Buck arrived at the restaurant four minutes before his date. He went to the bar for a Coors but was declined.

“No Banquet?” he said to the bow-tied bartender who responded with a curt nod. Buck passed on the small batch pumpkin stout bullshit with a scowl and rubbed his unshaven face. This wasn’t going well.

Someone grabbed Buck’s arm and he spun around to meet Lilly met face-to-face for the first time. Their eye contact buffered and Buck went full dumbstruck. He regained his composure with an awkward laugh and the two hugged. Buck caught his breath over her shoulder like a boxer in the clinch. The first daters approached the hostess, who led them up twenty-six stairs. Plenty of time for Buck to wipe the sides of his mouth, check his breath and call an audible. Crate the pussy hounds tonight, boys. Never mind the rubber in the fifth pocket. Play the long game with Lilly, Christ alive was she a keeper.

The two were sat at a corner table on the second floor. The nosebleeds. Before leaving, the hostess performed what seemed to be the worst part of her job.

As if bracing for impact, she turned to Buck. “Sir, I’m so sorry. But we have a ‘no hats’ policy.”

Buck laughed and kept his attention on Lilly, who hadn’t stopped smiling since she walked through the doors. The hostess was unfamiliar with this level of confidence and faded away from the table and back down the stairs, half-convinced her request was indeed a joke.

“I need to know more immediately,” Buck said with a smile. “Lilly me.” She raised her eyebrows and giggled like she was in the middle of a naked tickle-fight. Buck didn’t hear a word that followed, her first line of defense gobbled up his attention span. Darling little nose, minimal makeup, high-caliber ponytail. It’s exactly why he swiped right on her profile while taking a shit five days earlier. Buck considered their future daughter’s inevitable question, “When’s the first time you saw mommy?” He’d have to lie. “Love at first dump,” lacked a certain charm. Those weren’t the kind of standards he’d set for his baby girl. No, no. Not his little princess.

Lilly’s moneymaker was her smile and all of her profile pics featured it. Two of said pics included her dog, Stuffins, a hypoallergenic cina-doodle of some sort. So, Buck went doggy style with his first message.

“Your dog is amazing. Put in a good word for me?”

The line prompted back three positive emojis from Lilly. Seventeen messages later, Buck invited Lilly to dinner on a Wednesday night after work. “Let’s say 7?” he typed. “Perfs,” she responded with a smiley face. Buck could live with perfs. As long as it didn’t spin into “amazeballs,” “cray,” and “obvs,” it would be fine. It would be just fine.

The waitress approached the booth and welcomed the two to their dining experience. She outlined the expectations by rote. There would be food, drinks, even dessert if they desired. But first, there were some ground rules. “Sir,” she said and turned to Buck, “I’m so sorry, but we have a ‘No Hats’ policy.”

This time Buck had to pry his eyes off his potential future wife. He furrowed his brow and tilted his head. “That wasn’t a joke?” he said. The waitress tightened her smile and nodded no. 

“I think there’s been a misunderstanding,” Buck said. “My hat isn’t to keep sun out of my eyes or anything like that. It’s not functional. It’s kinda part of what I’m doing here,” he said while gesturing to the black t-shirt underneath his grey hoodie. “Dressed myself and everything,” he said and winked at Lilly. She rolled her eyes and Buck continued before a possible rebuttal. “Two Moscow Mules and the spinach dip, please.”

The waitress wrote down their orders and left without further protest. She wasn’t paid enough to deal with shit like this. And, if she truly wanted vengeance she’d just have one of the cooks pop off in the dip. Lilly smiled back at Buck with a knowing smirk. She had mentioned Moscow Mules during their brief back-and-forth and appreciated Buck’s attention to detail. Plus, the move had buried the whole hat non-compliance thing. Buck was home free, now he could start building the rest of his life with his sweet, lovely Lilly.

They clanked tin cups and bounced between basic and strange over the possibly jizzed-in spinach dip. Lilly had two brothers, a fro-yo membership card, and once dreamt that she screwed the dad from the Tool Time show. “No, not Al Borland!” she said with a charming squeak. Buck told himself not to blow it. Lilly was the most spectacular woman he’d ever sat across from. Her resplendence bubbled out of her tiny little frame like too much champagne in a glass. The gravel in her voice had a tug of war with a pit bull puppy delight to it. Buck white knuckled his napkin and leaned closer. Lilly’s sparkle bespeckled his face. Buck caught himself smiling dumbly and stared at the spot on his fork for a couple beats to compose himself. Lilly noticed and blushed. Butterflies filled up their stomachs and the spinach dip went cold.

The restaurant’s manager walked up the stairs and straight towards the glowing couple, her big fanny testing the limits of her all-business black slacks.

“Hey folks, how we doing?” she asked rhetorically yet genuinely. “How are we enjoying the spinach dip?” she said, continuing to include herself in the scenario for some reason. “I’m Pam Hillstone, the manager here. Sir, I’m sorry to bother you,” she said, turning her attention to Buck. “But we have a strict ‘No Hats’ policy.”

Apparently, word had spread. A rule-breaker was on the premises and a rule-breaking was in progress. It was clear that Buck’s violation was in stark contrast to the restaurant’s deep-rooted belief in something much larger than fashion. And now he had to face the final boss. “What a strange request, Pam. What’s the rationale behind this policy?” Buck asked. “It’s just our policy,” she said. She wasn’t budging, and judging by her sturdy base, wouldn’t be without some doing. 

Buck looked back at Lilly in all of her glory. Her smile was still intact. Her essence still breezy. Buck’s heart calmed for a handful of beats and something clear spoke to him: Just abide. Remove your hat. Do it for your future little girl remember? Buck sighed and looked up at Pam Hillstone with softness. But before he could respond with his soul’s transmission, the smugness oozing down the manager’s jowls presented a different message: Beat Pam Hillstone at all fucking costs.  

