I tell Tizi,“I want a hat like that.”
We’re on the second level of Somerset, a local mall. It’s a chi-chi place that used to be called “The Collection.” That chi-chi. We’ve come to buy a birthday present for a friend. When we get off the escalator a woman walks by us wearing an almost perfect summer hat. It looks like it’s made of canvas. It’s tan, with a two-inch brim and a short band all the way around the dome.
“You want to look like a little Chinese grandma?” Tizi asks.
We’ve had this conversation. She looks great in hats. She has always said so, and it’s true, but she doesn’t feel the need to wear a hat for decorative purposes. She doesn’t accessorize in that way (or in any way). Hat for her is functional. When I see the hat this woman is wearing, I travel back in time, to 10 years of age. It’s summer and I’m wearing a hat like that around home and up at the lake. My hat was better than this woman’s hat. Mine wasn’t tan. It wasn’t canvas. It was cream-colored cotton, lightweight. You could fold it up and stuff it in your back pocket. The band around the dome was blue paisley. We called a hat like that a jonesy. I’ve since learned it’s a bucket hat.
She says now, “I wouldn’t go anywhere with you if you wore a hat like that.”
That summer I was signed up to go to boy scout camp. My brother two years older had gone the previous year. It was my turn. He wasn’t going back, which for me was proof. No fun. It was a long, perfect summer. I bombed around town on my bike with friends. We built forts down by the river behind our house. We played baseball on the vacant lot across the street and on the ball diamond over behind the elementary school. I wore my jonesy all day.
As camp week drew near there was a small outbreak of ringworm. My brother and I got it, our dog got it, a few friends as well. Mine was the worst case. I had it on my stomach, on my arms, and on the back of my head. A round bald spot began to form back there. It got bigger and bigger. When I started to look like a monk, my parents grew concerned. My mother took me to a dermatologist down in Saginaw. He was a gruff old guy named Dr. Hand. He scraped at my bald spot and made the diagnosis. The cure was a greasy black ointment my mother rubbed on my head. To hold it in place, to prevent it from getting too warm and running down the back of my neck, Dr. Hand told me to wear a hat.
I had a hat.
And I now had a reason not to go to scout camp.
After a few days, the top of my jonesy was stained black. My mother said there was no point in ruining another hat. She said not to worry, she could wash my jonesy. She washed my dad’s hats. I’d see them washed and drying, stretched on pans in the kitchen. When my hair started to grow back around the time school started, my jonesy was a lost cause. We threw the hat away. I guess I’ve never got over it.