![]() It was a hole of a place where I learned the codes of the Belfast streets thousands of miles away, streets that I’d never actually seen. I worked there while I was going to college. ![]() Cousins right off the boat from Ireland lived above the bar. drinkers were guys on their way out to jobs they hated in center city offices and, then, there were the guys who had been out all night drinking and wanted one last shot before they did their daily perish. Jimmy’s Pub opened at 7 in the morning for guys coming off the night shift at the Stetson factory and for other graveyard workers. But then, I looked at the address on his file and recognized that the neighborhood where Shawn lived was near the block where my grandfather owned a bar many decades ago. When I asked him why he slept on his desk everyday, he said that he worked most nights and that he was exhausted all day. That’s when I read the letter and realized that Shawn must have dropped it that day during class. I had already found the letter on the floor in the back of the classroom while grading papers and cleaning the room on Friday evening. Shawn: (Louder.) No! Franklinville High School ![]() Librarian: (Loudly, Pointing Finger at Shawn.) Quiet. Shawn: (Pointing to the green tattoo on his forearm) Just remember, 26 Plus 6 equals ONE. Clearly labeled Great Britain including Ireland, Scotland and Wales. Shawn: (With an angry edge.) It’s not in Britain. They say my grandfather might have to go back there even though he doesn’t want to. Librarian: (Still not looking up.) Why don’t you check around the table where you always work. Shawn: I was in here after work last night trynna do my homework, and wrote the letter, and now I can’t find it. Librarian: (Curtly, not looking up from her desk.) No. Shawn: Did you see a piece of paper with writing on it? … like a letter? “FROM STEM TO STERN.” I kept repeating that and then Aunt Helen and me was laughing about the way you used to say it and about how you talk and your Irish accent, “From Stem To Stern,” like a pirate or something. So, we scoured the joint from “stem to stern” just like you always used to say. But Aunt Helen came down from the convent last week and helped me clean the place. Remember? I ain’t seen Mom or Dad at all for a long time. How muad I get at everything and how sad and sorry I feel about other stuff. And, I’ll say all the stuff you used to listen to me carrying on about. If I go down that parking lot where it looks across to Camden on the opposite bank on the same day maybe when y’all been out on the highway cleanup crew in your orange prison suits, I’ll be able to catch up with your spirit, at least. So, that was a really good idea where you said if after work some day I walk to the far end of the Wal-Mart parking lot on Delaware Avenue where it comes up on the river that I’ll be looking out over the same Delaware River as you seen earlier, and I’ll be seeing the same waves, and the same currents, and the same mists and breezes playing off the wave- tops, hearin the same sounds and tasting that little bit of sea salt that the river has from its trip out to the ocean. I really like the part where you said that you all go up to the highway right next to the river and that you always take a minute from sweepin or whatever to look out over the riverwaves and see the sun reflect on the swelling banks and feel the breeze. It must be weird being chained together like that and having guards with shotguns and such watch over you guys while you’re just basically cleaning the roadside. What I got was that you’re getting to go out with work crews to pick up trash on the highways. Too bad, the prison blocked a lotta words out. (Above) Image Taken from Salmon Ireland’s web site (), is a landscape photograph of the River Foyle. Waiting at the story’s edges, readers will notice that we also meet with a lot of homework, –and a very discerning librarian. Among other themes, this is a tale of incarceration and deportation. Also, here to be found is the River Delaware as it flows through Philadelphia and environs. Shawn’s fable unfolds along the banks of the rivers that authors, Langston Hughes and James Joyce traveled.
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