The Irregular's Irregulars
By Mike Morgan
When it all gets a little too much, I like to skip work and walk my way across town, down Arabian Village way. My intention is not to exercise, but to drink liquor, smoke foreign tobacco and listen to the smalltime banter of others in the land of the big talkers. There’s no better saloon to do this in than “The Bashi-Bazouk” at the end of the bus and train line on Mesopotamia Lane. Captain Haddock, the drunken seafarer in the Tintin adventures by Herge, loved to use cuss words beginning with the letter “b.” “Blistering barnacles!” was one such example. Referring to an adversary as a “Bashi-Bazouk” was another. Thus my immediate affinity with the Bashi-Bazouk, which is actually a term used to describe a Turkish mercenary, or Ottoman irregular cavalryman. It’s right up there with “whirling dervish” in the oddball moniker department.
The publican and owner of the Bashi-Bazouk is a Maghribi tribesman from the desert region outside Tripoli and his name is Mustapha. Mustapha has two brothers, also named Mustapha. Every New Year, Mustapha has a reunion with his brothers, and they knock back vats of Egyptian Gin called “Asp Bite,” dress up in mu-mus and fezes with pom-poms, and perform a strange kind of Sergio Leone, Merengue, Bedouin funk music on the electric oud while ululating loudly. The oud is a traditional Arab string instrument and much like the bagpipe, which loses its Highland peculiarity when it’s hooked up to a wah-wah pedal and amplifier a la Frank Zappa, the oud should be played acoustically. The brothers call their combo “The Three Mustaphas Three” and they have a ripe old time taking the mickey out of the audience and telling off-color camel jokes. Mustapha the bartender does the introductions on stage and they go something like this:
“Good evening, ladies and effendis! My name is Mustapha. This is my brother Mustapha. And this is my other brother Mustapha. Together we are three Mustaphas. All three of us. Mustaphas three!”
If golden awards and trinkets were handed out for the wackiest nights of entertainment in the metropolitan area, the walls of the Bashi-Bazouk would look like Fort Knox.
The regulars at the Bashi-Bazouk have a nickname for Mustapha. They call him “The End Of Time” because he is so tall that he has to duck the ceiling rafters behind the bar. Many say that Mustapha is tall enough to see tomorrow before it comes, and thus he will never die because he’ll know when death is due and will do all the right things to stay out of its way. The End Of Time has a wooden left arm. He claims to have lost his real one in a scimitar duel with a wild Wahabi in the marketplace of Medina, but the other two Mustaphas will tell you in confidence about a boating accident on the Aswan Dam with a chorus girl from “Aida.” The End Of Time is also a deadly accurate darts player. He uses his height to his advantage and befuddles the opposition by throwing his spare darts into his phony limb for practice. He likes to take out his glass eye when playing competitively to avoid committing the error of parallex. Sometimes when he’s had a few too many, he’ll dismantle the wooden arm from his stump, leave it on the bar counter, and stick the eye in its palm. It’s rather disconcerting. When asked why, he says, ‘Just keeping an eye out for all of you shorties.”
The End Of Time fancies himself as a bit of an aspiring poet. His poetry usually coincides with his latest fad or “ism” to which he has recently converted. For instance, there was that period when he outlawed bad language and four-letter words from any discussion at the Bashi-Bazouk, He claimed that swearing was the terrain of inarticulate oafs and its use would henceforth be banished. He wrote up a large sign which read:
“YOU’RE SHIT OUT OF LUCK,
IF YOU UTTER THE WORD ‘FUCK’”
- The Management
I complimented him on his catchy rhyming, but then went on to explain the Lenny Bruce schtick about bad language, a tale with which he was unfamiliar. When Lenny was arrested and charged for using profane words in his gig, he stood before the judge and jury. The prosecutor read the charge:
“Your honor, he said ‘motherfucker.’”
“He said ‘motherfucker!’” the judge replied incredulously.
