name is T. B. Miskimon. If you insist on calling me something absurd, let that be on your conscience as well.”
“What’s T. B. stand for?”
“My name is T. B. Miskimon.”
“Sure.” I waited until he reached the door at the end of the room. “Aren’t you forgetting something?”
Miskimon didn’t turn back but stopped and spoke with his back to me. “I never forget anything. Whereas you’ve already forgotten that I made that statement less than ten minutes ago.”
“Medium soft black pencil.” I’d finish this conversation with a victory. “Instruction card said it will be furnished for the enumerator. It’s not here on the bed.”
“In the desk drawer, where the Bible was.” His voice came over his shoulder as he pushed open the door. “If you actually do some work, I’ll need the pencil stub before I authorize replacement. Otherwise if it is missing and you have no stub to prove it was used, you’ll be charged for a new one.”
F or my jaunt into Panama City, I decided to stay with cowboy hat and boots, regretting the need to leave behind my holster and the Colt .45.
Buffalo Bill had done a magnificent job, through the show that hundreds of thousands had seen as it crisscrossed North America and Europe over a couple of decades, of building a myth of the West. As well, in less than a decade since publication, Owen Wister’s novel
The Virginian
had spawned enough imitators that it created a new genre in which cowboys engaged in unrealistic actions of walking toward each other in something called a showdown, where the man with the surest draw always triumphed. And the blockbuster movie
The Great Train Robbery
had built on the cowboy mythology. I had enjoyed watching the movie during a visit to Bismarck, the capital on the Missouri, marveling at a film that ran for an entire ten minutes. Rumor had it that the length had worked the theater’s piano player into a lather. My favorite moment in the film was when the actor Justus D. Barnes, in his role as leader of the outlaws, had defiantly fired point blank at the camera and all of the audience yelped in delight. All told, I thought, the hundred and fifty dollars that had been announced as a production budget for the film had been a wise investment.
During my travel years, I played a small role in helping Buffalo Bill build the myth, and for that reason, I had no such illusions about myself. I had discovered the result of mythology was that people tend to overestimate a cowboy’s athletic skills in the same proportion that they underestimate a cowboy’s intelligence or education.
Both misconceptions were always helpful in barroom situations, so the cowboy hat and boots, I felt, were a good choice. After all, here on the isthmus, where else but such a place would I go to get local answers to local questions?
If the selling of liquor was illegal in the Zone on a Sunday, it was easy enough to realize why the pick-and-shovel men not at work were in Panama City. That’s where I’d find them, and that’s where I’d find them in the types of spirits—literally and metaphorically—most likely to engage in unguarded conversation.
I pulled my books out from the valise and set them on the desk. I unrolled my spare clothes and placed them under the mattress to flatten them and take out the wrinkles. I placed my shaving kit in the bathroom.
I then searched for a suitable hiding spot for the two things that mattered most to me: my revolver and the bank draft that would save my ranch from foreclosure.
My housing was too Spartan, however. And too well built. I couldn’t pry any floorboards loose, nor could I find a way to access the ceiling. Any hiding spot that I found would be too easily found by anyone else.
I put my revolver and the envelope with the bank draft back into the valise, along with the coupon books.
I put my hat back on, took the valise, and stepped outside.
Hot. Very hot. Sunset was hours away. Panama wasn’t very far north of the
“What’s T. B. stand for?”
“My name is T. B. Miskimon.”
“Sure.” I waited until he reached the door at the end of the room. “Aren’t you forgetting something?”
Miskimon didn’t turn back but stopped and spoke with his back to me. “I never forget anything. Whereas you’ve already forgotten that I made that statement less than ten minutes ago.”
“Medium soft black pencil.” I’d finish this conversation with a victory. “Instruction card said it will be furnished for the enumerator. It’s not here on the bed.”
“In the desk drawer, where the Bible was.” His voice came over his shoulder as he pushed open the door. “If you actually do some work, I’ll need the pencil stub before I authorize replacement. Otherwise if it is missing and you have no stub to prove it was used, you’ll be charged for a new one.”
F or my jaunt into Panama City, I decided to stay with cowboy hat and boots, regretting the need to leave behind my holster and the Colt .45.
Buffalo Bill had done a magnificent job, through the show that hundreds of thousands had seen as it crisscrossed North America and Europe over a couple of decades, of building a myth of the West. As well, in less than a decade since publication, Owen Wister’s novel
The Virginian
had spawned enough imitators that it created a new genre in which cowboys engaged in unrealistic actions of walking toward each other in something called a showdown, where the man with the surest draw always triumphed. And the blockbuster movie
The Great Train Robbery
had built on the cowboy mythology. I had enjoyed watching the movie during a visit to Bismarck, the capital on the Missouri, marveling at a film that ran for an entire ten minutes. Rumor had it that the length had worked the theater’s piano player into a lather. My favorite moment in the film was when the actor Justus D. Barnes, in his role as leader of the outlaws, had defiantly fired point blank at the camera and all of the audience yelped in delight. All told, I thought, the hundred and fifty dollars that had been announced as a production budget for the film had been a wise investment.
During my travel years, I played a small role in helping Buffalo Bill build the myth, and for that reason, I had no such illusions about myself. I had discovered the result of mythology was that people tend to overestimate a cowboy’s athletic skills in the same proportion that they underestimate a cowboy’s intelligence or education.
Both misconceptions were always helpful in barroom situations, so the cowboy hat and boots, I felt, were a good choice. After all, here on the isthmus, where else but such a place would I go to get local answers to local questions?
If the selling of liquor was illegal in the Zone on a Sunday, it was easy enough to realize why the pick-and-shovel men not at work were in Panama City. That’s where I’d find them, and that’s where I’d find them in the types of spirits—literally and metaphorically—most likely to engage in unguarded conversation.
I pulled my books out from the valise and set them on the desk. I unrolled my spare clothes and placed them under the mattress to flatten them and take out the wrinkles. I placed my shaving kit in the bathroom.
I then searched for a suitable hiding spot for the two things that mattered most to me: my revolver and the bank draft that would save my ranch from foreclosure.
My housing was too Spartan, however. And too well built. I couldn’t pry any floorboards loose, nor could I find a way to access the ceiling. Any hiding spot that I found would be too easily found by anyone else.
I put my revolver and the envelope with the bank draft back into the valise, along with the coupon books.
I put my hat back on, took the valise, and stepped outside.
Hot. Very hot. Sunset was hours away. Panama wasn’t very far north of the
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