Top Hat (Changes)

This story will be included in my book Changes, scheduled release late November 2025.

 “Nice hat, my man!”

“Looking sharp!”

“Love the cape!”

“You’re so unique!”

“Nice shoes!”

“Whoop whoop! Cool lid, bro!”

 

My given name is Jim. You can call me Top Hat.

I spent a lot of my life being ignored or bullied, from childhood until I moved to Portland at the age of 46. The only attention I got for most of my life was hurtful, but I acted out because negative attention is better than not being seen at all. Other kids would pick on me because I was different, especially in high school. Teachers and administrators brushed it off because the bullies were football players and the sons of wealthy farmers. I got the last laugh, though.

I like to look good, like men used to. I wear a three-piece suit and a tie every day, no matter what that day may hold. Sometimes I’ll put my red and black satin cape over everything. I carry a cane with a silver skull on the top. But my pride and joy, my crowning glory, if you will, is my hat.

It is, of course, a top hat, and uniquely decorated by my own hand. There are steel spikes on the top and two horn-like spikes sticking out in the front. Between the horns is a red Hatchet Man. The sides are decorated in ornate patches of black leather. The hatband was made from a belt. I never leave home without it. Nobody in the world has a hat like this. I get complimented on it a lot. Like, several times a day. This thing draws attention, is what I’m saying. More attention than I realized. I got a call from my sister Jo one day about a year after I moved to Portland.

“Bro!” she began, practically vibrating with excitement. “This post came up on my Facebook feed. It’s you, dude! There’s a picture where you’re bowing and holding your cape out. The caption says ‘Do you know this man?’ and there was a link to a Top Hat fan page, I shit you not. They have all kinds of pictures of you, and your fans live everywhere from Salem to Seattle! Hell, they may even know you in Canada by now. But nobody is claiming to know who you really are yet. I know you like the anonymity that comes with fame, so there’s no way I’m going to say anything. I don’t think anyone else is going to out you, either. Everyone who knows you also knows better.”

Jo was right; I wanted everyone to know who I was without anyone knowing who I was. I wanted to go incognito sometimes by putting on jeans, a t-shirt, and a baseball cap. Backwards. (I own more suit jackets than t-shirts.) Nobody would give me a second glance. After a couple of months went by and nobody outed me, I started to relax a little.

Well, as I said, glances and pictures were in abundance, as well as compliments and even requests for a selfie like I was Ozzy or something. Nobody asked for my real name.

To see what Jo was talking about, I signed up for a Facebook account under an assumed name and found the fan page. Holy shit. Pictures of me from every angle, with and without the cape but wearing my singular hat in every shot. Sometimes I was just walking along and rocking out to an ICP song, sometimes I noticed the photographer and posed for them.

I saw the post asking if anyone knew me, and noticed that everyone had seen me or heard of me, but nobody had any idea what my given name was or where I lived. My fans really did stretch from Salem to Seattle, just as my sister told me. A lot of visitors to Portland apparently took pictures of me to show their friends back home.

I started carrying around business cards with “Top Hat” on the front and my signature on the back. Pretty arrogant, I know, but people love it. I really had become underground famous. I couldn’t believe it. Here I was, just another scrub in a fancy outfit, and everyone was losing their shit over it. It was foreign, but I was enjoying it.

There was much speculation as to where I called home. I was often seen in the quiet, affluent residential neighborhood where my sister lived, so there was an assumption that I resided there, but I only spent my time there because otherwise I would get bored. I also frequented the downtown area, but my doctor’s office was located in the Pearl district.

I followed my fan page but didn’t join as a member. I wanted to see what people were saying about me. Some of them said they had seen me several times. The ones I met who got a card would post a picture of it along with the obligatory selfie.

One night, as I was headed back to my bed, I heard a woman behind me saying: “Top Hat?”

Another picture, I thought, so I turned around. The woman who had spoken was cute, kind of short and curvy with medium length blonde hair and glasses.

“That’s me,” I replied with a smile and a tip of my hat. “How can I help you?”

Then she rocked my world.

“I’m Clarissa Wakefield. I'm a radio show host with Oregon Public Broadcasting. I’d like an interview, if you don’t mind.”

