Seeking Models of Manhood Part II

Bernie Madoff, one of the biggest and
most notorious of the “juega vivos” of
modern times was recently sentenced to
150 years in prison for his leadership in
defrauding and ruining thousands of investors.
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One day, without much thought, I simply sat at a small table Clyde kept in a corner that was equipped with a lamp or an alcohol burner of sorts which he used for heating up wax. I had suddenly become the “Wax Man,” since it appeared as though Clyde’s clientèle had multiplied to the extent where he was hard pressed to keep up with it.

He was quickly turning out the plaster impressions and I had learned to do the intricate wax work, filling the impressions with the wax which would accommodate the teeth blanks. My work had to be accurate since the precision of the wax mold was what turned out a good fit for the client. The final product, as a result, was mighty impressive if I did say so myself and seemed to keep all his clients satisfied and coming back. All of the “jobs” I had been taking up from his “in box” I would complete and leave for him to inspect. “These are all good, Juni!” he would say quite nonchalantly.

Although I was finally learning something more challenging to me and working alongside grown men I, in fact, noticed that the progress I was showing in learning the trade of dentistry was not really respected or recognized. As a person of some basic integrity, however, I continued to frequent the place never expecting to be paid, but noting the avaricious nature of some of these men who continued to thrive with my added participation and never so much as gave me an encouraging nickel, or a lift to my sense of self confidence that I so needed at the time. For the hours of intense bench work at the table, sometimes seven or eight hours straight, I never received so much a glass of cold water or an occasional “thank you.”

But then, I was caught up in a time- the beginning of the 50’s by now- when young men such as me should have been the heirs and representatives of the future Westindians and yet we were totally left out of the lives of the generation we were supposed to follow. There were no signs of that special communication between generations especially of what an assimilated Westindian Panamanian like me should become in the future.

Such responsibilities would soon enough fall upon the shoulders of the many Juniors of my time, it seemed, as we all approached that social fickleness that the Panamanian social fabric would invariably demand of us- the “juega vivo“ legacy.

The “juega vivo” epitomizes the attitude of the opportunist who takes advantage of his advantage and usually uses negative aggression towards his selfish ends. To the “juega vivo” the ends always justifies the means. Whether we ascribe this to Panama’s American cultural legacy or not, it is the attitude that has survived to this day and it permeates all relationships in Panamanian culture.

The Westindian Diaspora in a country such as Panama, in which Westindian blacks were always viewed as foreigners, was then a black community that was totally Westindian, English Speaking with the unmistakable Caribbean inflection that characterized it. It also, by now, had left its distinct cultural and spiritual stamp on our isthmian society. For me, the road to total integration seemed at times very arduous when I looked around for masculine models to anchor myself on although I recognized that I had no other choices.

Nevertheless, for all the Juniors of the popular barrios in those days, there was no question that we that we weren’t totally integrated- we felt it; we were everywhere it seemed. In the interim we were experiencing some changes to our environment, noticing a deterioration of that neighborhood life style that had helped bring us into adolescence.

These changes, at first subtle, were, in fact, due to the influx of people from the countryside who were beginning to move into the already over taxed slums I had become so used to and were now showing the inevitable signs of decline of the “cosmopolitan” urban lifestyle that we, the Westindians had helped to establish.

We, the young Westindians men and women who had been waiting their turn to enter the workforce as our forefathers once did and remain Panamanian were meeting up with a rejecting attitude. We were generally suffering being rebuffed by both Canal Zone and Panamanian governments. Things such as scholarships for excellent Westindian students would be something they would never see.

Life in the country of Panama for Westindian youth had not shown any positive changes, or so it seamed, since those who had come before us had once seen the same rejecting attitudes surface. The Juniors of my time were seeing and feeling that the same treatment was in store for us and our children. Our aunts and uncles who had been the youth in those not too distant years gone by were still struggling in almost the same way.

Gone, however, and thank God for that, were the days for young Westindian blacks kids to live a life of being locked up in one room tenement apartments feeling isolated and abandoned.

This story continues.