The True Story of Mustache Maude

Abstract

I didn't really have a mustache, in those days anyhow. But now that I've gone soft with age, settled into obscurity, and surrendered my past to myth-making lips, a few hairs assert themselves. Stiff, black, unwelcome, and ever undiscouraged by my ruthless attentions, they take their turn with my razor each morning. But even if I cut them away the very moment they appear, each stubborn, intruding whisker still points my fate out: that no matter who I was in those days, no matter how I got the name, and no matter what I've really done, the lies people made up will outlive me. Their inventions. The lust for a good story. All falsehood will fatten while the real Maude dries to dust and blows away. As if the names and the yarns weren't bad enough. These annoying black bristles! What killing concoctions I've swabbed on my upper lip. What vile smelling remedies, what rootkiller, lethal and final, or so the labels read. Plasters of mustardseed, nightshade, red pepper. Powders that spring into dark evil jellies when mixed up with water. Dried glands of pit-vipers. Paw nails, crushed fine, of hydrophobic animals. All these deadly things, bought with a few dear possessions, have turned out to be entirely ineffectual. Even the small, thick turd that the mescal worm eliminates, a poison you'd really count on to kill anything, completely failed where I was concerned. Indeed, the hairs seem to have grown stronger with each trial. Each day they appear, more vigorous than ever, and I know that I may as well sigh, give in, and begin to care for the poor ravaged skin of my upper lip. For what I fear is inevitable and can't be helped. No matter if I manage to tweeze them out the moment I die, it will take only hours until on my dead, defenseless face those whiskers will appear. And as my neighbors ready me to lie in church, as they dress me in decent black cashmere, and especially as they smear my old cheekbones with rouge, they'll be telling it: See? Black as coal, a right good soup-strainer, handlebar, clothesbrush it would make. It was her all along, children, see... Mustache Maude.