Crinkly Hat

As may become all too evident, this episode of Dispatches was (written and) recorded in Washington Dulles Airport.

Crinkly Hat.

They're seated across the room, talking, drinking. Two dining companions in a Mexican restaurant in New York's Alphabet City.

It’s their hats that draw me in. Particularly the fellow on the right.

His is black or maybe deep blue, with a dull shine and delicately crinkled, a rare creation. Brim upturned, it sits back on his head, a little extravagantly. This hat conspires with thinning shocks of hair to frame his bespectacled face.

A jazz pianist? No, a rhythm guitar player. No, a multi-instrumentalist, surely, even though he's particularly beloved for his flute. Who knows about his clothing, except that it’s crumpled and fine, in tune with the hat.

He stretches out his long legs beneath the table and chairs. He listens more than talks, smiling as his companion sips and expounds. The pair don't have to order. They're neighbourhood locals.

They come here all the time. The waiters know when to bring their aguachile — aguachile mixto.

The gigs are demanding, the rise-and-fall of interest is getting old. But what else is he going to do —with the world as it is— but express himself through sounds beautiful?

He would have risen late, in a studio apartment not far from the resto.

After fussing over his plants and an unfinished score on an unclaimed corner of his kitchen table he takes a coffee, perched on the little stool he's unfolded and set just outside the window.

There he is, if you wish, on an old metal fire escape —about three floors up, up above the alley— thinking about aguachile.

* Drawing, watercolour, and photographs by Kenneth Mills