“The Man on the Locks” (An Account at the Panama Canal)





This story you are about to read has more truth to its twists, than you may want to believe, and let me add to that, the main character, George W.G., would have said: there was a time that every American could be proud of the construction of the Panama Canal, if for anything beyond that, since America has given that away, such pride must ferment in the knowledge and information, by which the original object and purpose was attained. This story, “The Man on the Locks,” is rather simple and to the point. But first for those folks that are not all that familiar with the Panama Canal, I must give you a quick overview, and quick it will be.

The Panama Canal is a waterway connecting the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, cut through the narrow necks of land connecting the two continents of North and South America. It’s history, the land area goes back to AD 1452, and you will have to search out for your Encyclopedia to get the rest of its in-depth ancient history, but let me say, the French tried to build the Canal, and couldn’t, and then the Americans purchased the rights thereafter to do it, and completed it; it is perhaps the greatest Engineering feat in the world, surpassing even the Great Wall of China, for I have been to both, the Canal and the Great Wall.
And, as we all know, President Carter gave it away for a handshake and a smile (or a song and a dance, as they say), and hoping that would produce warm feelings between neighbors, and when I was there in May of 2006, of all the presidents America has had, he is the most worshiped, and perhaps the only one, for such a token given them free of charge; not that America per se is that well liked, but the gift is. Again I must stress these were the thoughts of the main character you are about to meet, so you will gain a kind of insight knowledge of why he did want he did, or what was done with his assistance.

We also can get political into the political arena here with past events, but I shall just say them in a flat manner, and get on with the story—; President Johnson did not carry out the policies of President Kennedy when he took office, he put many of them on hold, and that caused the city and folks of Panama to united and start an error of hostility with America over flying their flag with Americas, and lives lost on both sides because of this, to include three American soldiers in 1964, and a number of lost souls on the Panamanian side. And we will justify our own opinions and actions, until dooms day with whatever rhetoric we can gather to make our souls feel better, it all depends on what side of the fence you’re sanding on, so I am not going to get into that here, if you don’t like the story, you will have write your own to the contrary, and most like if you hate it you have already; you just don’t like this side of the fence. And I could get into prices and so forth I have them at hand, but that will simply take away from the suspense and Macabre climax you are about to read. But do not walk away and pretend there is no truth to this, because you’d only fool yourself.

(Time and Location: 12: 15 AM, May, 2006, the Panama Canal; Miraflores Lock, facts have been disturbed, otherwise there is a breath of historical fiction in the following account.)






The Account

And then dawn he bent, looking one-sided dynamically across the Canal, at the Miraflores, Locks— from the café,
“A famous bourgeois quality here on the Canal,” the security guard said to the tourist looking down and across; the canal lights from the Café could be seen from the other side.
He looked closer, a ship was coming in, and shadows flung reeling into gray corners all about. The water was rising in one canal, while lowering in the other, and with all the lights shinning, there was a golden mist, infinitely thin and transient, and fading.

For a moment, the old Panamanian security guard noticed the middle aged tourist, an American, standing to his side, close to his side he was taking in a breathless view he concluded—so often seeing that very same awe in other tourist’s faces, he thought nothing of it,
“I like the pinkness to the lights, George W. G.’s the name,” said the tourist.
What he, the Guard, didn’t see was a rowboat, and a swish of oars, and the man inside of the boat. George said to the guard, “How big is that gate?” referring to the gates of the locks which were two and in the shape of a V.
“Between 47 to 82 feet sir, depending,” said the plump and astute guard, named Carlos?
Carlos added to that without asking, “Each leaf is between 300 to 600 tons dependent upon the varying heights. They divide each lock chamber into two smaller chambers also…”
During this ongoing conversation, the man in the rowboat, with ungraceful fingers, palms and hands, rowed within those shadows, and corners that melt into the environments, grayness.
Whatever was on the mind of this rower, only he and George knew, and he was not about to tell the guard, but said in passing:
“It’s a sort of glory thing,” but he didn’t even murmur that, it was such a whisper, the guard didn’t even pick up on it.
A few other tourists came up to the window, smiled upward at the tall Carlos, and asked a question, foolish almost she thought, but she asked it nonetheless, perhaps trying to stump the guard; she was Abigail from England, and she said said, “How many rivets were put into this massive project, which to my understanding is over fifty miles long, and took ten years or so to build?”
Old Carlos was proud of his astuteness, and happy was he to give her information, “You tell me why you want to know, and I’ll give you the answer!”
“My husband works on the docks in Shipeton, New Yorkshire,” Abigail Wallace, “and rivets his main duty to inspect on the ships.”
“It required Miss, six-million for the whole operation, and I should say the gates or the locks have buoyancy, as heavy as they are, and there is no leakage, because the space between the gate and the miter sill on the floor of the lock, prevented by a seal,” said Carlos.

