Luyện nghe bài hát The Priest They Called Him

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

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

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

"Reminds me of something a long ago"
The boy, there, his overcoat
Unbuttoned, reaching his pants pocket for the cab fare
The cab drove away and the corner
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 move
He picked up the suitcase and started for the
Made it, glanced at the case
It didn't like the case the boy had or any boy would have
The Priest couldn't put his finger on what was so old the case
Old and dirty, poor leather and heavy
see what's inside

He turned Lincoln Park
an empty place and opened the case
Two severed legs that belonged to a young man
With dark skin, black leg hairs
Glittered in the dim
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 a few dollars to score

The sniffed suspiciously
"Kind of a funny smell it"
"It's just leather"
"Well, some didn't cure it"
The buyer looked at the case with cold
"Not even right sure he killed it, 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 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 come
Unless I him the three cents I owe him
Yeah, isn't that a fruit for ya, blow your stack three lousy cents
The was not pleased to see him

"Now, what do you want? I you!"
The Priest laid three bills on the
The doctor put the in his pocket and started to scream
"I've had trouble! People been around!
I may my license!"
The just sat there
Eyes, old and heavy years of junk, on the doctor's face
"I write you a prescription"
The doctor jerked a drawer
And slid an ampule across the
"That's all I in the office!" The doctor stood up
"Take it and get out!" he screamed,
The Priest's did not change

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

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

He up his sleeve
Then he heard a groan 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 didn't want any juvenile
Bad news in any

The Priest had had enough bad in his life
He heard the groan again, a he could feel
No mistaking that groan and it meant
"Maybe he had an or something.
In any case, I enjoy my priestly medications
that 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 next door"
He could hear someone across the floor

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

The old Priest stood there, the boy groan
He his head 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 Priest left 18
He went back to his and sat down on the bed
Then it hit him heavy silent snow
All the gray yesterdays
He sat there, received the fix
And he was himself a priest
There was no need to one