So, Thursdays are kind of crazy days for me so I think I might switch to Fridays instead. I don't have so much stuff dividing my attention on Friday mornings as I do on Thursdays. Anyway, sorry about missing this morning. I kinda got distracted. Bad, bad writer!
In this chapter, Hatter stops going by David and starts going by Hatter. Everyone has their stories about why Hatter picks the name 'David' when he goes back through the Looking Glass, but in my head that was his name before—you know, once upon a time.
Disclaimer: I don't own it and am not profiting from it!
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Once upon a time, a young man named David came into the nickname 'The Hat-Man'.
He is known to be generous. Whenever the hat comes around, he contributes. Even if it's just a few shillings, it's something. And something is better than nothing. Sometimes he passes the hat himself, his own hat—a worn tan thing that he plays with all the time when he needs to keep his hands busy.
Despite what the rich think, nobody wants to be poor. It's not something people aspire to, it isn't easy, it's no one's fault for being that way, and nobody likes it. But once people have been knocked that low it's nearly impossible for them to pick themselves up. David knows this all too well so he does what he can to help people who need it.
This has been his life, for a long time. Since he was a boy. He is a long way from Yorkshire and from his life as a newsboy and as a kind of modern-day Robin Hood. He lives in lots of different places now, mostly dealing with the shady underworld but never truly accepting a place amongst them. He stays on the fringes. He works as a freelance conman. He earns his keep. He drops money into the hat. He never says no to any request to lend money, and he's certain that some people are trying to take advantage of him but he can always tell the people who are sincere and those who aren't.
He's good at people. He can decipher their personalities and their heads in a very short time, which is useful to him because he tailors his cons and his acts to fit people; everyone is mostly different, so no two schemes can or should be alike.
And he is always just on the edge of the seedy folk, one foot in lawfulness and the other in his cons. He is never fully on one side or the other. He's not sure he wants to be one or the other. Why limit himself? The trick is to find balance. Good and bad. Darkness and light. It is impossible to be all one, or all the other. There has to be balance.
He's so good at what he does that he fools everyone. He plays both sides of the law. He tells the other conmen when they need to lay low a while because the police are starting to get suspicious, and at the same time he tells the police when he finds someone running a con he finds particularly objectionable—cheating elderly people of their life-savings, running brothels—because there has to be some honour amongst thieves.
He's careful, here, too. He drops breadcrumbs for both sides without letting on that he does, indeed, play both sides. They all think they have a man cleverly on the inside, and he's so good with words and so good with people that he keeps the charade effortlessly.
And he always passes the hat.
Just because they are lawbreakers doesn't mean they don't deserve help.
Eventually the name 'Hat-Man' simply becomes 'Hatter' and in time he adopts the name himself. He likes it. It sounds just the littlest bit edgy, and less boyish than the name 'David', which he thinks he's outgrown and ties him to a little village in Yorkshire. Hatter is a man's name. A conman's name.
His life falls into a routine. For years he does the same things—he orchestrates cons, he talks his way into society so he can siphon money from them. He has a soft spot for all of the widows and children of the men who die in trenches. They are alone in the world with no means of their own and he remembers what that's like and he doesn't want any other families to end up with other Jameses, so he does his best to help them at great risk to himself. At any time they could tell someone that the mysterious Hatter is giving them money and it wouldn't take long for people to put the pieces together, but they keep it hush-hush like he asks them to.
He helps them, one at a time. Because he knows everybody and can talk to everybody, he manages to find them reliable income—an honest living, as a maid or housekeeper or teacher or seamstress; he talks to he men in 'society' who are often fat retired colonels and who are usually quite willing to help if he tells them that a woman's husband has died fighting their 'Great War'. This way the women aren't having to sink to prostitution or worse, or having to send their children out to work when they should still be children. He makes sure they have food until they're settled.
So lots of people owe him favours. Lots of people on both sides, because he's generous and pretends to be a philanthropist and for a while he tells himself that that's the reason he's doing it—because it's the right thing to do—but eventually he comes clean to himself and admits that he does it because the more people who owe him favours, the better.
Because of what he does he plays a dangerous game and he cashes in small favours all the time. Often he uses it to secure an alibi when the police get too nosy, and other times he wants an in to a party where he knows he can find a few stupid marks that he can systematically liberate of their money and belongings.
He lives well. Playing the part of society in order to weasel his way into their world, he's gotten a taste of their world and he's discovered that part of him rather likes the high living. Good food, good drink, velvet coats. There are certain perks that come from sitting pretty in the middle between society and the underworld—as precarious as the position is, it's thrilling. He gets a taste of the best of each world. Since both sides think he's their spy they both treat him well.
He thinks this is all he needs—the good life in both worlds and a never-exhausting supply of people to con.
And then…
For some time he notices a young woman on the street every day. She looks about his age, eighteen or so, maybe a little older. She wears old worn clothing and begs for money in a tin cup. She is blind—her eyes long gone milky-pale and staring that disconcerting blank blind stare ahead, unable to focus on anything—and heartbreakingly pretty with her round pink cheeks and yellow-blonde hair. She's all alone and naturally Hatter feels for her. Every day he sees her he puts a few shillings in her cup because people often pass her by without so much as looking at her. Others stand near her and talk about her openly, since because she's blind she must also be deaf or stupid or both and thus unaware that they exist. She never tells them to stop, though, and never seems to notice them. She's probably had her whole life to learn how to ignore people like that. But it still sticks pins into him. He's never liked to see the helpless being victimized. It rubs him the wrong way. I suppose it still does.
