Setting the Table

by Ron Bateman
I went to Peadar’s again last night – remarkably similar to the night before, except the Dean of the Gonzaga University School of Professional Studies just happened to be coming along. I pointed Dr. Albert to Paulo’s Pizza across the street from the pub – I think he was jet lagged and sleep-deprived, but food was the center blip on his radar at that moment. He said he’d be over shortly and I assured him I wouldn’t be hard to find.

I took a seat in the middle of the bar – the pickings are far easier early on a weeknight then after the music starts late on a weekend. Sleepy from a late night of following the American football scores, I caught myself yawning here and there…and so did a couple of patrons. The first was Leigh – asking me about my business in Derry. Her eyes opened wide as I explained the peace building class. She asked if I had seen the murals in the Bogside to which I nodded. “Those are my best friends,” she exclaimed delightfully. She proceeded to take my email address to text to one of the artists, apologizing while she typed about not being able to give me their phone number directly. She left to sit with her friend on the other side of the bar, but she made it a point to come back and give me a hug before she left, assuring me her friends would contact me.

The second person to catch me yawning was Gerry. He joked about my heavy Derry accent. He reminded me of Harry Dean Stanton – Pretty in Pink Stanton, not Cool Hand Luke Stanton. Gerry, too, asked me about why I was in Derry. He scoffed (albeit in the most incredibly polite way) and told me there was no way I could understand The Troubles in a couple of weeks in Northern Ireland, but the length and depth of our conversation belied a respect for our study here. I hope and believe my questions revealed a depth of investigation into his country’s complex history and a commitment to not suggest some naïve, step-by-step solution concocted 5,000 miles from Belfast. My MA is in ORGL and not COML, so at the risk of stating the obvious to my classmates, my experience has been that the interrogative seems to soundly trump the imperative in these settings.

Dr. Albert finished his pizza and slid in on my left sometime in the middle of my conversation; I didn’t mean to be so impolite to a guy who may cast my PhD application on the “NO DICE” stack one day in the future, but I couldn’t have disengaged Gerry if I had wanted with all my might. In any regard, Dr. Albert found some local Derry folks to visit with as well.

Coming back to Derry with Gonzaga University – helping Dr. Caputo out here or there with a thing or two – has been all that I hoped it might be in this first few days. Ironic thing is that in trips to the pub or to a restaurant or in casual conversation nearly anywhere the seems to be no “failure to communicate.” But the slope of that statement tilts away from the interrogative...

The last and more raucous half of the evening – from catching up with my wonderfully cynical old friend, Michael and his buddy, Chris (i.e. Statler and Waldorf) to making new friends of the pub’s generous owners, William and Phil (i.e. nearly endless pints of Guinness and shots of Bushmills) – will have to wait until later. That’s a story that isn’t finished.