The Newsboy Hat

Nonfiction

Before I met and fell for Sandra, it had been at least forty years since I’d dressed up at Halloween or for any costume party. That’s what other people did. Not me. Silly nonsense, that.

But that first year of our togetherness, staggeringly soused on love or lust or whatever that is when we fall ass over teacups, I found myself transformed, standing in front of the mirror, puffing my chest out in an old red band uniform tunic with gold buttons and braid. My greying goatee and eyebrows were blackened by Sandra’s mascara, my cheeks painted pink. I was headed for the Tango Society’s costume party as a toy soldier, accompanied by a red headed princess in a flowing white gown. And I had fun. I’d been reluctant to go along with being dressed up as anything but me, but, once at the party of demons, scarecrows, clowns, and astronauts, I felt so—Lord forbid!—NORMAL that I quickly developed a reasonable tolerance for such things.

And since then, I’ve been made up as all manner of being, from the Devil himself to Groucho Marx accompanied by Sandra’s Harpo. Then, a couple of years ago, a friend moved into a condo in a huge old building with an elegant Art Deco lobby. When a second friend moved in, an idea was born to have an annual Tea and Tango milonga, a tango party, in that beautiful lobby.  We’d all dress in 1920s style, of course. For the past two years, I’ve worn tie and tails. This year, however, feeling tired and crotchety, settling into my semi-retirement, for some reason I absolutely did not fancy dressing up or even going. I’m like that sometimes. A grump. Each time Sandra brought costumes up, I mumbled that I’d get around to it later. Finally, though, the party was two days away and I hadn’t done a thing, had barely thought about it except to actively avoid the subject.

“I’ll go to that costume shop,” I said, “and see if I can trade my tails for a set that fits better. The waist on mine is cut too high and I feel odd with the cummerbund so far below it.”

I figured I’d pull something together last minute, or—better yet—find a way to duck out of going and stay home with Millie, a little dachshund I was dogsitting.

“I don’t think that place exists anymore,” she said. “Linda and I went looking for it the other day and no luck,”

I picked up my phone and searched “1920s men’s fashion pictures” and up came all sorts of drawings and photos. Men in tuxedos, men canoeing with pretty women in bobbed hair, gangsters wearing suspenders and fedoras. I liked what I saw, but fedoras are out for me. My head is too big, not just metaphorically, and I’m too short. In a fedora, I’d only come across as a gangland version of Yosemite Sam. But then a page came up with photos of tommy gun-toting gangsters wearing vests and newsboy hats. The gang rank and file, a guy up from the streets, appealed to me. The vest hanging in my closet popped into mind. A newsboy hat could be just the thing—if I had one.

“Check Macy’s.” Sandra said. “Or Ragstock. There’s one at the mall.”

That’s the mall near where we live. I doubted that Macy’s or Nordstrom’s or any store at the mall would have newsboy hats, but I have reason to disbelieve my own sense of what stores will carry and to trust Sandra’s. I drove to the mall.

Did I mention that I hate going to the mall, any mall? The lighting, the white noise, the smells—all of that has been known to give me migraines. I went anyway and managed to find menswear at Macy’s and from there accessories, where one finds things like hats. I found very nice fedoras, none big enough for me, for about eighty bucks. The so-called touring caps I found were wrong. Where there should have been a snap, the designers had sewn the extra volume to the brim. There were only a couple of these anyway, and in sizes far too small for my extra-large head. Beyond those two styles—fedoras and useless touring caps—all they had were boring old ball caps. I could go on and enumerate each of the stores I checked out over the next two hours, but this was as good as it got at the mall. I’d just wasted half an afternoon when I could have been reading in my favorite chair or taking a nice walk with Millie.

“We’ll go out to the Mall of America tomorrow morning,” Sandra said when I finally dragged myself home. “I’m sure we can find something at that Macy’s or one of the other stores.” She exuded a great confidence. I wasn’t so sure.

But the next morning, after navigating through miles of road construction, I found myself looking at the same merchandise at Macy’s, then Nordstrom’s, then H and M, then Eddie Bauer, etc., etc., ad annoyium. After one or two stores, all the stuff looks the same to me And they all sell those stupid ball caps. It took far too long to arrive at nowhere.

