Hat Cart

By Emily Bollman

I’m outside, working, at my job, which is to sell hats off an old wooden cart. It’s my dream job! For real. I grew up passing The Iconic Hat Cart on Pearl Street Mall my entire life. It’s known far and wide by all Boulderites and I am the keeper of it’s keys. Working here, I get to sit outside all summer; people watching and peddling hats! Amazing. As a 19-year-old reeling from her freshman year of college: This niche menial work is ideal.

Every morning I have to roll this big wooden cart from it’s dusty garage and then up 2 brick laden blocks where I park it at it’s everyday spot. It kind of looks like an old, pilgrim-y, covered wagon with these big spoke wheels and a green canvas covering. It’s a formidable size too. I asked the owner how much it weighed and he told me 2 tons! You’re telling me I have to roll this 2-ton mother fucker uphill every morning? At first I struggled, but with time and determination I got stronger and my movements got quicker, and I was really good at it! Like, sooo smooth, but that’s not what people see from the outside. From the outside they see a small sweaty girl moving a 2-ton cart all by herself. And weirdly, for some reason this is like, an invitation for men to attempt chivalry and ask if I need help. Which is nice, but my answer is always “NO, FUCK OFF.” Okay, I don’t actually say that but I always decline their offer. Their asking makes me feel a little worthless. Like I’m incapable of strength as a woman. 60% of the time they get it and leave me alone. 30% of the time they ask “are you sure?” to which I actually respond with, and I love doing this: “This is my job. Let me do my job.” But about 10% of the time they won’t take no for an answer and just start pushing the cart with me. Nothing pisses me off more than this!

I have a baaaaad taste in my mouth for men. I don’t like them, I don’t rely on them, I don’t need them… Just looking at a hot dog makes me angry, okay? And I have so much anger… I haven’t spoken to my father in a LOOOOONG time. My parents went through a garbage fire explosion of a divorce leaving our family broken and my whole perception of men as “good guys” completely shattered. At 14 years old I personally emancipated myself from him and decided I was fine with never seeing him ever again. It would be my tragedy, my melancholy strength, and one day I would make this tragedy a work of art! I cling to my daddy issues as a form of validation, sure. Latching onto hate as an identity isn’t ideal… but it makes me a somebody. And I’ve only grown stronger from it. 5 years it’s been since my dad and I have talked. 5 years it’s been that I have not been able to trust a man. So when a man comes up to my hat cart and tries to do my fucking job...: I SNAP! One time I snapped at this guy SO bad, just lit into this man like a firework up his dick hole; he came back a few hours later with a written apology. Take THAT patriarchy!

Funnily enough my cart sits next to the hot dog cart. Yeah that irony is not lost on me bitch. Today the sun is ripping into Pearl street so hard I can smell hot dog juice fwafting my direction. It’s probably 90+ degrees outside; but I’ve got unlimited access to floppy hats that ward the sun off my face which has collected an impressive amount of freckles. Very cute. No one wants to be out in this heat so I’m just chillin’ with a book, really getting into it. In fact, I’m so into it that I don’t even notice the man standing in front of me.

“Um, miss, how do I look in this hat?” I tilt my head up expecting some creepy mall guy but instead I am met with my dad. He’s standing there, jingling in a silly jester hat we put out to draw people to the cart. What a fitting choice because… He looks like a fool. Are you kidding me? How do you look in that hat? You look like every man I’ve hated in that hat. You look like 5 years of trust issues in that hat. You look like a man who destroyed his family and didn’t look back in that hat. You look like a grotesque version of a father I loved dearly and deeply until my whole world fell apart and plunged into frozen darkness in that hat. You look like a scared little boy waiting for answers that I am not prepared to give.

I’m stunned. In the past when he’d show up at my events (uninvited of course) I was able to escape out the back door. He came to every play, every home game, every graduation so I’d gotten good at the art of paternal evasion. I’d leave and have my panic attack and deal with it later in my nightmares. After half a decade though we’d settled into a routine where he stayed in the shadows so I could have my moment in the sun. He knew not to approach me then, so why, on this unremarkable day, do I see him standing before me.

“Give me a moment” I said, slipping out of my chair and shaking to the other side of the cart. I’m completely alone here. I can’t escape. I can’t leave the hats unguarded… I am a captive audience. Check mate. It was fight or flight and flight was not an option so I put on my man hating façade, and rounded to the other side of the cart.

“This is so not cool.” I say, furrowing my brows so hard they could have held up a picture frame. I want to scare him. I want to destroy him in this moment like he destroyed my life 5 years ago. I have been practicing the art of tearing men down all summer and this was the ultimate test. I want to say “You look pathetic.” “I never want to see you again.” “Go away and get the fuck out of my life,” but my shaking only intensifies.

“We had to break the ice at some point.” His voice is fettered with fear. I could hear quick little audible gasps rising and falling in the back of his throat.

Break the ice? The ice that he spoke of, the ice he wanted to break, was miles deep. Practically impenetrable. I ripped his presence out of my heart and replaced it with that ice. It turned the rest of me cold but I need that pain to be something! I don’t know anything else. The way he stood there though… Looking at me like a child in that silly hat, like a living memory… And I am suddenly a child again too, confused and sad. Protecting myself with hate but peeking through the curtain to catch him sitting there in the audience; always there for me in the only way he could be: From a distance. But, still, he never gave up on me.  By showing up here today he risked losing the only far away window he had into my life. He was terrified.

Maybe I had been lying to myself all this time or maybe it was just a really hot day, but something happened that surprised me more than him showing up that day. I gave him a second chance. Instead of tearing him down and running away from him, I ran to him and let him back into my life. Ever since then I haven’t had to fight to be something. Because my dad never stopped fighting for me, it showed me that I was something worth fighting for. He showed me I was worth something, and it is never too late for forgiveness. The end.

Copyright © 2020 by Emily Bollman