The Moustache Bandit's Confession

My name is Charlie Benson. By day, I just go by Charlie. But by night, I go by a different name. In Germany I am known as the Schnurrbartträger. In India, the Munchh Daku. In Vietnam, I am the Kẻ cướp ria mép.

I am the Moustache Bandit. And this is my confession.

I am the Van Gogh of Van Dykes. The Michelangelo of moustachios. The Hokusai of the handlebar. I have travelled far and wide to freely display my art for the world. And while some may call me a criminal and a vandal, I see myself as simply another artist. For what is art but an induction of emotion? The act of giving one permission to feel?

I had always liked to draw, and what I liked to draw the most was my father. He was a stout Englishman, with the most terrific mustache in the town. I watched in awe and admiration as he shook hands with clients and closed contracts, barely needing to say any words at all. "I can tell you're the right man for the job, Mr. Benson. Would you care to come over to our home for a whisky? I can introduce you to my wife," his clients would often say. I drew my father every day, his moustache taking up the entire page.

As I hit puberty, I eagerly awaited my first stubble. My friends would come to school and show off their budding follicles or the cuts they had from their first shaves. I would go home and touch my face and find it was still smooth as silk. By the time I started my career as a clerk, all of my colleagues had some form of facial hair, all except my boss at the time. "I don't like mustaches. They're itchy and make no sense." I never really got along with him.

The day turned 23, I walked into the doctor’s office. I was not the same man when I walked out.

“Don’t worry son,” my father said to me. “There are facial wigs! There’s always a way.” My father died three months later, the cancer cutting through him like a hot knife. But even as he lay in his casket, it was as if he was only sleeping.

After the funeral, as the world slept, I broke into my boss' office and painted a moustache on a picture of his mother. The experience was thrilling and frightening at the same time. I vowed never to do it again, and that despite it being but a crime of passion, it was still wrong.

Then, the war began. Believing that the smell of cordite and the savagery of killing a man may convince my dormant follicles to grow a pair, I signed up to fight. But at the office, the recruiter looked me up and down and said: “Sorry son, you can’t join the fight until you finish secondary school.” I returned to the recruitment office that very night and painted moustaches on all the men and women on the posters until I ran out of ink.

That night, I became the Moustache Bandit

Sneaking away in the night was easier in the early days as most men where off fighting the nazis which, as we all know, had terrible taste in facial hair. During the day, I would be looking for faces on advertisements on the streets, those cold, naked faces, and would return in the late hours of the night, my ink and brush ready. And every night when I got home, I dreamed of sitting in the barber’s chair, like my father. After a while, I started to get noticed. Small articles appeared in the local paper. I started to feel a swelling in my chest, but not of fear and excitement like before. This was pride.

After the war, things became a bit tricky. The revitalisation which occurred in the late 40’s and early 50’s made it far riskier for me to be out at night in the streets. And besides, the fire which once blazed in my heart when I slathered a moustache on someone’s picture had dimmed to the size of a candlelight, and the papers never mentioned me anymore. It was time for bigger game.

First, I needed new tools. Working with a paint brush and a vial of ink would no longer suffice. I needed something discreet, quick, easy to carry, and most importantly, difficult to wash off. After several experiments, I managed to combine solvent, glyceride, pyrrolidone, some resin, and a colorant in a small metal tube with a firm sponge at the end. At first, I called it “the moustachiser”, but after being made aware of an infamous Austrian erotic novelist with a nearly identical name, I changed it to “Permanent Marker”. After my colleague Sydney saw me using it at work, he asked if he could borrow it. The next thing I knew, it was patented, and Sydney retired. Thankfully, Sydney is a remorseful man, and his guilt was assuaged with a 600-thousand-dollar check to me. With my finances set, I was ready to take my art worldwide.

Before I continue, I must give credit to fiction novelists everywhere (except for that prude Mustachiser) for they are the greatest teachers. I would have never learned how to plan a break in, pick a lock, and evade authorities if it weren’t for the likes of Arthur Conan Doyle, Alexandre Dumas, and the hundreds of others who could not fit in this confession.

Using these learned techniques and my practiced marker hand, I went to work. The girl with the pearl necklace now had a stunning mutton chops. The couple of American Gothic were adorned with handsome walrus moustaches. Edvard Munch's 'The Scream' now looked as dapper as the Monopoly Man. And with each new moustache, my name spread further and further. I felt like a god. That is, until I got caught.

I feel it is important to clarify to you, dear reader, that I never once considered the addition of my moustache-masterpieces to be an improvement of the original art of which I made my canvas. They are but alterations. For I believe that it is the nature of change that the truest beauty – that of the human heart – is stimulated. And with this in mind, I knew I could never stop, not until I was caught or dead.

Which brings us to the events of three days ago.

There has always been one untouchable prize, one muse which has tempted me so. The Mona Lisa is the epitome of what we, as a society, have deemed as artistic greatness. This makes me angry. How can we put so much emphasis on something which represents so little of the beauty we feel every day, in all things? No, the Mona Lisa is not great. I believe that true art - true beauty - is our emotive hearts, free to feel what it pleases, with no frame to hold it in. It is the feeling of connection with the earth when we find a sprout amongst the cinders of a fire, the longing for the taste of one’s first and final love, or the harmony which comes after a great sadness. It is the joy of being with my father. These are examples of objective and unalterable beauty, and not some tart which looks like she’d be boring at parties. Boring, if not for a moustache…

My plan was fool proof. I followed the painting for three years, recorded the movement of the guards, and bribed and blackmailed the right people. I didn’t care. Mona needed a moustache.

On that fateful night, I snuck into the Louvre, past the guards, and turned the corner…

This is where things fell apart. You see, I have a terrible fear of spiders. And just as I turned the corner, I came face to face with the most ghoulish eight-legged demon, hanging by a silk thread from the ceiling. The monster plopped right down on the tip of my nose, which caused me to panic and smack myself hard in the face. Dazed by the power of my own strike, I lost my balance and stumbled right into the code of Hammurabi, the most ancient tablet of law. You all know what happened next.

So, there you have it. It was an accident, and I do not believe I should be charged for the crime of facing, quite literally, my greatest fear. If anything, I believe it is the spider which should be charged and - may I remind you - it is still at large.

While I understand that the tablet would most likely dictate that I be pushed to the ground hard enough for my bones to break into thousands of pieces, I guarantee that I cannot be glued back together like the damaged artifact, which in my opinion, is a great example of what is known in Japan as Kintsugi, which is the art of fixing things that are broken with gold.

All of this said, I sincerely and humbly apologize for the damage I have caused to the tablet. But if you expect me to apologize for my art...

Well, then, I believe my work is done.