Luyện nghe bài hát The Priest They Called Him

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

People hurried by, gray on a distant wall
It was late 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 with a
Thin kid in prep school
Familiar face, the told himself
Watching the doorway.

"Reminds me of a long 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 was there in the doorway
The boy in sight
Gone to get the keys, likely, have to move fast
He picked up the and started for the corner
Made it, glanced at the case
It didn't look like the case the boy had or any boy have
The couldn't put his finger on what was so old about the case
Old and dirty, poor quality leather and
Better see inside

He into Lincoln Park
Found an empty place and the case
Two human legs that belonged to a young man
With dark skin, black leg hairs
in the dim streetlight
The legs had been into the case
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 bring a few dollars to

The sniffed suspiciously
"Kind of a funny smell it"
"It's just leather"
"Well, joker didn't cure it"
The buyer looked at the case cold disfavor
"Not even right he killed it, whatever it is
is the best I can do and it hurts
But this is Christmas and you're the Priest"
He slipped bills under the table into the Priest's dirty hand
The Priest faded the street shadows, seedy and furtive
Three cents didn't buy a bag, nothing less than a
Say, remember that old Addie told me not to come back
Unless I paid him the three I owe him
Yeah, isn't that a fruit for ya, your stack about three lousy cents
The was not pleased to see him

"Now, do you want? I told you!"
The Priest laid three on the table
The put the money in his pocket and started to scream
"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 face
"I can't you a prescription"
The doctor jerked open a
And an ampule across the table
"That's all I in the office!" The doctor stood 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, I'll the police I tell you"
"All right, doctor, I'm going"

Of course it was cold and far to rooming house
A shabby street, room on the top
"These stairs," coughed the
There pulling himself up the bannister
He into the bathroom
Yellow panels, toilet dripping
And got his works under the washbasin
Wrapped in paper, back to his room
Get drop in the dropper

He rolled up his
Then he 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 spoke because he didn't want any juvenile connections
Bad in any language

The Priest had had bad news in his life
He the groan again, a groan he could feel
No mistaking that and what it meant
"Maybe he had an or something.
In any case, I enjoy my priestly medications
With that sound coming the wall"
Thin walls you

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

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

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

The boy was sleeping the Priest left Room 18
He went back to his and sat down on the bed
it hit him like heavy silent snow
All the junk yesterdays
He sat there, received the fix
And he was himself a priest
There was no to call one