the corner
The boy went a building

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

He turned into Lincoln
an empty place and opened the case
Two severed human legs that to a young man
With dark skin, black leg hairs
Glittered in the dim
The had been forced into the case
And he had to use his knee on the of the case to shove them out
"Legs, yet," he said and quickly away with the case.
Might bring a few to score

The buyer suspiciously
"Kind of a funny about it"
"It's just leather"
"Well, some joker cure it"
The buyer at the case with cold disfavor
"Not even sure 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 under the table into the Priest's hand
The Priest faded the street shadows, seedy and furtive
Three cents didn't buy a bag, less than a nickel
Say, that old Addie croaker told me not to come back
Unless I him the three cents I owe him
Yeah, that a fruit for ya, blow your stack about three lousy cents
The doctor was not to see him

"Now, what do you I told you!"
The laid three bills on the table
The doctor put the money in his and started to scream
"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 doctor jerked 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 expression did not change

The doctor added in quieter
"After all, I'm a man
And I shouldn't be by people like you"
"Is that all you for me? One lousy quarter G?
Couldn't you me a nickel?"
"Get out, get out, call the police I tell you"
"All right, doctor, I'm going"

Of it was cold and far walk to rooming house
A shabby street, room on the top
"These stairs," the Priest
There himself up along the bannister
He into the bathroom
wall panels, toilet dripping
And got his works under the washbasin
Wrapped in brown paper, back to his
Get every drop in the

He up his sleeve
he heard a groan from next door
Room 18, the Mexican kid there
The had passed him on the stairs
And saw the kid was
But he never spoke because he didn't want any juvenile
Bad in any language

The Priest had had enough bad 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 my priestly medications
With that coming through the wall"
Thin you understand

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

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
shiny black leg hairs
"A few years ago I damaged myself in a race
It was that the cramps started"
And now he has the leg back
With compound interest

The old Priest stood there, feeling the boy
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 sleeping when the left Room 18
He went back to his and sat down on the bed
Then it hit him heavy silent snow
All the junk yesterdays
He sat there, the immaculate fix
And he was himself a priest
was no need to call one