All The Way to Santa Fe

In the city there is nowhere quiet to sit and breathe, so I sit here, on the stoop, and watch the world go by and it seems there's green everywhere. Maybe the color is really there, or maybe it's just memories of home, of County Clare and fields that were full of cows and sheep owned by folks who lived far away. And the same beasts are here, herded into the meat district from trains that smell worse than winter silage ever did.

'I'm walking here!' A loud angry shout, the skitter of horse hooves on the roadway, and the curse of the cart driver at a pedestrian they'd assume would give way.

Oisin's walk is discernible from half a block away. It's the same jaunty bounce which he had on the way to school back in Scarriff, or on the way back from church even if Father Cupps had skelped him for some perceived wrongdoing. I stepped down to meet him on the sidewalk.

'Seamus, were you dreaming of Farmer Connor's daughter again?' Oisin asked.

'I haven't thought of Siobhan for months. Not since Mammy wrote about her wedding that fella from Galway. Did you get word from your cousin in Boston? Is there work.'

'There's work, more work than a coupla bog Irish like us can do. And it'll be warm.'

'Boston ain't famous for being warm.'

'Santa Fe is. They're building the city new, ready to join the Union as a state, and they need folks to do the work. You and me, we can go do it.'

I paused on the sidewalk and was immediately jostled. Oisin turned and looked back at me.

'You think it'll be quiet there, Oisin?'

'What?'

'If it's quiet I'll go now, right now. Damn city is always noisy, so noisy. So many people. Remember that time we went to Dublin and we thought that was busy? We had no idea.'

'You want to go back to Scarriff?'

'No! Ma would kill me for sure. And if she didn't, well, Father Cupps would.'

'Serve you right for messing with a farmer's daughter.'

'You know, Pa Connor would have let me marry her.'

'I know Seamus, I know.'

We stood on the edge of the sidewalk as people bustled past and carts rattled by. A covered wagon drove by. The green covering on the side was faded and worn but was still verdant enough to remind me of home, where I never wanted to go back to, but whose quiet I need around me.

'Santa Fe,' I say, 'I don't even know where it is on a map. Let's go.'

text by stuartcturnbull, art by George Bellows courtesy of Courtesy National Gallery of Art, Washington