A New Man
by Rhea DeRose-Weiss
It was an evening in early October that Calvin came upon the book of mustaches—it had been left out on the sidewalk in a box with a few other books, several half-melted candles, two pairs of women’s shoes, and a black fedora, slightly worse for the wear. The casualties of a move, Calvin presumed. He was on his way home from work—a new job, his first full-time position as a video game designer. Calvin was a postmodern man, a proponent of technological advancements in all things media, but he had a weakness for relics of bygone eras, including books. So he took the book and, after a moment of thought, the fedora, too—what the hell—and continued his walk home from the metro station on Market Street The sky was three different shades of pink over the top of Twin Peaks and there was a new chill in the air.
At home he found his girlfriend, Samantha, sitting cross-legged on their worn Victorian love seat, drinking wine and doing a crossword puzzle.
“What’s that?” she asked, eying the hat with suspicion. Samantha had a pronounced fear of lice, bedbugs, and scabies, although she’d never personally contracted any of these things. She was a cautious young woman in certain regards.
“Never you mind, little lady,” said Calvin, in a voice louder and more boisterous than usual. Samantha looked at him oddly, but went back to her puzzle without further comment.
And that was how it began. While San Francisco was still dillydallying about with warmish days and a lack of any seasonal direction, Calvin was studying his newly sprouted hairs intently in the bathroom mirror and consulting his book daily for style and grooming tips. He chose a style referred to as “The General,” which required careful trimming, combing, and a just a little bit of wax.
Samantha found the mustache endearing at first. My manly, manly man, she’d say, smoothing its well-trimmed tips. She treated the mustache as a novelty gag, something to spur amusing conversation among their culturally savvy and well coiffed friends at dinner parties, or over drinks at their favorite Mission dive bar.
But when months went by and the mustache was still firmly planted on Calvin’s upper lip, Sam was no longer so keen on it. She complained that it was scratchy against her face when he kissed her and that it gathered particles of food. She complained that it smelled funny, like sardines and bourbon and pipe smoke (yes, Calvin had also started smoking a pipe since the advent of the mustache). The mustache was still a humorous topic of conversation at dinner parties, but now Samantha’s laughter was strained, and she tried to change the topic as quickly as possible.
Whenever Calvin wore the fedora, the mustache took on a decidedly gangster lean—and so did Calvin. He noticed, for instance, that he’d started talking out of the side of his mouth—quickly, and in what could only be categorized as a mutter. At work he couldn’t seem to help himself from ending all his sentences with see, as in “The camera logic during the hack and slash sequence is problematic, see?” Between the gaming lingo and his neo-noir parlance, Calvin momentarily worried that he was becoming unintelligible, but his co-workers seemed to understand him just fine. Chad said that maybe the hack and slash was the problem, and Greg thought they should go axonometric with the whole design, at least for the vertical slice. Stuart only wanted to hear about the marquee. “Is it a paradigm buster or a button masher, Calvin?” Stuart was a businessman, with no appreciation for the art form.
***
Now that Calvin had a mustache, he began to see them everywhere. He’d noticed them before, but now he realized that men his age all over San Francisco were sporting various styles of hair on their upper lips, and doing so with an earnestness and dedication that their un-mustachioed counterparts didn’t suspect. By and large these were un-athletic men who grew up playing Nintendo or Atari rather than football or tennis. They had been raised in cities or suburbs; they were men who had never chopped wood. They were men who felt more like boys than men. But along with the growth above the upper lip came an inner growth of masculine confidence. No matter the pasty, underdeveloped chest, the adolescent penchant for comic books, the old Smiths records in the closet. Calvin now remained silent and aloof through happy hour conversations about football or cars; his mustache put him above this kind of tedious interaction. He was a man of few words, a man of action. He was a man with nothing to prove.
And he was a man with an acute understanding of the seamy underbelly of the gaming world. When Chad, who was on a new project, happened to ask if he’d solved the problem with the hack and slash sequence, Calvin replied, “It’s so much bigger than the hack and slash, Chad. What I’m worried about, see, is the clown car in level 2 and the feature creep that’s been happening for the last month and a half. Putting in too many hot spots is giving us a hat on a hat. Pretty soon we’re going to be looking at a fractile rewrite.” Then he pulled out his pipe and lit it. Chad nodded distractedly, with only a quick look askance at the pipe, before continuing down the hall.