So every day he makes a point to give her a few shillings and say hello and talk with her. She always gives him a radiant smile and thanks him. Her smile is broad and dimpled, and she has a funny habit of taking her lower lip in her teeth that makes him turn to jelly inside.
Hatter always asks her if there's anything she needs, but pride must keep her from admitting she needs help because she always says she's fine and doesn't need anything.
The woman's name is Grace. He learns a little more about her each day, each week. After so long doing the same things, she is a break in the routine. He enjoys talking to her. She is quick-witted and clever and laughs at her own jokes and seems generally untroubled by her situation or by the people who make nasty comments within earshot. For someone to be so good-natured in face of such adversity is a trait he's never managed to grasp himself and he finds it refreshing, even though he finds her pride and her stubbornness a frustration.
She will take nothing from him—not a shawl to keep out the cold nor a loaf of bread nor offer of help—except for the few shillings he gives her a day. No matter what he says or how he says it, no matter how he tries to charm her, she's still adamant and holds firm and there's nothing she'll do if it isn't already her idea and there's nothing he can strategically talk her into doing.
But she's such enjoyable company that he finds he doesn't mind at all. As long as she's there every day and he can check up on her, he'll know she's still all right. It isn't much, but he can keep an eye on her, at least.
Because she's blind, she becomes the natural target for thugs. Little bratty boys who think they have more balls than they do, who think picking on a blind woman is good fun; the people who despise the poor for being poor and especially the blind and poor because it's just one more vice to hate. Sometimes he sees people trying to reach into her cup and dip into the coins she begs and sometimes they do get away with some of them. Grace fights them as best she can but in the end she is usually outnumbered and nobody would think to help a poor, blind beggar.
Hatter shoos them away, scares them off, is prepared to fight them—when he sees them. Mostly he hears about it afterwards, when it's too late for him to do anything.
"Never you worry," she tells him reassuringly, even though she must be able to hear the low growl in his voice and the heaving of his angry breaths when she tells him. "I'm fine, see? Not harmed. I'm always fine. I promise."
It fails to reassure him, and when he sees hulking gorilla of a boy with a toothpick in his teeth trying to rough her up and take her money while everyone else in the area conveniently looks away or pretends not to notice, impulse kicks in. His right hand clenches and he charges. The boy is flattened and stumbles off and Hatter presents Grace with the money she lost to him and asks if she's hurt.
She tells him she's not, and has an inexplicable smile on her face.
"I'm not helpless," she reminds him. She is forever reminding him, and he believes she's not helpless, but that didn't mean she didn't need help so he worries for her twice as much because she doesn't worry for herself.
This day he decides to stay at her side. She will not let him buy her food or anything else so the least he can do is keep her company and make sure she's safe.
And then suddenly she stands up. He reaches up to put a hand on her elbow to steady her but she shakes him off.
"Come with me," she says. It isn't a request or a question but a demand and he obediently follows.
When Grace walks she is so sure of herself. She doesn't stumble or tap the ground with a cane, she doesn't bump into anyone or anything. He has to stop and look and see if she is indeed blind or if she's been fooling him this whole time, but her eyes are still blank and unfocused. She keeps one hand on the row of buildings which she is apparently using to get her bearings.
"Where are we going?" He asks.
"You'll see."
And he asks no more questions and walks with her.
There is a row of tiny little buildings and apartments—still cramped, but presentable at least, in the nicer part of town. He wonders what they're doing there and is surprised when Grace produces a key and lets herself into one of them.
"You live here?"
She turns back and faces approximately where she thinks he's standing—she's off by about six inches—and smiles. Then she lets him in.
The room is simple but comfortable. There are no lights anywhere and no paintings on the walls—she needs none of that, after all—but there is a bed and a comfy couch and a phonograph with records tucked away next to it. He's slowly processing everything around him as Grace empties a purse she's kept hidden in her corset somewhere. There's money in it, lots of money, more than he remembered seeing with her. Then it dawns on him.
"You're a thief."
She looks extremely proud of herself and she smiles again and the corners of her eyes crinkle and Hatter feels his guts do funny flips and his head go all fuzzy.
"Are you—what are you?" He asks.
"Something like that," she explains. "I only take from the people who think they can steal from me, or pick on me."
"You're really…" and then he trails off because he's not sure if he should finish the question but she knows what he's asking and she nods.
"Oh, I'm blind all right. It's not an act. But I'm not helpless, either."
Now he understands why she's never taken anything from him before. Not because she's too proud to take it but because she simply doesn't need it. She takes care of herself and she fools everybody into thinking she cannot—including him.
"This is the hand life has dealt me," she explains. "It's a lousy one, but I can make it work. There's no way in the world I can make my living doing any sort of work, because who would want a blind woman working for them? They think I'm helpless and useless, always have. So I take what they think of me and I use it for my benefit. If they think they can steal the pennies from my cup, that's fine, but when they are close enough to reach my cup I'm close enough to reach their purse. And who would suspect the harmless blind beggar?"
She laughs.
Hatter melts.
And with that he is completely smitten.
Once upon a time a young man who called himself Hatter fell in love for the first time.
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Hatter tells Alice, "After much chocolate and cream cake, 'like' becomes 'what was his name again?'", so obviously he knows a little something about what that feels like. He must do. I think maybe before Hatter turned into a dreadful user and player, he could've been a decent guy. He's got too much good in him for him to have never been a good fellow. Also, Hatter-in-love is cute, admit it.
Thanks for reading. I hope you enjoyed—feedback is, as always, muchly appreciated, but never demanded.