The jury nudged each other, whispering loudly, “Geez, he said ‘motherfucker.’ He can’t say ‘motherfucker’ in public.”
Everybody was saying motherfucker, including the bailiff, the stenographer (who asked how to spell it), all the lawyers, the judge and his clerk, the jury and the alternates, the folks in the gallery and the press corps. The Daily Trumpet, the tabloid vox populi, had this banner headline the next day:
“HE SAID MOTHERFUCKER!”
“My point,” I explained to The End Of Time, “is that sometimes when you tell people not to do something, they do it all the more. You’re better off saying zilch about it. “
”You indeed are a cunning weasel,” The End Of Time complimented me. In appreciation, he poured me a free glass of the fierce raki, a powerful Turkish distilled booze, the name of which is derived from the Arabic word “araki” meaning “sweat.” Raki was lovingly referred to by the original Bashi-Bazouk horsemen of the Ottoman Empire as “lion’s milk.” So the next time I dropped by the Bashi-Bazouk, a new sign had appeared. It said:
“FEEL FREE TO CURSE, INSULT AND SHOUT,
I, FOR ONE, WON’T THROW YOU OUT”
- The Management
The End Of Time is not the only strange duck in the Bashi-Bazouk. It has its unique regiment of regulars: mutterers, old newspaper hoarders, balls of string collectors, shouters in the night, barkers, sharpies, sky-larkers, punters, belly-dancers, sob-story sellers, ponzi schemers, retired pugilists, swag men, flannel merchants, schlenterers, flim-flam artists, blokes with a past, and some with no future. All have partaken of their fair share of the potent raki. All have suffered outbreaks of the Irish flu (also known as the Jameson’s Bug). Most seek at the Bashi-Bazouk that which had been denied from them for most of their hard lives, namely relaxation.
The End Of Time lovingly likes to refer to his regulars as “his flock,” whilst promoting himself as “the shepherd,” but sometimes this pastoral, biblical analogy loses some of it’s innocence when The End Of Time lets his true feelings and frustrations be heard by calling so and so “an animal.” The regulars don’t seem to mind, although exception has been taken to the use of the electric cattle-prod at closing time. One of the regulars designed a Bashi-Bazouk tee shirt. It was bright red and had this emblazoned across the front:
“THE REVOLUTION STARTS AT CLOSING TIME”
The regulars are a creative bunch of souls. They publish a magazine now and again called “So I See They Got You Too!” In this journal, advertized as “The Magazine For Drunks...By Drunks,” they print their thoughts, rants, dreams, tall tales, and predictions, unfettered by the limitations of main-stream ideology. The Homeland Security wallahs have listed “So I See They Got You Too!” as subversive literature, rating it on the same color-coded alert (puce) as “The Anarchist Cookbook,” and the song “Louie, Louie” by The Kingsmen.