***
From Calvin’s office he could see Telegraph Hill, Coit Tower looming above it like an omen—but of what? he wondered. San Francisco was a port city, a city built on shifting allegiances and wild-eyed dreams. Men came to San Francisco to reinvent themselves and find their fortunes. He was no different. Gaming was the new gold, or so he had thought. He knew video games. He knew what they were capable of. He did not know, however, what the rest of the design team was capable of, and he didn’t like working with an unknown variable. A game in the wrong hands—well, it was dangerous, no doubt about it.
***
Calvin was brooding in the living room when Samantha yelled to him from the kitchen that they would be having dinner with her parents that weekend. He didn’t respond. Samantha was getting a little pushy for his taste lately. He continued to brood.
“Calvin, did you hear me?” Sam stood in the doorway, drying her pale hands with a dishtowel. “They’re driving up from Sacramento for the day, and they’re bringing Grandpa Jack.”
Calvin had met Sam’s parents once, briefly. He’d never met Grandpa Jack, but he’d heard stories. Grandpa Jack had fought in an indeterminate number of wars and had sported a handlebar mustache through all of them.
“You’re lucky you’re so cute, doll face,” Calvin said. “Come over here and give me a squeeze.”
“Quit the ‘doll face’ shit,” Sam said, returning to the kitchen. “And seriously, consider a shave.”
***
Calvin did not consider a shave. He needed all the bravado he could muster to get through the night with Sam’s family, and so he went mustachioed and decked out with fedora and pipe. Sam’s lips went tight when she saw this, but she didn’t say anything.
When they arrived at the restaurant, her family was already seated. It was a tourist trap with red-checkered tablecloths and overpriced seafood, but Calvin had kept his mouth shut; the reservation had been made at Grandpa Jack’s request. Now Grandpa Jack took one look at Calvin and made a harrumphing sound deep in his throat. He did not take kindly to newfangled mustaches of the Generation X variety, no matter how seriously the wearer took his responsibilities as a mustachioed man. Samantha went over to give him a kiss.
“Hello, sweetheart,” he said, his face softening for a moment. Just as quickly his scowl returned as he looked over her shoulder and gave Calvin a curt nod, followed by another, barely concealed, harrumphing noise.
Entrees were ordered; pleasantries were exchanged. Sam’s father inquired about Calvin’s job.
“Well, the thing is, see—” Calvin began. He was prepared to bring everyone in on the questionable decisions of his design team—the clown car, the hot spots, the whole bit—but was quickly interrupted by Grandpa Jack.
“This boy doesn’t know the meaning of work.” Grandpa Jack forked a piece of steak to his mouth and gave the meat a chew with his mighty dentures. “Back in my day, a man worked with his hands.”
Why had Grandpa Jack insisted on coming to a seafood restaurant to order a steak? Calvin had had enough. “That’s where you’re wrong, see—”
A sharp kick under the table silenced Calvin. “Quit it,” Sam mouthed.
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Somewhere toward the end of dinner and into Calvin’s second or third double scotch, Sam suggested they walk down to the Musée Mécanique. “You’ll like it, Grandpa Jack,” she said. “It’s a like a piece of old San Francisco.”
And with that, the bill was paid and they were out on the sidewalk, straining against the crowds. Sam’s parents walked behind them with Grandpa Jack, who was commenting loudly on something or other that he did not agree with. The air was thick with the smell of fried fish, and on every side tourists meandered slowly with loud, ice-cream smeared children in tow. The streets careened.
“You’re swerving,” Sam hissed, giving Calvin a sharp elbow in the ribs. Before he could retort, the museum was upon them: a cavernous warehouse lined with penny arcades and slot machines, tucked into the shadows of Fisherman’s Wharf, just beyond the main thoroughfare.
“How charming,” Sam’s mother said, looking a little unsure if it was.
Grandpa Jack made an unintelligible declaration, to which Sam replied, “Oh Grandpa, you’re such a card.”
