In the Shadow of the First National Bank

The first national bank building looks like it teleported into the dusty redbrick main street where I grew up. It's a white marble temple jutting up from a brace of low, squat western wear shops, bars, a medical supply place, and the ghost signs of other, older, businesses painted on their walls. Echoes of hotels, of feed stores, of saddle shops thick with the smell of waxed leather.

The bank must have seemed like the eighth wonder when it was raised. Back then, there wasn't any Glass Steagall, so banks were the biggest sellers of the commonist kind of stock. I wonder how many farmers made the trip. Went in with a wad of cash and came out with embossed certificates promising an easier life. The gleaming white building had an effect on them. I know it did. I grew up in its shadow.

I was never a believer but I grew up believing in big piles of marble. And the knowledge that somewhere, far in the hazy distance, there were bigger piles yet. There was a Supreme Court bending the arc towards justice. There were men in suits weighing and measuring the greatest good. There was a CDC, poised, ready to pounce on the first sign of Ebola, ready to jump into their hazmat suits and cover a whole town in Visqueen plastic if need be.

We—I—believed these things. I'd like to believe in them again.