Backbone > Frankly Speaking

The Panama Kid Rides Again
By Frank Crocitto . Illustration by Leslie Bender

1. He wore the hat because it fit. Made him feel suave. Sure: catcalls and razzberries, sure. Hell, only wimps knuckle to what people think. Tighter, screwed it on tighter. Glance in the mirror—defiant sneer—off he goes.

Sure as shooting! Hardly a block: hoots. Loungers on stoops, hangers on parking meters, cruisers in cars. The hat was an offense.

Swaggering, knee-deep in the pool of a follow-spot. Shoulders back, finger up. Pressure rising, barometer dropping. A twerp takes a running swat at it.

“Better luck next time, twerpo!”

No taking it off now.

Uncle Bates—about to be hitched—chucked it, packed it for Aunt Sally. Just junk. Some urge shoved his hand, made him grab it, try it on.
As ever, attention swings his way, twangs its arrow. Armpit sweat turns cold. No escaping fate. Or Nature. Or lucky stars. Fourscoresquareforswearetcetera. He cursed the hat.

At the bus stop Dave DiLeo bopping by:

“Yo! Hey! The Panama Kid!”

Ribcage swells. Battens down a grin.

“Yea, Panama!”

That’s it. He’s it.

Flaunted in the halls. Fondled all through Shakespeare and Psych. Drooped over lids through the Bio lecture. (Prof. Mortimer—decked in deadbelly white drones on regardless.) Back topside in the hall. Rakishly.

Not a panama: Graymouse felt, black thick band, top flattened down. Not really. All the better. Panama enough.

2. Perfect body. Tight in bodice and business suit. Petite. Curls pulled back, pubic black. Succulent as the sprint. (True, too much hair on her upper lip.) Scouring the crowds, the clouds for her. Joan, Joan, I’m all alone.

Under the steaming sun, the swelling ground. Bulging buds and gathering grassblades. Oh, mother, oh Brooklyn, oh where on the campus, the quad? Ahhh, where…

Behold the sauntering Panama Kid.

Missed her. Again and again. Over the phone no hat to see. Yet sparkling, swashbuckling was he.

“Drunk?” she asks.

“With life,” he breathes.

Joan Legrand, the perfect name.

Ho, stickball on a Sunday—sunsweatears. Guys galore. With, now without his hat, the passing DiLeo hollers,

“Panama!” Echoes in the schoolyard.

The guys call him “Panama!”

Ages pass like a kidney stone. Another day, another search. The cafeteria. She’s there. Alas, surrounded by myopic myriads. He hides the hat.

But plans are afoot. To the stables! To Clove Lake! Yesnoyesnoyes—YES!

Sunlight crinkles on the Bay. Salt-tongue-tang. The ferry, a matron in a bustle, rams the piles of Saint George. Off they skip—boys and girls—a-tweeting.

Hat stashed in a bag. Eyes, his eyes, finger her outlines, inline. The bow of her lips. (Less hair than he thought.) Time’s coming. The hat will out of the bag.

Dowdy bunch, a club—a religious persuasion. Cleancut fun. There’s Frank T and Angelo T and Diana D and Marie B and Tony G and Patti C and Ginger Z and Joey E and Gloria P and me and Joan, Joan, Joan Legrand.

3. Stable babe’s a blond. Oozing strong smell-o-horse. Comtemptress: to each a nag.

“No, ’snot my first ride!” The Panama Kid jams on the hat.

“How many, Doodles?”

“Enough.”

(No lie, neither. Rode the arm of the parlor sofa since a little beaver.) Had a Book of Cowboys, too, with chaps and chaparral: and how to lasso with his lariat. Blessed birthday—costume, necktie, and gear—a pair of quicksilver six-guns. Hiyo, the Brooklyn cowboy!

“You’re sure?” She’s sugarsweetsnide.

“I’m always sure, Poodles.”

The horse brought out was big and black. Flouncing tail, clicking hooves. Dust billowing. Whinnying, whirling, rearing, pummeling the sunbeams.

Arianna—horsey blonde—all smiles, a hayseedstalk between her two front teeth.

The membership rocks. Watches. He gulps down the shock, girds up his groin. Smiling, beckoning, holding stirrup and reins. Geronimo! Goes into the saddle.

(Does she see the anxiety behind his eyeballs?)

(Can the pulsing beast smell the cowering in his heart?)

(Who knows? Who cares?)

Got the reins! Black beast plunging. Yanks the reins.

“Whoaa!” in his deepest voice. Frowsy Arianna frowns. Inside he sings that he himself, he is the saddlemaster. All worrisome to Arianna.

