There were lumber yards, steel mills, paper factories, ship building plants and ports of call that made the riverfront a longshoreman’s paradise. Everywhere you looked you would find strong-backs dressed in dungarees or overalls, lifting and hauling everything from one-hundred pound bags of iron ore to sandbags to newly cut wood planks.All these years later, the mills and factories had been relocated to Mexico and China, leaving only the unemployed rusted and rotted out building shells to line the Concrete Pearl. But the Thatcher Street Pub had somehow survived. Maybe one of the reasons behind its survival were its topless bartenders. The bar still attracted tough guys who worked with their backs and rough necks. But nowadays you could also find the occasional stockbroker, lawyer or doctor bellying up to the bar alongside them.I walked in through the front screen door.Every set of male eyes turned to me. I felt the eyes burn holes into my skin. I made my way to an open spot at the near end of the long bar, not ten feet away from the unoccupied pool table.As the faces of a dozen men scattered about the bar returned to their beers, shots and mixed drinks, I took a good look around.