“What, right now?” was all I could think to say.

“Well, obviously not right now. I assume you’re here to donate?”

“Yeah,” I responded. “When and where would this interview take place?”

 “Down at the radio station, whenever you’re available.”

“It’s the hat, isn’t it? Everyone loves this hat.”

“Mostly, yes. The whole city wants to know your story.”

“How did you find me, anyway?”

“It was actually purely by chance. I spotted you back on 7^th and just followed you.”

“I don’t want everyone to know who I really am.”

“You can speak on condition of anonymity, if that’s what you want,” she assured me. “People just want to know more about you.”

“Well, I can’t disappoint my fans. I’m in,” I said.

“Great,” she replied. “Be at the station at one tomorrow.”

The next afternoon I found myself in the lobby area of the radio station. I was told to wait and Clarissa would be out soon.

She appeared and led me back to the studio, a small but serviceable room with all kinds of sound equipment in it. She sat in one of the chairs and indicated that I sit in the other. There was a microphone in front of each of us.

The ”On Air” light came on.

“Hello, Portland! Thank you for tuning in to our weekly interview with a local figure,” Clarissa began.
“Today we have the man known throughout the city as Top Hat. Many of you have seen him, and a lot of you have taken his picture, but nobody knows anything about him. Top Hat, when did you start dressing this way?”

“I’ve always liked looking different,” I responded. “For a while it was ripped jeans with leopard print patches. Then it was a black leather biker’s jacket. Eventually it became three-piece suits and this nifty lid.”

“Where did you find it?”

“In a Spencer’s, believe it or not. But the only decoration it had when I bought it was the studs along the brim. I added the little spikes on top and the horns on the front.” It was fun to talk about my hat.

“How about the cape?”

“My mother was a seamstress. The cape was the last thing she made for me before she passed away.”

“I’m sorry for your loss,” she said with sincerity. “I see you wear a Hatchet Man.”

“I sure do. It’s my badge of honor. I’ve been a Juggalo since I was fifteen,” I said proudly.

“That means a fan of Insane Clown Posse, doesn’t it?”

“Mostly, although there’s more to it than that. I don’t think you have enough time for me to really get into it, but it’s like a big family.”

“There are pictures of you all over Portland. Sometimes you’re posing. When did you start to notice people taking them?”

“There was a guy driving slowly and holding his cell phone out with one hand and steering with the other. I think he was taking a video. I saw him, and decided to give him a pose. That was when I started bowing or tipping my hat if I caught them.”

“There’s been some debate online about what district of town you live in. Some say Pearl, others say Rockwood. Who’s right?”

I debated telling her the truth. Then I thought fuck it and laid it out: “I actually sleep in a homeless shelter. I spend a lot of time in Rockwood because that’s where my sister lives, and the shelter is downtown.”

“You’re homeless? And you look like that?”

“Just because I don’t have a place to live doesn’t mean I have to dress like it. I’m a freelance artist, so I do get a little money, and I spend some of it on clothes. Everything I wear I found at a thrift store.”

“That’s amazing! I guess class isn’t tied exclusively to wealth, after all,” Clarissa concluded. “That’s all the time we have for today. Join us tomorrow for Topic Tuesday.” The light above the door turned off.

“Just as promised, nothing identifying who you are,” my host said.

“Thank you,” I replied, realizing at the same time that she never asked for my real name, either.

I didn’t think much of the interview. It was, after all, just a small public broadcasting company. Apparently, though, a few people had heard the interview, because there was a “Top Hat Fundraiser” post on my fan page two days later by two friends named Van Crowley and Bobby Osbourn.

It got bigger. Apparently there were a few fellow Juggalos who were also fans of my alter-ego. They started their own “Juggalo needs help” fundraiser of their own on the ICP fan page, which I also obviously followed.

Then it got amazing. Not only were Juggalos and Top Hat fans alike donating whatever they could, it turned out that Shaggy 2 Dope and Violent J themselves followed the Juggalo social media pages! They saw the post about the Juggalo in trouble and donated enough for me to buy a house. Not an apartment. Not a rental. A house of my very own, paid for by what I consider the greatest band of all time. They had saved my life, over and over, and now they knew it.

I guess it pays to be a Juggalo.