Where to begin with Frank Tilghman. As played by Kevin Tighe, silver-haired proprietor of the Double Deuce is a singularly unpleasant person to observe. He walks like a man who’s sneaking up on you even when he’s coming at you straight on. His smile is stuck in the “leer” setting. His eyes gleam with the dubious good cheer of a man who knows a secret enjoyable only to himself, like the retiree who leaves out bowls of antifreeze for the neighborhood cats, or the assistant manager at the Stop & Shop who occasionally rubs his genitals on the produce. He is the first main character we meet, when he shows up at the Bandstand to hire Dalton; anyone who doesn’t assume he’s the villain from his look and behavior during that sequence should be a prime target of the social-engineering hackers your office information-security training module warned you about. Yet he isn’t the villain, because somehow there’s an even weirder and more inappropriately chipper old man out there waiting for us.

But until we meet Brad Wesley, the only proof of Tilghman’s good intent we have—virtually our only glimpse of his interior self at all—is when he changes the word “FUCK” to “BUICK” in the graffiti next to the Double Deuce’s payphone.

I won’t say I know what you’re thinking, because when Tilghman’s the topic of discussion all thoughts are permitted. But you might be thinking “Changing an obscene lavatory-wall come-on into a classified ad for a used car isn’t necessarily Good Guy behavior. The whole thing smacks of Capital.” That much is true. It’s the way Tilghman goes about this completely ridiculous act of appropriation that indicates his true character.

After hanging up the dangling handset back in the cradle, he notices the vulgar legend “FOR A GREAT FUCK CALL 555-7617,” which stands out amid all the other crude scribbles (“KATHRN THE GREAT & MR. ED” is written in white nearby, for instance) due to its size and bright red color. Looking over his shoulder, as if he’s the dirty-minded solicitor who might get caught by the owner of the bar, he produces a black Sharpie, unconvincingly converts the “F” to “B,” and slips an “I” between the “U” and the “C.” Voila: FUCK is now BUICK. Somewhere out there, the Four Car Salesmen of Jasper, Missouri rest a bit easier. (They’re most likely in Jasper, Missouri, admittedly.)

Then, before smiling in self-satisfied fashion and walking away, comes the coup de grace: He adds a little dot over the “I.” Yes, everything is in all caps, and no, he doesn’t care. He’s going to dot his I’s and cross his T’s, goddammit, even if it costs him in terms of verisimilitude. A man with pretensions to class that unwavering is absolutely a man who’d hire a wandering philosopher-bouncer to clean the joint up for a mid-six-figure yearly salary with no ulterior motives whatsoever. I respect this strange man. Not enough to risk death every night so that his house band doesn’t have to play behind chicken wire for safety’s sake anymore, perhaps, but I respect him.