Do you like hamburgers? 'Tis by Frank McCourt

When we arrive at Grand Central Station I don’t know where to go. 
My mother said I could try to see an old friend, Dan MacAdorey. 
The priest shows me how to use the telephone but there’s no answer 
from Dan. Well, says the priest, I can’t leave you on your own in 
Grand Central Station. He tells the taxi driver we’re going to the 
Hotel New Yorker. 

We take our bags to a room where there’s one bed. The priest 
says, Leave the bags. We’ll get something to eat in the coffee shop 
downstairs. Do you like hamburgers? 

I don’t know. I never had one in my life. 

He rolls his eyes and tells the waitress bring me a hamburger with 
french fries and make sure the burger is well done because I’m Irish 
and we overcook everything. What the Irish do to vegetables is a 
crying shame. He says if you can guess what the vegetable is in an 
Irish restaurant you get the door prize. The waitress laughs and says 
she understands. She’s half-Irish on her mother’s side and her mother 
is the worst cook in the world. Her husband was Italian and he really 
knew how to cook but she lost him in the war. 

Waw. That’s what she says. She really means war but she’s like 
all Americans who don’t like to say ‘r’ at the end of a word. They 
say caw instead of car and you wonder why they can’t pronounce 
words the way God made them. 

I like the lemon meringue pie but I don’t like the way Americans 
leave out the ‘r’ at the end of a word. 

While we’re eating our hamburgers the priest says I'll have to stay 
the night with him and tomorrow we'll see. It’s strange taking off my 
clothes in front of a priest and I wonder if I should get down on my 
two knees and pretend to say my prayers. He tells me I can take a 
shower if I like and it’s the first time in my life I ever had a shower 
with plenty of hot water and no shortage of soap, a bar for your body 
and a bottle for your head. 

When I’m finished I dry myself with the thick towel draped on 
the bathtub and I put on my underwear before going back into the 
room. The priest is sitting in the bed with a towel wrapped around 
his fat belly, talking to someone on the phone. He puts down the 
phone and stares at me. My God, where did you get those drawers? 

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 USA now. OK, 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 bathmat. 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 II 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 bathmat. 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 after-shave 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 after-shave 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 
after-shave lotion after all. He shakes his head and tells me go ahead. 

I can see myself in the bathroom mirror putting on the after-shave 
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 
bathmats, the state of your underwear and your doubts about after- 
shave lotion. 

The priest is in the bed and when I come out of the bathroom 
he tells me, OK, 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. Frank McCourt