Hats

I.

“Once, when he was about five or six, his father and I walked into our bedroom and there he was: standing in front of the big mirror on my dresser, a pair of my blue pantyhose on his head.” My mother loves to tell this story — especially when there’s a crowd of people around. Her telling is usually followed by many witty comments as all heads turn toward me, seeking further explanation.

I’ve begrudgingly learned to marvel at the way my mother can work a conversation around to a point where she can casually drop this story in, as if it were the most logical thing to say. I like to think there are altruistic motives behind her telling of the story, though I think she simply finds my blushing cheeks amusing.

I address the assembled group. “I was trying to make a hat, like one I’d seen in a Sleeping Beauty storybook I had.”

This only adds to the general mirth.

“It was a medieval hat. A woman’s hat. The women had tall cone hats with a little scarf flapping at the point. One or two of the women in the drawing had hats with two points. I was going to make two cones and slide them into the legs. The feet of the pantyhose would dangle like the scarfs.”

More laughter. “I made a The Flying Nun hat too.”

Someone usually asks my mother, “Is that when you knew he was gay?”

II.

My mother doesn’t often share the rest of the story, the part where she turned to my father and said “Do you think he’s one of those?”

My father replied, “He’s our son. It won’t matter if he is or isn’t. We’ll still love him.”

I was too young to know what one of those was.

III.

I loved watching Sally Field as The Flying Nun. I faithfully watched the reruns every afternoon. One 1afternoon the words of one episode suddenly penetrated my consciousness. Sally was explaining how it was that she could fly: because she was small, didn’t weigh very much, and the nun’s hat caught the gusts of wind. That afternoon, when I was about eight, I realized that I, too, was small and didn’t weigh very much. All I would need was a hat like Sally Field” and I could fly!

It took me about a week to find some thin cardboard to make the hat. Sally’s nun hat flapped and, box cardboard was too thick. I happened to see the janitor at school unpacking some supplies from a carton made of thinner material. He gladly let me take the cardboard.

I ran home that afternoon and set about making the hat. It was a bit tricky, trying to get the rounded part just right, but a few staples helped. It wasn’t until after I made the hat that I realized I had no idea how to keep it on my head. I finally came up with a plan: a band, made out of the same cardboard, and then taped underneath the hat. The homemade nun hat sat on my head, crown-like.

Finally, a windy day arrived. I stood in the middle of the backyard and carefully put the hat on my head. I stretched my arms out and lifted my head upward just like Sally Field did.

The hat blew off.

After some thought, I went into the house and came back outside with a roll of masking tape. I made loops of tape, sticky side out. I stuck the loops to the inside of the band. Then I placed the hat back on my head. The loops of tape stuck to the sides of my head and my hair.

Again I stood, posed like Sally Field, waiting for the wind to carry me up and over the rooftop.

IV.

“Is that when you realized he was gay?” My mom usually smiles and manages to avoid answering the question directly, leaving most people to take her smile as an affirmative answer.

A boy with blue pantyhose on his head — it’s easy to make an assumption.

Or the boy who made a nun’s hat.

A hat with two points let me imagine that I’d be noticed because my hat was different.

V.

I knew I felt different.

And Sally Field’s nun hat made me imagine that I could fly away, to a place where I wouldn’t be different. 

The hats had nothing to do with being gay. Gayness isn’t about nun’s hats or pantyhose. The hats were simply things that captured my imagination.

I never did make the two-pointed hat. 

I did, however, grow up to be one of those.