Luyện nghe bài hát The Priest They Called Him

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

People hurried by, gray shadows on a wall
It was getting and no money to score
He turned into a street and the lake wind hit him like a knife
Cab stop ahead under a streetlight

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

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

"Hmm, yes, maybe," the was there in the doorway
The boy nowhere in
Gone to get the keys, most likely, have to move
He picked up the and started for the corner
it, glanced down at the case
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 the case
Old and dirty, quality leather and heavy
Better see inside

He turned into Park
Found an empty and opened the case
Two severed human legs that to a young man
With dark skin, shiny 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 walked away with the case.
Might bring a few to score

The buyer sniffed
"Kind of a smell about it"
"It's just leather"
"Well, some joker cure it"
The buyer at the case with cold disfavor
"Not right sure he killed it, whatever it is
Three is the best I can do and it
But this is Christmas and you're the Priest"
He three bills under the table into the Priest's dirty hand
The Priest faded into the street shadows, seedy and
Three cents buy a bag, nothing less than a nickel
Say, remember that old Addie croaker me not to come back
Unless I paid him the three I owe him
Yeah, isn't that a fruit for ya, blow 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 pocket and started to
"I've had trouble! People been around!
I may my license!"
The Priest just sat
Eyes, old and heavy with years of junk, on the face
"I write you a prescription"
The doctor jerked a drawer
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 Priest's expression did not

The added in quieter tones
"After all, I'm a man
And I shouldn't be bothered by people you"
"Is that all you for me? One lousy quarter G?
you lend 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 house
A shabby street, on the top floor
"These stairs," coughed the
There pulling up along the bannister
He went the bathroom
Yellow wall panels, toilet
And got his works under the washbasin
Wrapped in paper, back to his room
Get drop in the dropper

He up his sleeve
Then he heard a groan next door
Room 18, the Mexican kid there
The Priest had passed him on the
And saw the kid was
But he never spoke because he want any juvenile connections
Bad in any language

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

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

The could see the cramps
Like knots of wood there in the young
Dark shiny leg hairs
"A few years ago I myself in a bicycle race
It was then the cramps started"
And now he has the leg back
With junk interest

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