In Roche’s Stores in Limerick.
If you hung those drawers out the window of this hotel people would surrender. Piece of advice, don’t ever let Americans see you in those drawers. They’ll think you just got off Ellis Island. Get briefs. You know what briefs are?
I don’t.
Get ’em anyway. Kid like you should be wearing briefs. You’re in the U.S.A. now. Okay, hop in the bed, and that puzzles me because there’s no sign of a prayer and that’s the first thing you’d expect of a priest. He goes off to the bathroom but he’s no sooner in there than he sticks his head out and asks me if I dried myself.
I did.
Well, your towel isn’t touched so what did you dry yourself with?
The towel that’s on the side of the bathtub.
What? That’s not a towel. That’s the bath mat. That’s what you stand on when you get out of the shower.
I can see myself in a mirror over the desk and I’m turning red and wondering if I should tell the priest I’m sorry for what I did or if I should stay quiet. It’s hard to know what to do when you make a mistake your first night in America but I’m sure in no time I’ll be a regular Yank doing everything right. I’ll order my own hamburger, learn to call chips french fries, joke with waitresses, and never again dry myself with the bath mat. Some day I’ll say war and car with no “r” at the end but not if I ever go back to Limerick. If I ever went back to Limerick with an American accent they’d say I was putting on airs and tell me I had a fat arse like all the Yanks.
The priest comes out of the bathroom, wrapped in a towel, patting his face with his hands and there’s a lovely smell of perfume in the air. He says there’s nothing as refreshing as aftershave lotion and I can put on some if I like. It’s right there in the bathroom. I don’t know what to say or do. Should I say, No, thanks, or should I get out of the bed and go all the way to the bathroom and slather myself with aftershave lotion? I never heard of anyone in Limerick putting stuff on their faces after they shaved but I suppose it’s different in America. I’m sorry I didn’t look for a book that tells you what to do on your first night in New York in a hotel with a priest where you’re liable to make a fool of yourself right and left. He says, Well? and I tell him, Ah, no, thanks. He says, Suit yourself, and I can tell he’s a bit impatient the way he was when I didn’t talk to the rich Protestants from Kentucky. He could easily tell me leave and there I’d be out on the street with my brown suitcase and nowhere to go in New York. I don’t want to chance that so I tell him I’d like to put on the aftershave lotion after all. He shakes his head and tells me go ahead.
I can see myself in the bathroom mirror putting on the aftershave lotion and I’m shaking my head at myself feeling if this is the way it’s going to be in America I’m sorry I ever left Ireland. It’s hard enough coming here in the first place without priests criticizing you over your failure to hit it off with rich Kentucky Protestants, your ignorance of bath mats, the state of your underwear and your doubts about aftershave lotion.
The priest is in the bed and when I come out of the bathroom he tells me, Okay, into the bed. We’ve got a long day tomorrow.
He lifts the bedclothes to let me in and it’s a shock to see he’s wearing nothing. He says, Good night, turns off the light and starts snoring without even saying a Hail Mary or a prayer before sleep. I always thought priests spent hours on their knees before sleeping but this man must be in a great state of grace and not a bit afraid of dying. I wonder if all priests are like that, naked in the bed. It’s hard to fall asleep in a bed with a naked priest snoring beside you. Then I wonder if the Pope himself goes to bed in that condition or if he has a nun bring in pajamas with the Papal colors and the Papal coat of arms. I wonder how he gets out of that long white robe he wears, if he pulls it over his head or lets it drop to the floor and steps out of it. An old Pope would never be able to pull it over his head and he’d probably have to call a passing cardinal to give him a hand unless the cardinal himself was too old and he might have to call a nun unless the Pope was wearing nothing under the white robe which the cardinal would know about anyway because there isn’t a cardinal in the world that doesn’t know what the Pope wears since they all want to be Pope themselves and can’t wait for this one to die. If a nun is called in she has to take the white robe to be washed down in the steaming depths of the Vatican laundry room by other nuns and novices who sing hymns and praise the Lord for the privilege of washing all the clothes of the Pope and the College of Cardinals except for the underwear which is washed in another room by old nuns who are blind and not liable to think sinful thoughts because of what they have in their hands and what I have in my own hand is what I shouldn’t have in the presence of a priest in the bed and for once in my life I resist the sin and turn on my side and go to sleep.
Next day the priest finds a furnished room in the paper for six dollars a week and he wants to know if I can afford it till I get a job. We go to East Sixty-eighth Street and the landlady, Mrs. Austin, takes me upstairs to see the room. It’s the end of a hallway blocked off with a partition and a door with a window looking out on the street. There’s barely space for the bed and a small chest of drawers with a mirror and a table and if I stretch my arms I can touch the walls on both sides. Mrs. Austin says this is a very nice room and I’m lucky it wasn’t snapped up. She’s Swedish and she can tell I’m Irish. She hopes I don’t drink and if I do I’m not to bring girls into this room under any circumstances, drunk or sober. No girls, no food, no drink. Cockroaches smell food a mile away and once they’re in you have them forever. She says, Of course you never saw a cockroach in Ireland. There’s no food there. All you people do is drink. Cockroaches would starve to death or turn into drunks. Don’t tell me, I know. My sister is married to an Irishman, worst thing she ever did. Irishmen great to go out with but don’t marry them.
She takes the six dollars and tells me she needs another six for security, gives me a receipt and tells me I can move in anytime that day and she trusts me because I came with that nice priest even if she’s not Catholic herself, that it’s enough her sister married one, an Irishman, God help her, and she’s suffering for it.
The priest calls another taxi to take us to the Biltmore Hotel across the street from where we came out at Grand Central Station. He says it’s a famous hotel and we’re going to the headquarters of the Democratic Party and if they can’t find a job for an Irish kid no one can.
A man passes us in the hallway and the priest whispers, Do you know who that is?
I don’t.
Of course you don’t. If you don’t know the difference between a towel and a bath mat how could you know that’s the great Boss Flynn from the Bronx, the most powerful man in America next to President Truman.
The great Boss presses the button for the elevator and while he’s waiting he shoves a finger up his nose, looks at what he has on his fingertip and flicks it away on the carpet. My mother would call that digging for gold. This is the way it is in America. I’d like to tell the priest I’m sure De Valera would never pick his nose like that and you’d never find the Bishop of Limerick going to bed in a naked state. I’d like to tell the priest what I think of the world in general where God torments you with bad eyes and bad teeth but I can’t for fear he might go on about the rich Protestants from Kentucky and how I missed the opportunity of a lifetime.
The priest talks to a woman at a desk in the Democratic Party and she picks up the telephone. She says to the telephone, Got a kid here . . . just off the boat . . . you got a high school diploma? . . . na, no diploma . . . well, whaddya expect . . . Old Country still a poor country . . . yeah, I’ll send him up.