Everything was tickety-boo (fine), until one day there was bad news and, if it hadn’t been for the ingenuity of The End Of Time, I might be talking about all of this in the past tense. A large development corporation called “I See It, I Like It, I Want It, I Take It, Inc.,” owned by the Behemoth Brothers from Skullduggery City on the other coast, had bought all of the land surrounding the Bashi-Bazouk. Their stated intention was civic improvement and salvaging a blighted neighborhood. To implement this, they wanted to build a gigantic concrete wall and barrier between Mesopotamia Lane and the nuclear-powered Extrusion and Gaseous Noxious Odor and Waste Management Plant which they intended to construct next door. The Bashi-Bazouk was in the middle of their footprint. The land-grabbers greased palms, bought off elected hacks and had their PR stooges plaster billboards all over the borough, which advertised with slogans like:
“WE ALL NEED A DARK TOXIC CLOUD
ON EVERY HORIZON”
- The BB Boyos
and
‘TOMORROW MIGHT BE THE LAST DAY
OF THE REST OF YOUR LIFE”
- The BB Boyos
The End Of Time was beside himself. He rallied the regulars to join the good fight. “By Beelzebub, these bastards won’t bulldoze the Bashi-Bazouk,” he bellowed. The patrons of the Bashi-Bazouk had great faith in The End Of Time because he knew what was coming next and he promised victory. Recruitment was not a problem. The End Of Time had his brothers (the other Mustaphas) design a war banner:
“WE WILL BITE YOU ON THE ASP”
- The Mesopotamia Lane Block Association
A large gathering was called outside of the Bashi-Bazouk. The End Of Time addressed those at the rally. “Bruddas and sistas,” he went on, “we have no choice,. They’re going to shut down our boozer, Bubbas. We’ll beat ‘em with love and raki.” That night, the regulars plowed and combed their way through the hood, pouring gratis raki for every thirsty soul. By one a.m., the entire community was lit. By three a.m., the soused ones marched on the local headquarters of the Behemoth Brothers. By five a.m., they controlled the phones and the office. By seven a.m., they held a press conference. It went like this: “We are Three Mustaphas Three and a whole lot more. You cannot take away from us what is ours. If you keep this up, we will act. We might have a Weapon of Mass Destruction or two.”
Of course, the only potential weapon of mass destruction possessed by the Bashi-Bazoukers was the enormous jug of raki, but the Behemoth Brothers didn’t know that. They leaned on the powers-that-be for more intelligence and protection. The Behemoth Bruisers were informed by the state that the Bashi-Bazoukers were numero uno terrorists with a guarantee that they would be dealt with as such. The only problem was that the government had told way too many gargantuan whoppers lately and most people were fed up and through believing anything they said. So now, the entire population was put on the spot. There was a country-wide referendum. “Should Mesopotamia Lane be invaded?” was the question posed to the masses. The Daily Trumpet stated it as such:
“DO THESE PRICKS REALLY WANT FREEDOM?”
Naturally, a monumental national debate took place essentially between people who had no clue about any of this, the entire substance of which was so contorted that it was misunderstood, as usual, by everybody. However, in the midst of this confusion and false representation, it was decided that the residents of Mesopotamia Lane should appear to have a voice, albeit a muzzled one, and so The End Of Time was allowed his fifteen seconds on center-stage at the big dance. Borrowing a page from Lenny Bruce, he had only this to say:
“FUCK YOU!”
Sometimes you can never tell when the collective consciousness acts the right way. For once it did. The End Of Time’s statement became the slogan of the day. Everybody got in on the act. Workers echoed it to their bosses, e.g. “Could you please do this?” was responded to with a polite “Fuck you, yes bwana, of course.” Subway operators would announce “The next stop on this train is West Fourth Street...Good day, beware of the closing doors and fuck you.” People on bank lines would try to cash bad checks from smiling bank tellers wearing “Have a nice fucking day” buttons on their lapels. Jehovah’s Witnesses sold a magazine called the “The Fucking Awakening” to repentant idiots. The President opportunistically gave a weekly Saturday morning address on the radio entitled “Now I’m fucking talking.” Sports commentators, the cliche mavens, would refer to the losing team during a game as “being fucked.” The Pope told the entire international Catholic community to get fucked on Easter Sunday. Citibank advertized “We can fuck you over like no other fuckers can.” The right-to-lifers even changed their line to “If you’re going to fuck, do it properly.” And the Post Office had the final say...”We’ll fuck things up for you daily.”
The Behemoth Brothers abandoned their scheme for the revitalization of Arabian Village and went on to bigger and better boondoggles. Soon after, they changed their name from “I See It, I Like It, I Want It, I Take It, Inc.” to the Federal Emergency Management Association (FEMA).
The Bashi-Bazouk is still in business. If you find yourself at loose ends with some time to kill, get yourself down to that part of town and check it out. Everything there is tickety-boo. You won’t be sorry you stopped by. It’s a bar at the end of the line, run by a man called The End Of Time.
