retrouvez le moustache
by Patrick Johnson
It’s 1976 so we are dressed the part…
Handle-bar mo and large rimmed shades with a pink-gray gradient, shaggy permed hair, wide-lapelled tan leather jacket, calico smock and dark-blue flared jeans, Cuban heels. Guicharde looks like something out of Central Casting. I mean he ain’t full retro-pimp as reimagined for the big screen, but he is still catching looks like he might be somebody. Hardly the right tone when you are meant to be working undercover.
Me, I’m more subtlety authentic - shorter hair, sideburns, classic navy mo, straight-leg jeans, Doc Martens, and a patterned shirt in white and two contrasting shades of baby-shit brown. For added period charm I am sporting a healthy dose of dandruff and a slight case of BO.
A couple of cute looking girls turn to each other giggling as we pass them on the way into the building. Everything goes smooth. In the cafeteria, we replace a large water-colour print of Victorian ladies and gentlemen promenading with an identical slo-screen. This one will slowly change at a frame-rate of maybe 12 a day into God knows what… maybe hardcore porn… maybe explicit violence…. Who knows? We just get to make the switch.
Later, back in 2003, we hit a bar in Soi-Cowboy and get really tanked on beer and tequila. ‘Le Guiche’ reckons the girls were digging on him. I tell him that the beetle-black handle-bar moustache he wore for the mission made him look like a dick.
Fists get thrown. My face gets busted up. So does his.
Next day I lay low. Day after, I craft a fake beard, partly for laughs, partly to mask the bruises. Partly just to check my skills.
I hit the bar. Mai and Ling are there. They have big laughs. I ask “Was The Frenchman in last night?” No…
Mai laughs at the beard. She says it would tickle her thighs and her pussy. Ling laughs at the beard. She says it would tickle her armpits. She knows me too well.
Le Guiche shows up. He is a bit messed up. There is a moment of tension. He is still wearing that fucking moustache.
He says, “Nice beard, Mon Ami. Looks good on you.”
He is playing it straight, but I can see he is close to corpsing.
He launches into a monologue. Classic Le Guiche.
“A beard means nothing. It is the last refuge of poor personal grooming. It is the mask of a scoundrel. A moustache on the other hand… means everything. A moustache is a dirty bomb. A moustache is a cultural hand grenade that explodes with meaning.”
The drinks flow. We riff on moustaches. The girls dig on the “fun.” Mai says she’s going home with me because I’m funnier, and she “likes my beard.”
I remember I was busted one time for smuggling ganja. Bad scene. It was one of those places where you ain’t nobody unless’ you gettin’ some serious moustache goin’ on’… I gotta tell you, jail time for the clean-shaven goes pretty hard in those places. I wised up quick and grew some lip hair.
*****
The Scottish Ambassador was recalled from duty due to rumours of an incident involving a ginger pubic hair being spotted nestling amongst the bristles of the First Lady’s Moustache.
*****
Harry “the Dane” Kreuzfeld’s social cachet is less than zero right now. He accidentally wore a porno moustache to the state funeral. Started to sweat halfway through the eulogy when he realised what he done. I gotta hand it to him, he almost managed to bluff his way through, but some old dame started creaming herself at the drinks reception.
*****
Devlin Forespenser was lucky enough to inherit an elite sports moustache. It had initially belonged to his grandfather, who came by it honestly in a game of hazard. He excelled at tennis, rowing, fencing, and a host of other gentlemanly endeavours. He drove a Bentley if I recall. Ended up in international finance. The moustache itself was a little bristly for my taste, but it certainly did its job.
*****
Pancho was injured in a shaving accident. We were meant to return to Ixcatlan a week ago, but we had to wait for his moustache to fully heal. Now, those peasants… they done hired a bunch of gringos to help them. Bad hombres. Seven of them.
*****
I located the scene pretty quickly, in the alley ways down near the main station. Groups of guys heading in the same direction. Sexy tanned boys showing lots of skin. Older guys. Leather guys and bristle guys. The bars were heaving. The scene was pure sex. I follow hot, young guy down some dingy back stairs. He wears a wispy fuck-me moustache. He gives me a solid look. My dick hardens in my pants.
*****
My family has a long pedigree. My grandfather was a government functionary, and my maternal uncle was First Moustache of a cavalry regiment. Died in the Crimea.
*****
A ridiculous, pretentious little man, with a garbled political agenda and a sense of entitlement born out of angry ineptitude. And to make matters worse, he has started wearing a toothbrush moustache.
*****
In the Royal Airforce a man gets his Wings after completing the requisite number of flying hours. His Moustache, he has to earn.
*****
The Bumfluff Kid exudes the paradoxical. He got a moustache that both is and ain’t. You call him on it, either way, he’ll gun you down where you stand. Thin prick adolescent arrogance. “You call that a moustache, kid?” -Blam! Blam! Blam! Blood, shit, and cordite. Smoke drifts past scanty hairs as he blows his pistols.
The moustache is history. It is politics. It is strength and honour. It is sex, violence, hierarchy and dominance.
The moustache is paternalistic and avuncular. It sits on a top lip. It sits you on its lap. It pats you on your head, or on your ass.
The moustache is powerful. It is sinister. It is mysterious. It is a strongman, a magician and a bandit. It is a hero and a villain.
The moustache is economics. It is freedom. It is nepotism. It shakes hands with shady backroom deals.
The moutache is politics. It is history. It is eternal.
The moustache is a black hole. It has a gravity well. It has an event horizon. It sucks you in.
The moustache IS culture.
The moustache is you. You are the moustache. You are the moustache. YOU ARE THE MOUSTACHE.
Photo of Patrick Johnson
BIO: Pat Johnston is a Yorkshire-based writer of fiction and poetry whose work often explores themes of memory, estrangement, and fractured identity. His debut novel The Gaps Between the Stories interweaves mythology, trauma, and language into a postmodern exploration of storytelling itself. His poetry and short fiction have appeared in Argyle Literary Magazine, Love and Literature, and Wingless Dreamer. A former academic and cognitive scientist, he now writes full-time from the East Riding.