Frank the Hat - by Robert Robert - One of the central characters in Erotic Salad is a gangster called Frank the Hat. In fact, Frank was a real person. In the early 60s, I had a girlfriend in New York who told me about Frank. It seems that during the 50s she had run with a group of small time gangsters who worked out of Chicago. The leader of the gang was named Frank, but picked up the nickname Frank the Hat because he always wore a standard gray felt fedora. The gang mostly traveled around robbing supermarkets. And according to my girlfriend Sherry, they were like characters right out of The Gang Who Couldn't Shoot Straight. After they pulled off a job they would then drive to a hotel to stay for the night. Frank, being the senior member of the gang, would hold the "loot". It was not uncommon during the night, however, for one or another greedy member of the gang to sneak into Frank's room to steal all the money for himself. Often a crazy chase would ensue, with the gang members running around the halls in the hotel, taking shots at each other. "Bob", Sherry said to me, "when that sort of stuff started happening, I knew it was time to get out". So she hitchhiked to New York City, which is where we eventually met each other. Frank the Hat, incidentally, has not been heard from since.