“Can you give me more than just, ‘it’s our policy’?” asked Buck. “Is my appearance having an effect on the food? Am I ruining someone else’s experience? Has someone complained? We’re upstairs in the corner booth behind a lamp, after all…” he said with a steady smile.

“The reason is, it’s simply our policy. Now please remove your hat, sir,” she said, hitting the last R with more emphasis than any of her other Rs.

Buck’s heart beat faster and his smile faded. He looked at Lilly who felt it too. She nervously rubbed her fingers on the handkerchief. Buck had pushed it too far and forced himself into a brutal choice.

Spineless or hubris. Remove your hat and you’re a pussy, keep it on and you’re a dick. Both options came with a high risk of rejection from the woman of his most recently updated dreams.

Lilly looked up at Buck, his response was almost overdue. Red wire or blue wire?  

Red wire or blue wire?

Red wire or - “Bullshit,” Buck said. “Surely there’s an actual reason behind such strict enforcement of the policy. Is the Pope in the building? Is this a gang activity thing? Is a Star Spangled Banner cover band about to start? Give me something here, Pam. Because if you can’t, I’m not gonna remove my hat just because you fuckin’ said so.” 

Buck was louder than he wanted to be and he didn’t intend the f-bomb to be the hero of his last sentence. But it was. A real John McClane-type, too. The other hatless guests were now staring at his table. And as the dust of his outburst settled, he realized he may have over-cooked this one just a bit. Pam Hillstone nodded her head in disappointment. “Either remove your hat or we’re not going to serve you,” she said, mocking Buck’s outburst in an overly calm tone. Then she turned and walked away, her hips swinging an inch and a half further in a showboating display. Behind her, a wake of uneasiness swept over the second floor dining room. Clanking forks on the dishware did little to calm the mood. There was no recovery from this one. Buck would forever personify this feeling of embarrassment for Lilly. “I’m so sorry,” Buck finally uttered as the sweet, perfect angel texted someone.

It didn’t take long until Lilly made her escape. “Will you please excuse me, Buck?” she said, purse in-hand. She smiled but her face was no longer soft. Buck crossed his arms as she walked away. He knew she wouldn’t be walking back up those stairs. He closed his eyes and listened to her click-clacks fade away into the restaurant’s smooth jazz Sirius station.  

As Buck waited for the bill he wondered what version of the story Lilly would tell her people. Friends, colleagues, parents, brothers. Buck was the villain in a date-from-hell story, a most beloved genre. It was the kind of drama other women envied. Why couldn’t their lives be so hilariously ironic and adorable? Lilly would be in high demand with this one alright. “Did you ever hear back from the hat guy?” they’d ask.

Is that what they’d call him? The “hat guy?”

Buck sat back in the booth and fantasized that some of Lilly’s friends might see him in a different light. “Good for him,” a BFF might say. “He gets it,” a quirky ethnic friend might chime in. “Now there’s a guy with principles,” Lilly’s dad could very well tell her over the phone tonight. “You let him get away?” Buck nodded to himself as his delusions gained momentum. Maybe this wasn’t over. The hardline stance on the hat thing might age like one of those snooty wines his palate was incapable of appreciating.

Buck didn’t let them take the spinach dip until it was completely gone. “I said I’m still working!” he barked the second time the bus boy tried to clear the basket. At the very least, they wouldn’t flip his table quickly. Buck chewed on ice for 20 minutes before looking at the bill. It was 38 dollars and change without tip. But the damage went far beyond that and it wasn’t accounted for. During dinner, his future wife and baby girl vanished like McFlys. Where was the line item for that?

Forty-nine minutes after the first request, Buck finally obliged with the restaurant’s demands. He removed his hat.

As he did, a woman gasped two tables over. Across the room in a booth, a man shielded his eyes. A waiter refilling waters splashed a patron. Whispers escalated as Buck reached up and felt the golf ball sized cyst on top of his shaved head. A routine removal surgery of the benign growth was scheduled for Friday morning, but the angry bump throbbed at full-capacity.

Buck took his deepest breath of the year and leaned his lump forward. With his exhale, he directed all of his energy towards the top of his head.

The cyst burst onto the table like a mouse in a microwave.

He flexed the top of his head again and a second load of mucous-y discharge blew out all over the napkins, dishes, bill, and utensils. First the couple splitting the Beef Wellington tossed guts. Then the lady in the blazer returned her pan-seared scallops. From there it was it was no holds barf in the second-floor dining room of the top-notch restaurant.  

Along with the yellowish hues of ruptured pustule, was a foul odor that caught a gust of air-conditioning. Buck took the hanky off his lap and lightly dabbed the abomination on his head. Splashes and groans filled the rafters while Buck signed his check between drops of reeking head cheese. He put his hat on the table, the bill in his hat, and walked down the twenty-six stairs.

On his way out, he locked eyes with Pam. Instead of crafting a long-winded Yelp review into the wee hours of the morning, Buck went analog with it.

“Hats off,” he said and nodded his oily, bloody head at the insufferable restaurant manager.

The rumbling stampede jolted Pam out of her initial shock. The gaggle of guests gagged their way down the stairs, imploring themselves to make it to the shitters so they could puke with more couth. Buck watched from outside the restaurant as the chaos played out on mute from the other side of the window pane. He’d beat Pam Hillstone at all costs, but market price was his white picket fence. Pricey, but not too rich for Buck’s blood. He put on his hood and looked down the block. A taco truck twinkled in the distance.