Return to the DHS

I am drinking red wine out of a Dixie cup, hoping the astringency will melt the chicken fat off my lips. Akwete has gotten so tall in the last year. He is playing on the merry-go-round with the other young Hats, but he doesn't look like one of them anymore; he looks like an rambunctious uncle as he digs his heels into the tiny rocks, shoving the metal cage faster and faster until their baby faces are different shades of pink and green. He waves a long arm at me from across the park, then recommences spinning for the few survivors of the last whirlwind. The older Hats are playing horseshoes and sitting around sipping coke and beer awkwardly from cans. Passersby, such as the spandex clad speedwalkers who just shuttled past, take in our odd little group, their cocked eyebrows revealing their efforts to classify us, a multi-national group of young and old doing our best to eat fried chicken like your family might. I imagine they label us a church group or forget about us altogether once their sightline is directed at a different horizon by the winding path. They all keep scanning the sky with expectant glances and neglecting conversation in order to watch the road for a sudden upkick of dust.
Milo's supposed to be coming, the most impressive Hat of my generation and the heir to the founder of the Danger Hat Society, his great uncle Chet Whittier. Milo's a strapping young lad--the kind Martine makes the habit of secretly sticking used chewing gum to and ashing out cigarettes on. Sadly, she's home in Montreal caring for her sick parrot and so I am left alone to roll my eyes at the anticipated arrival.
"Do you know if there's any butter left?"
Fern Willoughby, a doddering excuse for an adventurer, stares up at me through her cataracts. I shrug my shoulders, and glance away. I am uncomfortable with the perils of aging, and the shiny scales that are staring up at me seem foghorn warning me of a nearing coastline of arthritic fingers and susceptible hip bones.
"Well, that blows," she says dropping an ear of corn to the ground like a used tissue.
This graceful statement distracts me from the herald a herald of Milo's anticipated arrival, the staccato sound of his motorbike cresting the least hill of the drive.
"He's here!" she squawks, and shuffles over to the main group of Hats whose voices have turned similarly birdlike.
"I hope he brought potato salad. And butter" I mumble. The slowly walk over to join the welcoming committee. After years of stories of his conquest, I expect Milo to be chiseled from Mayan gold. But from this distance, he looks rather slight and consumptive as he slides from the seat of his bike. He fusses a bit with a leather pouch at the rear, and then begins to walk toward his adoring public. I engage myself in the red gingham pattern if the vinyl tablecloth, playing hopscotch with my fingers. You should know, I become a mope in the presence of superiority. And now the old-timers are letting out some sort of Hip-Hip-Hurrah nonsense, which they've never done for me even though, even on a birthday, even though I restock their candy bars and chips and put pillows under their drooling heads when they pass out playing backgammon in the DHS Room. The sound of their pride swells with each step Milo takes towards them, building to a fervor I'm sure these folks haven't experienced since, well, I'm not so good with history, but I'm sure it involved a ticker tape parade. It would be rude to cover my ears, but I start to anyway so I can retreat to my brain where I am the strongest and most beautiful Hat to ever grace the Society. That's when I hear it, a low moan and a thud. When I turn around, Milo's face down in an extinguished barbecue pit and the Hats are swarming over him like the ants atop Fern's discarded corn.