Free Mustache

Down the street from my apartment is a granite statue of John Endecott. Endecott was a 17th century Boston governor dude. They named some stuff after him – like a school and something else I can't remember. I think they named a town after him too.

So the other day I was lurking near the Endecott statue. I was sitting around, whistling, minding my own business, when all of the sudden something landed in my lap.

Well, it startled the shit out of me, you know? I sort of tried to jump to my feet and yell, but my legs got tangled up. I kind of lost my balance and fell into some bushes. That sucked. The bushes were freshly trimmed, so there were lots of sharp pokey branches. And they smelled kind of like pee; I think hobos and drunk kids pee in them. I don't even want to think about it.

Anyway, I stumbled into the bushes, yelping like an idiot. It took a couple minutes to remove myself from the bushes. Once I freed myself, I walked over to see what had fallen in my lap and startled me.

It looked like a clump of hair. I grabbed a nearby stick and poked it a few times. I thought maybe it was a wounded animal or something, but it didn't move. Once I felt confident that it wasn't alive, I got up close and got a good look at it. Then I recognized it – it was John Endecott's mustache!

Apparently the mustache had become real, fallen off John Endecott's statue, and landed right in my lap. Pretty sweet, right? So of course I tried it on and checked out my reflection in the window of a parked car. The mustache looked pretty good!

While I was standing in front of the car and admiring my new mustache, the owner of the car caught sight of me. "Hey dickhead," he yelled, "get the fuck away from my car!"

That was kind of a drag. I mean, I'm not a big fan of being yelled at. Especially with, like, vulgarity and aggressiveness and what not. That said, the dude was in the right – my proximity to his car was pretty sketchy.

Anxious to diffuse the situation, I quickly backed away from the car. Unfortunately, this wasn't enough insurance for the dude. From out of nowhere, he charged at me, and bashed me upside the head with some sort of shopping bag.

It actually didn't hurt that much. I think the shopping bag was filled with clothes. If I was gonna get bashed with anything, that was a cool thing to get bashed with. Way better than, like, a fist or a tree branch. Still, it's pretty shocking to be bashed in the head with anything, you know?

After I got bashed with the shopping bag, I flopped onto the ground. The dude scowled at me for a few seconds, then he got in his car and drove away.

I sat in the grass for a few minutes, then I got up and sat on an overturned flowerpot. My mustache was askew, so I attempted to straighten it out.

While I fiddled with my mustache, a woman walked up to me and said, "Hi." She was walking a dog. I'm not sure what kind. It was small and had brown fur. The dog was chewing on what looked like a piece of cardboard.

"Hello," I said.

"Are you okay? I saw that guy hit you with the shopping bag."

"Oh, yeah, I'm cool. It's no sweat. That was a misunderstanding. I was using the window of his car to check out my mustache. I think he thought I was doing something shady."

"Well, scoping out your mustache in the dude's car window is sort of marginally shady."

"Yeah, I know. My bad. Whatever. But I just got it, you know, and I was kind of amped to see how it looks."

"Where'd you get it?"

"It fell off the John Endecott statue."

"Who is John Endecott?"

"I don't know – some pilgrim dude," I yawned.

"Well," she said, "good luck with your new mustache."

"Thanks. What you up to?"

"Gonna grab a donut."

"Nice. What kind?"

"Chocolate-frosted."

"Dude, gross. Get jelly. Jelly is bad ass."

"No way. That's nasty how the stuff oozes out of it."

"That's the best part! Stuff with other shit inside it rules. Like empanadas and pierogi. And burritos!"

"You can't compare jelly donuts to burritos. That's just stupid."

"Yeah, you're right. Well, what about the jelly though? Jelly is tasty. Pizza should have jelly inside it. Like blueberry jelly. That would be sick. Blueberry jelly is fucking great. And maybe some pistachios. I'd also like to try zucchini and peanut butter pizza.

"I dunno, man, that sounds kinda gross. Anyway, I gotta split. Take it easy. Good luck with that mustache."

"Thanks, enjoy the donut."

I sat and thought about jelly. I wanted to make my own jelly pizza, but my oven is really dirty. Whenever I try to bake anything, my fire alarms go crazy. It sucks. So I just don't bake anything. It's probably for the best though; my baking skills are pretty weak. I tried baking bread a few times. It was a pretty miserable experience.

But once I started thinking about pizza I couldn't get it out of my head, you know? Once I start thinking about pizza it's sort of a foregone conclusion that I'm going to eat pizza. So I didn't even fight it.

There was a pizza shop a couple blocks away, so I headed over. The place was pretty dead. The guy behind the counter was watching a Red Sox game.

"Yo," I said to the dude. But he didn't move. He just eyeballed me for a second then continued watching the baseball game. At first I was sort of miffed, but, you know, this is Boston. Whatever. Baseball comes first.

So I leaned against the counter and watched the game. It was pretty boring. I busied myself by screwing around with my mustache. I sort of twisted the ends around and chewed on them and stuff like that.

When the top half of the inning ended, the game cut to commercials. The pizza guy turned to me as if he'd popped out of a trance. "Hey," he said. "What's up? What can I get ya?"

The dude kind of caught me off guard. I had half my mustache twirled up into a braid and I was trying to stuff the other half into my nostril. When I realized the dude was looking at me, I rubbed my face with my hands and tried to regain my composure.

"Uh, yeah." I said. "Can I get a slice of cheese?"

"Sure."

The dude pulled a massive, greasy slice off the rack, tossed it on a thin paper plate, and handed it to me. "Okay," he said, "that'll be a $1.25."

The pizza dude peered at me. "A what?"

"An Endecott mustache discount," I said, proudly pointing to my mustache. "This mustache belonged to John Endecott!"

"Who is John Endecott?"

"Come on, man! Are you serious? He was an important colonial governor dude. He wore one of those dopey pilgrim hats and those shoes with the buckles. He did a bunch of cool stuff and made all sorts of progress. And I think they named some junk after him. Also, there is a statue of him down the street."

"Oh, that's who that statue is? I mean, I've seen the statue before, but I had no idea who it was. But I didn't really care either, you know?"

"Yeah, I didn't really care either, but I just checked it out one day. I hang out there lots 'cause it's quiet and down the street from my apartment. It's a good place to whistle, and there are some trees nearby that are fun to climb on if no one is around."

"Cool, I'll have to remember that. I like climbing trees."

"Fuck yeah, man, climbing trees rules.

The pizza dude laughed. Then the Red Sox game came back on. We watched the bottom half of the inning. I ate my slice of pizza. When the inning was over, I tossed my plate in the trash and split.

It wasn't until I was a block down the street that I realized I hadn't paid for my slice of pizza.

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