POCKET MUSTACHE
The first time I remember meeting my grandfather on my dad’s side, it was around 1991. I was 11. The year might slide two years in either direction, but the story stays the same.
It’s worth saying this up front: I believe that there are three versions of every story: my version, your version, and the truth, which probably lies somewhere in between.
This is my version.
I was outside in the front yard with my older brother, two years older, blonde hair, the kind of confidence that comes with being just old enough to pretend you understand what’s going on. We were playing something. Soccer, football, or laser tag. It doesn’t matter.
We’d been told my grandfather was coming, but the details were light. No ETA. No description. Just… incoming.
Suddenly, a silver, or gray, or maybe gray-blue 1980-something Chrysler LeBaron comes barreling down our street toward the cul-de-sac. Inside the house, my dad is waiting for his father. Nervous. The kind of nervousness you don’t fully understand as a kid, but you feel anyway.
But that’s not my story.
My story starts with the laps.
The LeBaron doesn’t pull into our driveway. It hits the cul-de-sac and keeps going.
One lap.
Two laps.
Three.
By the third, my brother and I are laughing. Fully in. Whatever this is, we think, it’s on purpose. This isn’t a mistake. This is a move.
And we love it.
Then finally, he turns. Cuts the wheel. Heads up the driveway.
And we run after him.
Because at that age, you don’t see history pulling into your life.
You just see a car.
And you chase it.
My grandfather gets out. Gray polyester slacks. White dress shoes. Short-sleeve yellow button-down. Silver hair combed straight back. Matching mustache. His look screams Philadelphia, and I dig it.
He looks us directly in the eyes, the way a salesman would, hands each of us a crisp $100 bill, and asks where he can find our father. His son.
Holy shit.
A $100 bill felt like the coolest thing in the world back then. Honestly, it still does. To this day, if one ends up in my hand, I think of him.
Now, there are stories about my dad’s side of the family that probably belong here. My dad was raised by his mom and grandmother in a one-bedroom house in Philly with five or six siblings. His father inherited an Italian restaurant from his parents called Curcio’s, which, depending on who you ask, may or may not be where the Philly cheesesteak was invented. My dad and his siblings worked there as kids. My grandfather lost the restaurant in a poker game. That part feels true, if only because it explains everything else.
But again, not my story.
My story is about the entrance.
So my grandfather, now lighter two hundred dollars, heads inside. We point him toward the house where my dad is almost certainly sweating bullets. My brother and I stay outside for a beat, just staring at our money as we’ve just been cast in a very low-budget remake of Richie Rich.
A few minutes later, we go inside.
My parents are sitting in the living room.
No grandfather.
Before I can ask, the bathroom door opens.
And out he comes.
No mustache.
Now I don’t know how closely you track facial hair at 11ish, but I was pretty sure this guy had a mustache three minutes ago. It wasn’t subtle or even stubble. This wasn’t a maybe he shaved last week situation. This was a presence. A mustache capable of catching food in it.
My parents just stare at him.
I stare at him.
We’re all doing the same math.
And no one’s getting the right answer.
Because what are the options here?
Did he shave? Just now. In our bathroom. During the most emotionally loaded reunion of his life?
Was there a razor in there? Did he travel with one ready to go? Is this part of the plan?
And more importantly, why?
He lets it sit.
Just stands there. No explanation. No acknowledgment. Like, this is completely normal behavior. Like people regularly enter homes with one face and exit bathrooms with another.
Then, calm as hell, he reaches into his pocket.
And pulls out a fake mustache.
Holds it up to his face.
Same mustache.
Same exact mustache.
Then lowers it.
Silence.
He raises it back up.
And down again.
Like he’s demoing it. Like he’s at a trade show for removable facial hair.
And something about that, the confidence, the commitment, the absolute refusal to explain the bit, breaks my dad.
He loses it.
Full laughter.
My grandfather joins him.
And just like that, somehow, impossibly, the ice breaks.
It turns out, nothing says “I’m sorry for disappearing for years” like a pocket mustache and a commitment to the bit.
Years of whatever had been sitting between them, gone. Or at least softened enough to laugh through.
I have no idea how a man lands on a fake mustache reveal as the move. I like to think he sat in that LeBaron doing laps, workshopping bits. Running scenarios. Rejecting them. Landing on this one like, yeah, this might save my life.
And it did.
He never moved back to Philly. Stayed in South Florida. Got a job running the warehouse at the family tire company. Showed up to every birthday with a crisp $100 bill with my name on it, till he died many years later.
I thought he was rich.
And maybe he was.
Because here’s a guy who lost everything, made every mistake available to him, disappeared long enough to become the story, and still found his way back. Nervous as hell. With a joke. Ready to try again.
That counts.
It reminds me of a line from The Royal Tenenbaums: “Can’t somebody be a shit their whole life and try to repair the damage?”
If they show up with a hundred bucks and a fake mustache… yeah, I think the answer is yes.
