Rivers Twinned in Tragedy

Walker Sudden remained with the Devo-hatted girl, in silence, now simply gazing into one another's eyes in a picture-perfect style.  Bao and Coral Express were nowhere to be seen.  I figured they must have stepped outside for a smoke, so I reached for my tobacco, sat down and rolled a cigarette.  The pub was winding down, nearing last orders, with only a few heads remaining, some drooped in preparation for home, and others bravely extended in the ecstatic assumption that drinks would be served forever and ever amen.

I was hit by a rush of chills when I opened the front door of the bar to go outside.  Autumn seemed angry with us tonight for some reason.  The Spirit Store was located on the docks at the mouth of Dundalk Bay, where the Castletown River met the Irish Sea, so when you stood outside of it, the town with its streets and movable parts was behind you.  Across from the bar's entrance, you might see a trawler or two or even a larger carrier vessel, and further off in the distance, you had the Cooley mountains facing you with all their sleepy nobility.

There was nobody outside.  It was too cold.  But then I heard some voices coming from behind one of the cars parked right up at the edge of the bank.  I approached and found Coral Express and Bao sitting behind a white Mazda with their tongues down each other's necks.

'What's going on here?'

They broke from their slobbery embrace laughing.  You had to hand it to Bao.  He was some boy.  They had obviously resolved the God question between them.

'He was doing his funny accents for me,' giggled Coral Express.  'I couldn't help myself.  Have you heard his accents?'

'Oh shit, you don't know the half of it,' I answered.

Bao practiced his English by impersonating the voices he heard, mostly Irish and UK accents, or those distinctive accents he found in the movies.  You might one day hear him doing his Irish accent, quoting lines from Braveheart.  'Ye cannae handle the truth.'

They were sitting on the kerb with their legs swinging in the hairy growth of the embankment.  I sat down too.  There was a smashed up dinghy stuck in the swamp below us on which you could still see the number 4 painted suggesting it had once been used in a race.  They used to have raft and dinghy races along the Castletown River when I was younger, during the Pink Flamingo years, but the river had not looked strong enough to withstand races in a long time.  It had lost its effervescence and was a thin and frail old river now.  I didn't think they could go the way of people, aging and declining.  But I suppose some rivers may grow old and die too after years of wrestling with changing landscapes.

'We used to go fishing up the river there a bit,' I said.  'Near the bridge at the train tracks.  There used to be lots of fat brown trout and mullet up there.  I can't imagine there'd be as many nowadays.'

'Why not? asked Coral Express.

'The river doesn't seem alive anymore.  It looks like it's had its active years and is now merging slowly with its own bed.'    

'Ah, you're just looking at it through your nostalgia lenses, I bet.  The river was probably the same back then as it is now.  You just see it differently.'

'Well, if there are still fish thriving in there,  I think I might take a pass on it at the dinnertable.  What with Sellafield being just across the way.'

'About 150 miles across the way.  Come on, catch yourself on.'

'I'm telling you, I'd be wary.  Back when I was younger, I didn't give a shite about it, but these days, I wouldn't go trusting it.  They say it's the most radioactive sea in the whole world.  I mean, that's crazy.  Ireland is never the most or the least of anything.  We're always stuck in the middle of nowhere minding our own business and nobody paying any attention to us.  That's the way it should be.  But......the most radioactive.....in the world.  Fuck that.'

'I understand what you're going on about it.  I'm health-mad myself, but I wouldn't take it that far.'

'I remember a river where I lived growing up in China,' said Bao.  'Even though it always looked beautiful, it was actually sick underneath, infected by a nearby factory which used it as a toilet.  We would do everything there.  Drink from it, swim in it, wash in it.  You knew you were using dirty water, but you just did it anyway.  Water was water.  The river was the river.  Even if you knew you could get sick from it.  And people did.  A lot of them.  People started having trouble breathing and some of them died.  It was terrible.  I felt sorry for the river.  I don't think it meant to hurt anybody.  It must have felt really guilty.  When you see a beautiful river, all you see is its strength.  You don't think that maybe it's sick and weak inside.'    

We looked out at the river.  But we couldn't really see anything.  It was too dark.  We looked for life in the water, but the only signs of life were the midges and their small grainy helicopter traffic making our faces itch and flinch.

'Oh, cheer up, the pair of ye, for the love of fuck,' said Coral.