The scotch was muddling Calvin’s brain; he blinked and what seemed like hours went by. Sam and her parents had wandered ahead. He found himself standing alone amidst mechanical love readings and fortunetellers.
“So, how long did it take you to grow that thing?” Grandpa Jack spoke from behind Calvin, so Calvin had to turn and locate the shrunken man against the glass encased scenes of San Francisco past: whorehouses and opium dens, carnivals and saloon shootouts. Grandpa Jack must have felt right at home.
“Three days,” Calvin replied.
It had taken exactly three weeks and two days for Calvin to achieve the glorious state of mustache he now displayed, but he wasn’t about to admit that to Grandpa Jack. Keep your cards close and bluff to high heaven—that’s how the game was played.
But Grandpa Jack wasn’t buying it. “Harumph,” he said. “Used to be,” he said, “a man had to earn his mustache. A man worked with his hands, earned a living, supported a family.” Grandpa Jack narrowed his eyes. “Tell me, young man, what exactly are your intentions with my granddaughter?”
“Jack, you’ve been snoozing on the wrong side of yesterday. My intentions are clean as a whistle, see, though I’m not sure how that’s any business of yours.”
Grandpa Jack’s face grew red with fury; his eyes bulged. “That’s mighty big talk for a two-pound guppy. I may be getting on in years, but I’m still the head of this family. I think you owe me an apology, son. Or do you want to take this little matter outside?”
“Let’s go, old man.” Calvin strode in what he was hoping was the direction of the door, disoriented as he was. He heard Grandpa Jack behind him, wheezing but keeping up a good pace.
And then from further away he heard Sam’s voice: “Grandpa! Calvin! What’s going on?”
Calvin did an abrupt about-face, swaying only slightly, but Grandpa Jack had been right on his heels and the two men collided. Calvin, feeling that this collision indicated the fight had begun, staggered back to his feet and prepared to throw the first punch of his life. As he did he caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror at the top of a fortune-telling scale—the body of which read, appropriately, “Weigh your fate.” Taking in his own disheveled hair, red cheeks, and clenched fist, for a moment he saw his fifteen-year-old self staring back at him, totally mystified by what was happening. Was his newfound bravado all a façade underneath which still trembled, gawky and pale, an adolescent soul? A hat on a hat, indeed. And suddenly a loud cackle rang out. To the left of the machine a tall mechanical peasant woman in a glass case had come to life: someone had put a quarter into Laffing Sal. Her bulbous face with its gap-toothed smile shook and leered through the glass case, her maniacal laughter bringing Calvin’s growing sense of shame and uncertainty to a fevered pitch. She was laughing at him, at his moment of doubt, weakness. A real man doesn’t hesitate, he thought. A real man makes his move. From the corner of his eye he could see the look of disbelief and horror on Sam’s face. Calvin drew back his fist and swung.
After that the night split into animated shots: a toothless Grandpa Jack swinging his small fists in vain as Sam’s father held him back, Sam’s mother scrambling for Grandpa Jack’s false teeth on the cement floor, and then Sam’s voice rising above the fray: “Have you lost your mind??” And later, as she pushed him into a cab: “Go home, Calvin. I don’t know what’s going on with you, but that’s it. I’m done.”
***
Calvin awoke from uneasy dreams to an empty bed and a terrible hangover. The light through the window was gray and unpromising. For a moment he couldn’t remember what season it was, what year. The events of the night before gathered in the shadows of his mind, sending tendrils of anxiety into his already queasy stomach. Sam. But no room for regret, Calvin resolved. He had played the only move he could have played. It was all a game—he’d identified too closely with the character, was all. Luckily there were more lives to be played. Sufficiently roused, he swung his legs over the side of the bed. He lived in the city of reinvention—aging war veterans and uptight girlfriends be damned. All he needed was a shower, a strong cup of coffee, and maybe a little wax on the old mustache.
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About the Author
Rhea DeRose-Weiss lives in Durham, NC and teaches writing courses at the high school and college level. Her work has been published in Carve, Whore! Magazine, and Fourteen Hills: The SFSU Review. You can find her online at http://rheaderoseweiss.writersresidence.com/ and http://rheawdw.tumblr.com/.
“A New Man” © 2013 Rhea DeRose-Weiss
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