The Cop Hat

The Queen of Guilford and for a moment now a cop.

The Cop Hat

We knew it was coming. Dorothy's father was a retired Cincinnati Police officer, who I'm sure had chased me many times while I was a teen. We never really knew because I never got caught. Ha-ha.

Donny, her brother, inherited the hat and made the mistake of bringing it down to the kitchen to see if it would fit me.

It wouldn't fit him, and on my head it looked like a tiny party hat. Their mother, Juanita, could wear it, and before Donny could grab it back from her, Dorothy scooped it away and put it on her head. It was a perfect fit, but then....her face got real serious like it did when as the Queen she would sentence some peasant to be dragged through the creek. Or like it did when she put on any hat. She assumed the mentality of that occupation. Shrinks may call it something like adaptive role; we just called it being a nut.

Donny and I knew her history with hats and we tried to run out of the room and up the steps because we knew trouble was coming. 

"Freeze," she yelled.

We stopped and looked at each. Greta, our family Doberman, sat next to her leg.

"Stay, Ripper," she said.

"Who is Ripper?" Juanita said.

"Did these two felons try to rob you, maam?" Dorothy said to her mother.

"What?" her mom said.

"She's part of our gang," Donny said. "The leader. We call her Ma Bogie."

"Yeah, that's right," I answered. "Just like the old Ma Barker gang."

"Up against the wall, scumbags," Dorothy yelled, reaching for cop gear that wasn't there.

"I'll whup your ass with a switch," Juanita said. "I can still do it, you know."

Greta suddenly came over with a ball in her mouth.

"Traitor," Dorothy said. "I think all of you should spend a night in the box."

The box was the castle dungeon.

We all looked at each other, even Ma Bogie.

"We have to get that damn hat back now."

We rushed her, even Juanita. The dog went crazy running in a circle. Donny grabbed the hat and sprinted upstairs to hide it. Dorothy wanted to know why she was sitting on the floor with her mother on top of her.

"You were playing with Greta," I said.

Soon she was back to what we consider normal in our house.

We usually prayed to all the gods and burned all hats in a fire pit, but since it was their father's hat, we hid it in the attic so Dorothy wouldn't arrest anyone who came into the house.

We had avoided another disaster.