Screams Into the Abyss: An Ode to a Hat

It has been twenty years this month since I began wearing this piece of tanned cow meat on my head, and I thought I would write about it, because it played a significant role in the development of my identity and sense of self.

It was April 2001. I was 14 going on 15, and bullying throughout Middle School had left my ego utterly destroyed. I was still going by Michael, after all, it would be a few years before I chose to go by my birth name Suren, thereby accepting my birthright. I took band class during my Freshman year of High School, despite enduring three years with a sociopathic band teacher in Middle School who despite being a teacher seemed to hate teaching. Not a semester would go by where she wouldn’t make some poor kid cry in front of the class at least once. I suppose I was one of those kids once. I remember when I accidentally dropped and broke my clarinet, and she just screamed at me for it even though I was already upset. Another moment that stood out to me was her long-winded post-Columbine shooting speech. Someone had left their timer on in their instrument case, and she was afraid it was a bomb. She found out otherwise, but of course it was our fault she was paranoid because our generation is a bunch of soulless, emotionless, murderous robots. She said something along those lines. I could have taken shop class, or some other elective, but for some reason I was a glutton for punishment. The band teacher at my High School asked us to raise our hands if we’d had her as a teacher in Middle School. When we did, he sincerely apologized to us. She was that bad.

But had it not been for my continued dedication to being tormented in a class I really didn’t have to take, I would have never gotten my hat. Band class in High School was way better. The teacher was cool. He even had us bring in the music we listened to and he would tell us the tempo of the music. I brought in Rammstein and scared the whole class. How fun. Anyway, every year the band class did a big week-long trip on a cruise ship to Ensenada, Mexico, where we put on a band concert. I got to go for this trip, my first time outside the United States (well, barely outside of it). I had my portable CD player with me of course, and to this day listening to Rammstein’s Mutter album and System of a Down’s self titled album make me think of this trip. We were only actually in Mexico for a couple hours, mostly we were on the ship. Ensenada was a tourist trap, not like real Mexico. Beneath the artificiality of it I could sense the real poverty of the people living there, sadly. Some kid was selling candy on the side of the street, and I asked him for change for a twenty dollar bill and he just ran off with it. I was surprised, but not angry, really.

I went into a clothing store, and of course all the clothes was much cheaper than it would be in the US. They had a stand with leather hats on it, and I was immediately drawn to them. They were flat caps, technically. I can’t quite say why, but I think it was subconsciously because they reminded me of Fievel’s hat in An American Tail. Though 14-year-old me would never admit it, even to himself. This was during my “cartoons are lame and for babies” stage, which thankfully ended after High School.

I picked a hat that fit me, and from then on, my hat was like a part of my body. Inseparable. I would take it off to sleep or take a shower, or when it was raining and I had to protect it from moisture, but other than that I almost never took it off. No matter how hot it got outside. Yes, this was probably not advisable. But it was something I could construct a new identity around. It was part of who I was. I always wore it backwards, for some reason it always looked better that way. The leather bill is too floppy for it to be worn forward. I think other kids at school were envious, because I soon saw other people wearing this style of hat too. It didn’t start a full-blown trend, but it got people’s attention I think.

And over the years, I changed beneath the hat, while the hat remained the same. I’ve taken good care of it, and it hasn’t aged a day. It went with me on all my trips. I wore it in Florida, Armenia, Artsakh. It’s been everywhere I have been. In my twenties I started collecting other hats, and wearing those a bit more often as I began to dress in button-up shirts and a blazer, which the leather hat doesn’t really look good with. I have a trilby, a derby, a top hat, a Greek Fisherman’s Cap, and a British flat cap (made of wool not leather). But when I wear my traditional outfit (leather hat, black hoodie, jeans), I feel like my old self again. I feel 15 again. When I drew my self portrait for my art and prose page over on Facebook, I drew myself wearing it, because even though I don’t look as young anymore, that still represents me deep down.