There’s a fellow in downtown Lewiston who looks quite a lot like Peter Lorre. I don’t mean young, marginally creepy, Peter Lorre. I’m talking the full-blown bogeyman Lorre, with eyes bulging like plums and a voice that sounds like steam escaping from a pipe. Every word he utters is like the hiss of an asp.

Peter Lorre: “Nice weather we’re having.”

Me: “Please, don’t kill me and steal my organs!”

I run into the local Peter Lorre quite often in and around Kennedy Park. No matter what the context or hour of day, it’s always a frightening encounter. Local Peter Lorre will offer a basic greeting and I’ll wait for him to pull out a large, white cat and begin stroking its fur. I expect that with a snap of his gnarled fingers, he might summon Bela Lugosi, Boris Karloff and Vincent Price, who will then usher me to some chamber of terrors deep beneath the city.

I probably had it coming.

In spite of his ghoulish attributes, Local Peter Lorre is a nice man and he’s a fixture, another thread in the suspiciously stained quilt that is Lewiston. He belongs here. And now that I’ve given “Casablanca” a long look, I understand why that is: Lewiston IS Casablanca.

I went to see the film recently at the State Theatre in Portland. You know how I love that culture and crap. And 15 minutes into the flick, I began to see it. Take away the bow ties, the expensive liquor and nine-tenths of the romance, and there you have it: Lewiston, Maine in black and white.

Casablanca is a dense, crowded place from which many are trying to escape. Everybody has a scheme, a few cards tucked up the sleeve. Most people are running from something and toward something else. Their very purpose is to get what they need through any means possible. They survive by trickery and sleight of hand.

Friends betray friends. Enemies are forced to live in close quarters. Circumstances have trapped them here so they bide their time with vice — booze, gambling, sex with someone else’s wife. Everywhere you turn there is a con. Even the good guys are working some secret plot and they’ll cash you in like chips from the poker table. You can’t get away from it. In CasaLewiston, there is not enough room to run away from anything.

“Of all the pawn shops, in all the towns, in all the world, she walks into mine.”

There is not much fresh about CasaLewiston. The same crooks keep coming back, bad pennies that turn up over and over. Police are always rounding up the usual suspects. They always know where to look for them. Where are they going to go in CasaLewiston? It’s hard to hide in a fish bowl.

At the theater in Portland, I sat in my trench coat and fedora muttering “Nyah. Nyah, see?” Because I recognized so many of the characters on the screen.

Never mind that I sound more like Cagney with the flu then Bogart.

The wise-cracking Capt. Renault? I know that guy. He’s on the police force. He’s been around CasaLewiston so long, he knows all the games and all the players. He knows that you can’t break your back trying to change things, because CasaLewiston is like a living organism that evolves at its own pace. And that pace is glacial.

The dashing rebel Paul Henreid? I know him, too. He’s the passionate fellow who always seems to be in the thick of a protest, a rally, a fight against the system. He feeds on causes the way a frog feeds on bugs. He’s got a good heart but sometimes you want to tell him to lighten the hell up. To go on over to Rick’s Cafe and have a snootful, maybe play some blackjack. He’ll get the girl at the end, but you won’t cheer for him. He’s too political to ever be lovable. Henreid is a vital ingredient to the questionable stew that is CasaLewiston. You kind of wish he wasn’t.

And what about that Ilsa, huh? She’s sexy, she’s worldly, she’ll slit your throat while you sleep if she has to. Because nothing of great beauty can stay pure in a world like CasaLewiston. She’s become hard and conniving, every bit as sly as a jungle creature. She’s pretty to look at, but she’ll break your heart AND your thumbs.

Dames, huh? What are you going to do?

CasaLewiston is not a place to which people come for leisure. If you’re here, it’s by necessity. If you need something badly or you have something to unload, this is the place to be. In Casablanca, men from all over the world meet in smoky back rooms to peddle traveling papers, just like they meet in Lewiston to unload bags of crack from New York, Boston, Hartford, Providence. CasaLewiston is a means to an end and the end is sometimes grim. If you don’t stay sharp here, son, you might stumble and the consequences could be dire.

“Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow,” I tried to tell a crack dealer on Birch Street. “But soon and for the rest of your life.”

Nearly lost my fedora running away.

I like to think I’m Bogart in this local script, an embattled cynic who’s given up hope for humanity. A man trying to convince himself he doesn’t believe in his heart. I’m the only cause I believe in.

But of course, everyone thinks they’re Bogart when, in fact, most of us are just nameless characters sitting at tables, barely visible through the haze. We don’t even get listed in the stupid credits. We’re just tiny parts that make up the grand sum of CasaLewiston.

Even so, if you intend to stay here, it is wise to keep your friends close and your enemies closer. I know that’s what I do. The more you rail against me, the closer we become.

I have many a friend in CasaLewiston. But somehow, just because you despise me, you are the only one I trust.

Mark LaFlamme, aka “Rick,” is a Sun Journal staff writer. He welcomes e-mail from CasaLewiston characters at [email protected].