The Cad recently got to thinking about a rather infamous shooting that took place way back in 1895. While we can never condone murder, we felt there might have been some extenuating circumstances that contibuted to the untimely death of one William Lyons of St. Louis. Bart Bull argues the sartorial side of ...
The People v. Stagger Lee
 Ok, we admit, we acknowledge that Stagger Lee (or Staggerlee, or Stack O’ Lee, or Stagolee, or any number of variations thereof) was a bad man. Let’s face it, everybody knows. We all know he shot poor Billy the Lion even after Billy pleaded about his three kids and his poor little sickly wife. Lee remained unconvinced, and he shot Billy so bad the bullet went right through him and broke the bartender’s glass. Probably banged around a bit after that, wounding and maiming a few random passersby, bouncing off the Texas Book Depository building, and no doubt lodging in the ample left buttock of the police chief’s wife as she passed by the saloon on her way to visit the sick — maybe even Billy’s wife. You know how complicated life can be.
But, your honors, there were mitigating circumstance. Like, for instance, and by way of example, Stag’s brand new five-dollar Stetson hat. Which Billy either won fair and square, won through cheating and sly deception, or, depending on who’s telling the tale and who’s singing the song, he stepped on. Stepped on. A brand new Stetson hat. Stepped on. A brand new Stetson, and Billy, who certainly ought to have known better, and no doubt had been drinking, well, Billly stepped on Staggerlee’s doggone brand spanking new Stetson. And we all know how we get sometimes when we lose our temper a little. That’s why we’re kind of secretly glad that “Cops” is off the air.
 And what’s worse, even though there are dozens of versions of the story, and tons of variations on the song, nobody ever gets around to telling us what we need to know. Which is about the hat. And that’s criminal. Was it dove grey, or pearl grey, or a flashy and ever-so-hard-to-keep clean eggshell white, and if so, was the hatband complementary or a bold and jaunty contrast? What if Staggerlee had just come back from, say, Meyer the Hatter, just off Canal Street on St. Charles Avenue in New Orleans, the South’s Largest Hat Store, and because the weather was changing, and straw hats were out of season, and suddenly Stag’s preferred hat-blocking specialist had been backed up, and so Stag’s brand new Stetson that he’d bought the week before had only been handed over that very Saturday night. And then, mere minutes later, Billy the Damn Lion stepped on it and squashed it all to hell.
 So, your honors, you can see how it could be. I’m not suggesting that Staggerlee should get off scot-free, nor am I suggesting that Billy entirely deserved to die, Not entirely. I’m just saying . . .well, your honors, just as we must consider Billy’s orphaned children and his wife, we must also conside who gets custody of Stag’s brand-new, slightly used Stetson. Because somewhere in some backwater rivertown pawnshop or thriftstore somewhere, whether in Memphis or St. Louis — or could it even be Davenport, Iowa, that Gomorrah of the Iowa part of the upper Mississippi? — gathering more dust than we even want to think about, sets a Grail nearly as Holy as Robert Johnson’s missing Strat. And so while you’re considering the fate of Billy and Stag and their wives and children and bartenders, pause a moment and tip your hat to an under-appreciated victim of this complicated crime: a perfectly innoncent hat. And shed a tear if you must, for the days when five bucks bought you a damn Stetson.
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