“What’s his name, Blondie?”

“Bagatelle,” she yells. “Be careful,” she spits. “Jerk-o!”

Yea, Panama!

4. Horseback high, caballero, he sees his friends’ concern—leaning, whispering. Yes, and Arianna’s anxiety to a snickering galoot. Now newcomers gawking. Bagatelle blowing and stomping.

Galoot shrugs, spits, and slips into the stable shade.

Lookee how she sways, how she writhes to her rider’s every whim. A canter, a trot, a stop. Ecstasy’s the bond that holds horse and rider. Thought power (he thinks) redeemed, vindicated. Invincible.

Flickering is the rolling reel, the moving picture his uncle threw on the holiday sheet. Highpoint: Buck from balcony jumps saddlesquare. Pursuit—behind bush gambit—pass right by—yahoo, he’s off!

Yet this horse is hotblack, sweatsteaming.

Someone says:

“You look like you’ve been on a horse all your life, Panama!

Joan, was it? A fluttering notice. Words blurting past her petite reticence.

Glory day in Panama!

5. At last: namby-pamby-amble. Arianna ahead. Lazy day trail. Horseheads nodding, horseflies biting.

Here, the Panama Kid gallops scoutwise up and down the line.

Light like melting butter bastes the Injun Summer noon. Brown soft trailmuck, pungent plopping of the dragging nags. Dust lifting in rolling powdery-puffs.

Not worth it, growls the Kid. No matter how you try. No matter how good you are. A show-off. It’s written on the grand, whiteswan neck, her averted eye.

To hell with her. Giddyap! Rubbing ankles with Arianna now. Pasteboard profile, scornful. Gold curls jiggling, bosom bouncing in the autumnal fire.

“Che passa, amiga?”

“Idiot. Pisshead,” she replies.

A gnat of a thought: if only she was what she seems. Into the air he tosses his hat.

6. A horse, too, has thoughts. Bagatelle throws her head aside and follows it. Hey! Mystic bond or no, she’s off.

“Don’t let her do that!” Arianna screaming.

Horse and horseman—off the trail—beyond the pale—thrashing into deep woods.

“Let her?!”

Hold tight, Panama. Leaves, twigs scrape face, ears. Ears deaf to the blonde’s wind-borne advice:

“Rein her! Rein her in!”

Yanks against the stiff-necked force of his night-black mare. Hugs her neck. Curses in her ear. Careening they go down the archways of fate. Now no longer care for the who that thinks what of him. Or for a thousand bareback blondes. Or for Joan Legrand.

Hat hit, nearly lost. Loss is the ultimate embarrassment. Wild hopes, lightning forks in a bootblack sky: to never come back and never see a familiar face. To ride foaming and thumping till the cool foothills of Montana.

Tall trees pass, shrub oak, cattails. Thundering to nowhere. Wondering how he steps in such buckets. Hang on, Panama! Horsepower, windpower pins back the mare’s ears.

Like a book opening, a green field before them. Her hooves ravish the landscape. The Panama Kid stands in the stirrups. This is it. He knows it. This is the finest experience of his life. He thwacks Bagatelle’s rump.

7. Movement where the forest meets the green, far down the slope. Real or mere shadows? Nearer: a man’s arm flailing. Nearer: an arm like a blacksmith striking. Near: a dark arm upraised. A figure cowering under a club. Mind-reading the mare makes for the man.

Infuriated, the Kid roars! Oh, for a stick, a lance, something to stop the beating.

His hat is all he has. Smacks it full gallop into the assailant’s face. Stops club. Down he falls. Horse and rider pass by. Up springs the victim, holding in the blood of his head. Scampers off. Bagatelle stops short, turns, whinnies. The other runs, too.

The sun sings, the crickets churr.

Take a moment, time. Was it the thought of the horse or the horseman? Was it one thought, one mind? Away!

The Kid and his mare go after the man with the club. He scrambles by the fringe of the wood. He runs before the press of horse and rider. Falls finally, exhausted before the feet of the police. One car, and then another. Sirens screaming.

8. All awaiting the Kid. Bagatelle prancing. Clapping of hands. Welcome the hero. Thanks from the victim. A trooper hands him his hat. Not a drop of blood. Yes, that’s who I am. I’m the Panama Kid. Screws on his hat.

Arianna pinches his thigh. Joan Legrand? Arianna helps him dismount. Joan Legrand? Arianna blows in his ear. Joan—

“Oh, Joan had to leave early, Kid.”