KILLING SOME TIME IN COLON, PANAMA

KILLING SOME TIME IN COLON, PANAMA
Thursday, November 28, 1991
(Adapted from journal pages)

Prowled the area. Pretty rough.
Seven or eight bars clustered within a couple of blocks.
Started in the direction of one,
that was inside from a lunch counter.
Was deterred by a riot gun holding a man.
(Or was it vice versa?)
Had french fries instead.

At a news stand, returned yesterday's purchased Zona Libre guide
and bought a little volume of Emily Dickenson. Thirty-five cents.

Hotel room.
Classical music coming from Room 9 again. I meet its perpetrator,
a Customs man from Zona Libre.
The music playing? Franz Liszt? Beethovan's Fifth Symphony?
In Hollywood it's "Tonight We Love".

He claims to have travelled in a number of countries
including Canada, Cuba, Chile, Haiti, Dominican Republice, Haiti, etc.,
etc.
His first trip was involuntary,
as a political exile for activity as a university student.
"The people of Colon have always been in opposition
to whatever government is in power. "

He talks English. I keep moving him back to Spanish.
Fifty-eight years old.
Claims his wife went to Costa Rica and forgot to come back,
He pays $6.50 a night.
His hobby is classical music.

He reiterates several times that he keeps a gun.
And repeatedly cautions me about how dangerous it is here.
"Colon used to be clean and safe.
You could snooze in the park and know you'd wake up,
or pass out in a bar wearing a wristwatch and wallet
and people would look after you.
With the dictatorship everything went to shit."

My query as to the rotting piles of uncollected garbage
had elicited the foregoing.
Romantic nostalgia?
I have a hunch
that these dirty, mouldy, stinking, crumbling, decrepit,
rabbit warren slum tenements
likely saw their hey-day
long before ex-president Noriega was born.

More kidding with the woman at the desk. Says she's married with a
little girl.
"Lastima", say I. "Too bad."