Moustache

I am suddenly convinced it all started with my moustache. Such a big-small decision, flinging me towards this moment of not being me.

I stand before him, a meek supplicant. His eyes are reptilian. My fate, as well as my papers, are in his hands. A pigeon vacates its bowels on the pavement next to me. A bad omen, there can be no doubt. Could I have prepared more? Brought more documents? But these are useless worries. My destiny has been written. I am condemned by the thunderclap of viscous excrement.

Deciding all those months ago that I wanted a moustache was easy. That being said, I immediately spent many hours agonising over the details of my upper-lip adornment. I simply did not know what style would complement my features. Unnecessary moments were lost as I worried over whether the wrong choice might make me look like Hitler. For all this teacup-storming, beginning was no great challenge. It was an act of not-ness, of ceasing to shave.

Indecision about style was irrelevant at fist. My face, astonished that the gardener had neglected to mow the grass for a whole day, extended luxuriously out to five o’clock shadow. Once again, no sign of the gardener. Aha, thought my face, freedom. Wild growth. Out, out, out reached the lawn.

As for me, I simply kept on with life. People glanced at me more than usual. Or perhaps I was simply on the lookout for changes in how others received me. My more brazen friends ribbed me about the freedom of my grass. Ha ha, I said, ha ha, very good. For months nothing much changed. As a consequence, my style choice was made by inertia. The length of my beard would be however long it was that day. I continued my ongoing act of not-ness.

Then, last week Saturday, something happened. I was out with friends at the Parcel Yard.  It is one of my London secrets, tucked away in Kings Cross Station. The pub is just inconspicuous enough to be invisible to the masses, yet Tardis-like in its internal hugeness. Pubbing sanely in London is all about knowing the secret places.

I was hovering by the bar, waiting to be noticed. I had not been there long when I became aware that the man next to me was staring at me. I studiously tried to ignore him, but his gaze was like the tingling of stinging nettles. What? I don’t know you, what? What do you want?

As if prompted by my thoughts, he asked, “Are you Arab?” What on earth kind of question is that?

“No.”

“You look Arab.”

I raised my eyebrows. He continued to stare. My grass itched. I scratched. Feeling my anxiety grow, I tapped into some deep inner magic. I sent out my will, dragging at the bar tender, compelling him to notice me. Nothing happened.

“You Middle Eastern?”

“No.”

“You Jewish?” Where did that come from? I turned to face him. He was clean shaven and looked like you could break rocks with his face. I was certain that he had a gun concealed somewhere. Also, that he had come to assassinate me. I’d be standing by the urinal later and I’d hear the door creak open like in a horror film. I wouldn’t need to turn to know it was him. My time would have come.

But for some reason, I told him the truth. “Yes.”

“You must shave your beard. You look Arab.”

I don’t remember how I extricated myself. Maybe the bar tender finally arrived or one of my friends came to find out why the drinks hadn’t arrived. Later that evening, I found myself alone in the bathroom, staring intently into the mirror. I resisted my paranoid desire to look behind me ever thirty seconds. I had not properly looked at myself for weeks. The person staring back seemed to be a terrorist. Someone rooted out of a foxhole. A stranger. I was amazed at how the neat little garden I was used to could look so alien with the grass a little wild. I did not recognise this person.

As soon as I got home that night, I prepared to shave. My custom is to begin with my right cheek because it is lucky. My left cheek is decidedly evil but that is a story for another time. Right side, left side, upper lip. Looking at the overgrown garden, the task seemed daunting. I felt my resolve wavering, so I lathered up before I could abandon shaving. Slowly, I hacked my way down the right cheek. The razor continually became clogged with ragged grass, meaning that I was forever rinsing the blade.

Down, down, down I worked, onto the jaw and down the throat. Eventually, I had cleared to the boundary where lush wilderness met the desert of my descending neck. I stood back and took myself in. Yin and yang, right and left, beard and not. A snapshot before and after comparison. It was a disconcerting moment, seeing my face in this halfway state. Well, almost halfway. My undamaged, resplendent moustache intruded over the right cheek. It created an uncanny asymmetry. I found my eyes pulled to the clean-shaved right side. In this limbo, the left side felt particularly evil. Out of place. I searched in the mirror for myself. Yes, the real me was lurking under the verdant growth.

I began on the left side. There was no going back now. Mow, mow, mow the grass, gently with the blade. Carefully carefully carefully carefully, shave shave shave shave shave.

All of a sudden the sinister side was clean. Out of habit, my razor hovered over my moustache. I was so close to returning me to myself. To completing the excavation. Something held me in check. Stop. This was wrong. I would not be told how I was supposed to look. I had already let this stranger induce me into removing my beard and for what? Because, to him, it made me look ‘Arab’? That, in and of itself, did not bother me. So why had I done this?

I put the razor away, resolved now that I was someone with a moustache. If that made me look like Hitler, so be it. I hoped not. I did not think so. But even if it did, I was not going to be pushed around. I was me, man with moustache. Watch me twirl.

So here is moustachioed me, pleading for entry from this bureaucrat. In this moment I am, in fact, twirling. It is a nervous habit I seem to have picked up. I struggle to remember what my hands did in moments of distress before the era of the moustache. The guardian exudes suspicion. His studies my likeness in the tiny square photo. He takes his job very seriously. Imbued with jurisdiction over whether people are themselves or imposters, he can take no risks. Nay, he will not take risks. I observe his decision forming even before he pronounces my sentence. The pigeons have spoken. I am not enough like the me that was captured in the flash of a tiny booth six months ago. That me was clean shaven like a respectable person. How can he know I am not a brigand-vagabond, impersonating the poor victim in this photo? He cannot know this. He will take no risks.

“Photo no good,” he says.

“Why not? It’s clearly me.”

“No, you have big moos-tatch.”

“But it’s me, it’s clearly me. You know it’s me. People grow moustaches. We don’t have to redo our passport every time we get a new haircut. And what about people who dye –“

“No good. Sorrymoveon.”

Just like that I no longer exist. Not only am I not me, because of the photo, I am now not nothing. Gone, vapourised, vanished by his dismissal. I step out of line and look at the people behind me. No one will meet my eyes. I know what they are feeling: can’t be seen to acknowledge the outcast.

I feel utterly adrift. All this because of some facial hair. Because of a moustache I don’t even know I want.

I start walking. A stranger: “Nice tash, bro.” He’s gone before I can reply. Someone likes it. Someone thinks it looks good. This comment moors me a bit. I keep walking.

I consider my options. This bureaucrat may not be there when I come back. Then again, it could be someone equally intoxicated by their position and looking for ways to exercise their authority. I could be back at square one. So what to do? Shave it so I look more like the picture?

Or get new pictures. This could be compounding my problems. If I then shave in the future, won’t I be back at square one when I have to renew again? Will they then demand that I grow a moustache to look like my picture?

I simply do not know what to do. Well, I do.

I will shave it tonight and renew my passport tomorrow. I will have to take another day off work, but I need reassurance. I need to be acknowledged as me. I need the picture to be me.

I will keep my garden pristine. I will manicure the grass and look exactly as I am supposed to. That way, everyone will recognise me and everything will be all right.