Feeling a bit awkward knowing I’d be sitting at a table
alone, strangers greet me and smile as if I’ve known them for years. I ordered
a beer to feed my courage and one of those smiling greeters came over to my
table and asked me with a serious face on,
“Are you in the Hat yet?”
The faces filling the room range quite widely in age, from
fresh out of college to twilight years. Hipsters sat next to small town
grandmothers of four. Brooding writers and social activists shared tables with
Vietnam veterans and patrons bearing bulging Afros or stretched ear lobes. All
of them gathered to hear and share stories. True stories.
An exuberant MC, Lance Colley reminds us of the topic of the
evening, “Taboo” and to stay true. From the black velvet Hat he pulls the names
of the chosen and up each teller goes. They fill the room with laughs, tears,
sighs and my personal favorite, the uncomfortable squirm.
My favorite teller of the evening elicited this squirm. Her
story surrounded the purchase of an intimate nature that is rarely spoken of
(at least in mixed company)…..a menstrual cup. She could have been crowned
queen of unabashed honesty for even saying those words into a public
microphone. Add to it that she’s a regular and perhaps we should skip the
ceremony and go straight to her everlasting reign as Empress. Or is it that
level of comfort with this crowd and this process that allows it to be just
another evening gathered around the campfire?
A few story topics included:
-A psychic prophecy coming to tragic fruition
-A brush with homelessness juxtaposed with suburban American
gluttony
-A college student finds that praise for one’s writing can
often backfire
-Finding kindness and a kindred spirit in a foreign land
-80s night with a jumbotron sized misunderstanding
A substantive plot in a story helps but the magic lies in
the telling. One teller stopped and gave as an aside, “I did not intend for my
life to be filled with salacious encounters in public restrooms, but that is
the life that God has chosen to give me.”
Whether or not you
feel you have a grand tale within you or the courage to tell it, you should
attend. Hearing these tales connects us as fellow villagers. Such a connection
is crucial at a time when we are often too engrossed in our music, games, or
social media status to notice who our fellow villagers even are.
This is also a
wonderful excuse to frequent the iconic Manuel’s Tavern.
The Hat wants you and you want in the
Hat.
Carapace happens on the 4th Tuesday of the month
at Manuel’s Tavern @ 602 N. Highland Ave., Atlanta, Georgia @ 7:30p.m.
-Mauree "Mo" Culberson
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