But we didn’t give up.

We did what we should have done in the first place. We started hitting the vintage shops, which meant managing lots and lots of detours around more and more road construction. “I had one yesterday,” one shop owner told us, “but someone came in and bought it.” At the next, a retooled White Castle that used to sell accordions, the owner thought he might have a newsboy hat in the unsorted jumble in his basement. He said he’d go down there in a day or two to see, but I told him we needed it before then. Thanks anyway. It went like that until we got to a great place called the Corner Store on a busy, hip stretch of Lake Street (also torn up and jumbling traffic for road construction). We’ve bought all sorts of costume accessories there over the years, but not this time. They had very few hats at the moment. The guy at the cash register wrote down three more leads for us, though, places we otherwise would not have known about.

I decided to look into these myself. I was starting to get testy with Sandra, who was the good-natured, innocent victim of my worsening mood. Tea and Tango was that evening, and Sandra had to help decorate and generally make things work. Besides that, my search was cutting into the time I felt I should spend taking care of Millie, who we’d left with a water bowl and some food at home. So I took Sandra home to do what she needed to do and put Millie in the car to go track down our new leads. It was 12:30. For complicated logistical reasons, I needed to drive Sandra to that lovely Art Deco lobby at three, then drive home for a rest and time to get dressed, then drive back to the party. If I was going to find a newsboy hat, it would have to be now.

The first place on the new list looked promising enough, tucked into a quiet neighborhood and next to a funky coffee house. It seemed just the sort of place that would have what I wanted. I cracked the car’s windows for Millie, patted her on the head, told her I’d be right back, and confidently strode up to the store. “SEE YOU IN A COUPLE WEEKS,” a hand drawn sign on the door announced. So Millie and I set off through more blocked streets and detours for the next place.

Which wasn’t exactly vintage. All they had were T-shirts and ball caps.

On to number three, my last chance.

 And this one had lots of hats! Wide brimmed straw hats, women’s turquoise or orange or green hats like royal confections, bowlers, garrison caps from the Second World War, hats with lace veils, cowboy hats, pith helmets, berets, but, alas, not a newsboy hat in sight. The look I wanted was not to be.

 There would be no newsboy hat for me that night. I drove home tired and irritable. I had never been into this party this time around, and now I would not have the accessory that would give at least some spark to my otherwise not-terribly-1920s outfit. I grumpily conceded to Sandra that what I already had would just have to do.

“We started looking too late,” she said, which I interpreted as an admonishment.

 “I don’t want to hear another word about it,” I snapped and went upstairs to flop onto the bed. Millie curled up next to me.

We couldn’t stay like that for long, though. It was soon time to drop Sandra off at the party site. After a day of driving here and driving there, accomplishing nothing, now I had to drive Sandra across town through road closures and detours and the slow, heavy traffic of stops and waits and red lights and stalled cars. I was convinced that every other driver on the streets that day had bought their driver’s license from some guy selling them out of a van at a flea market. They were all doing everything wrong, inconveniencing me at every turn or traffic light. By the time we’d unloaded all the vats and bags of party paraphernalia Sandra had stacked into my car—by the time I’d done that and then driven back to the house—I just wanted to forget the whole damned thing.

I took Millie for a walk, let her sniff here and there, and do her business, which I collected in a plastic bag. I could have happily snuggled up with her on the couch and watched television the rest of the day.

But…

Taking a breath, I reminded myself that being with Sandra has been, along with the birth of my son, the happiest time of my life, and this party was simply what we were doing that day with our friends. Love calls us to the things of this world. Shopping for what you cannot find and making do with what you have is, in fact, very much of this world.

I showered and shaved, put on my best pants, a pink dress shirt, my vest, and found a nice tie. Not bad. Not very 1920s maybe, but not bad. We had a wonderful evening dancing, joking with friends, and admiring each other’s outfits.

 Funny what a difference getting busy—putting your mood aside and just getting on with it—can make.