As Abigail Wallace, looked down into the Canal, at the locks, George knew if she looked hard enough, it would be a sigh, a benediction with an ecstatic yelp, from this youthful beauty. For another instant, George W.G., tried to sway the young girl into a conversation, by saying,
“How was your dinner?” in lack of anything else, I mean even his voice was scrambled, this gray-haired man, and even the officer now touched his revolver, not even sure why he did, but what a question for the moment.
“So,” said the young woman, dismissing George and nodding her head to the guard, slowly,
“What is the first thing a ship encounters when it approaches the locks,” this covered up George’s stupid question, and with a sigh his arms, which he expressed with, fell unwound to his sides, his neck and eyes transfigured as if far away, fell upon the rowboat in the corner of the lock. The guard glanced at him, then said,
“Good question Miss, when a ship approaches the locks there is this giant chain stretched across its path. That chain is made of links of three inches in diameter; this will stop the ship that does not want to stop. It actually rams its nose into this chain, and then course such we have such things as hydraulics …” and he stopped right there, didn’t finish his sentence—
Now he repeated back what George W.G., had said, but did it savagely, as he was looking into the canal,
“Dinner you want to know what Miss Wallace had for dinner, so this is your idea of pirates, is that your friend down there?” a man was climbing on a rope up the leaf, with an American Flag. Carlos pulled his revolver out, carelessly, said,
“What an old fool I am!” and said it quietly, and called his commander, pointing the gun at George,
“Is that the best you can say: what did you have for dinner?” and he laughed, as his commander came running up, he was the Captain Juan Palma.
George was about to say something, and Carlos said, “Shut up!” and with that he turned to the man in the Canal, he was now scaling the gates, the lock, one leaf at a time, and an alarm went off, and the two men, the Captain and Carlos looked, took an abrupt glance pulling George with them, out of the café, and down to the platform where several security personal now cornered the gate in the Canal, guns pointed at the American, now holding the American flag for all the folks in the Café to see. Evidently he was trying to make a point; he had no weapons, just a flag, and his two hands holding it.
Had George W.G., Carlos and the Captain waited an instant longer they would have seen a killing, but only heard a sound, a not so unfamiliar sound to the security guard, Carlos, that brought an almost whole-hearted amused chuck into the arm waving folks in the café, who were cheering the soldiers on, giving vent to the moment.
“Well,” said Carlos, bringing George to a lower level section to be questioned, about his so called alleged friend, now dead, the one with the boat, he said genially, “You incurable half-wit, did you think you could dishonor us so,” and he smiled confidently.

“Why— obviously,” said George adding, “I was perfectly sure you would do what you did, and that is why Abigail has taken a movie of your killing of my friend, whom you just shot, gravely for the same reasons you complained, establishing your right over the canal. I’m glad you did shoot him, I thought you would. And so many folks thought you might be put into a compromising position! How foolish they were, and how right I was.”
But this didn’t seem to faze the Captain, or Carlos, or the few soldiers now guarding the entrance into this little underground cell.
The Captain answered George, with a step forward, unsteadily manner, saying, “Mr. George W.G., our purpose was always there, to steal, or appropriate the canal from you, and the American people, you just simple invented the means for us to do it by; your arrogance we all knew one day would ignite a cause and it did, which we used. You all live in a dollhouse up there in the north, it no longer matters anymore, how we did it, got it, now does it senor? pride, honor, or glory, we have it, it’s OURS.”
George’s eyes were blue, steel, to him a black-angel was stuffing nylon down his throat, he was thinking: was this all for nothing.

(Afterward) Many have come to such a crossroads only to find an iron bed waiting for them as did George and Miss Wallace, and of course a grave for the man on the locks, in the name of pride, honor and loyalty, in the name of a flag, the American flag in this case; only to find out that people pretend with one another, seeking warmth to be your friend, often turns out to be the spring door to disorder, ruin.



Written 7-31-2008