My father has a disease. A serious one. One that you can see on his face. Some seemingly incurable follicle attachment to his upper lip. And it won’t go away.
That’s right, freshmen and sophomores – my father suffers from a mustache.
Now, I know he’s not the only man out there who suffers from the disease, but ever since I can remember, it’s been there, on his face, like a raccoon tail strapped above his mouth, immovable and solitary. Slightly salty.
He never wears a beard. And only once have I seen him free of the disease, when I was about 10 years old and my mother struck down the virus with a voodoo curse she learned while swimming in the swamplands of Louisiana.
However, he was only free of the mustache for a few weeks. Then it started coming back. There was nothing any of us could do to stop it or understand it.
Until now.
Before, I would have been too young to attempt such a dangerous tactic. I would have been as ill-equipped as Adam Morrison trying to take on Tom Selleck in a stache-off. I would have been a thistle in a land of jungles. A needle in a haystack.
But I’m a graduate student now. With hair under my arms, patches of manliness near my nipples and even a treasure chest of curls running down my belly button.
So, at the risk of becoming a pedophile, I began to grow my own “Mo.”
At first, I grew out a goatee, allowing my chin hair to disguise what would soon become the disease. Once I felt like the tresses above my lip could hold their own, I took my razor and fashioned my own stache.
The most difficult part was walking around in public.
Women scoffed at me, covering the eyes of their innocent children as my mustache waved through the wind to say hello while passing by on the streets.
Children, when they made eye-to-mustache contact, ran from the hairy vines of my upper lip. And like a tornado, sometimes my mustache carried off a few victims with its Velcro-like adhesive. Two children were stuck to my mustache for more than four days each. Only one survived.
Men without mustaches looked down upon me. Grandmothers scolded me. Grandfathers told me they used to have one back in their day that would make mine curl up and whimper like a squirrel caught in a mouse trap.
Still, I wore it proudly. Like a ‘70s porn star with no shame, out in the open and there for the taking.
One thing I hadn’t counted on, however, was that there was support out there.
Take, for example, my trip to the Outside Lands Music and Arts Festival in San Francisco.
In this land of hipsters, I found many who shared my sense of facial hair style. As we would pass in the thralls of Golden Gate Park, a simple nod to each other served like a sip of Robitussin, soothing my apprehension.
I had joined a club, of sorts. Men who dared to be great. Rollie Fingers, Frank Zappa, Geraldo Rivera.
For the mustache has that effect on you. It makes you feel empowered, more attractive, more mature, refined and better in bed.
While none of this proved to actually be true, I felt like it was.
I had started to understand my father’s disease.
Still, I needed to know more. So I read up a bit on the history of the mustache.
As described by the American Mustache Institute, the English word “mustache” came from the Middle French word “moustache” which in turn is derived from the Old Italian word “mustacchio” which originates from the Middle Greek word “Moustaki,” a diminutive of Greek mystak, mystax upper lip, mustache.
Whatever that means, the simple fact that an American Mustache Institute exists should provide ample credibility to the unifying power of the mustache.
The institute, which is dedicated to “protecting the rights of, and fighting discrimination against, mustached Americans by promoting the growth, care and culture of the mustache” is evidence that people are crazy and have way too much time to create such organizations.
We have many names for mustaches. Here are a few recognized by the institute: Dali, English, Fu Manchu, Pancho Villa, Handlebar, Horseshoe, Imperial, Moustachio, Taylor Mustache, Pencil Mustache, Office Model, Toothbrush or Dictator, The Zappa, Walrus and The GG.
Ultimately, in looking back at “Summer of 2011 and the Evolution of Ty Thompson’s Mustache,” as my girlfriend titled the Facebook photo album, I saw my mustache had changed me as a person.
I realized my dad didn’t suffer from a disease. He benefited from a mouth guard of sorts.
Sadly, my mustache fell to a sharp Mach 3. But if you happen to pass by a mustache on campus – laugh, cry, love.
Like I love my father’s stache. Just know the kiss is going to tickle.
-Ty Thompson is an MFA graduate student in fiction.
-Reach him at cosythenews@yahoo.com.
