El Sicario

If you’re looking at providing instruction to someone in the art of having a full-blown midlife crisis for men, I’m a great role model. I have all the bases covered. A dangerous relationship with alcohol, bouts of intense self-loathing, a limitless capacity for self-sabotage and – importantly in this context – a quiet but firmly held belief that I’m still just about young enough to be picked as the next James Bond. Daniel Craig is exactly the same age as me, so suck on that, haters.

So it came to pass that, in the midst of this temporary insanity, I happened upon the shirt that now defines my sartorial and moral existence, and which I wear most days to the amusement, scorn or – rarely – admiration of my peers. ‘El Sicario’ (‘The Hitman’), is described by its manufacturers as a ‘covert concealed carry shirt’. Designed by an American maniac called Greg Tambone, a self-described former mercenary and special ops danger guy, El Sicario incorporates a range of ‘tactical’ qualities quite unnecessary for an everyday bloke’s shirt. Hidden pockets abound, within which one can conceal a variety of knives, guns, drugs, toothbrushes or whatever else it is that your average Central American hitman needs to get himself through the day. The shirt, modelled absurdly by myself above, also features a camouflage interior, so that when you’re done shooting or knifing someone to death, you can invert the garment, wrap the murder weapon in it and stash it invisibly somewhere in the Bolivian jungle, before making good your escape. Obviously, at that stage, you won’t have a shirt on anymore and are probably covered in blood with a crusted ring of cocaine around your mouth, but hey at least your knife is safe. Oh and it also features pearl button studs, so you can easily rip the shirt open and access your Glock without tearing off the buttons and having to get your gran to sew them back on again.

According to his extensive, too-long-to-read web bio, Greg Tambone is said to be on the run from the FBI for crimes committed in the US, and so operates out of ‘unspecified locations’ across Central America. Although the label inside the shirt says, ‘Made in Honduras’, so he could probably do with a refresher course on his covert skills and all that.

Scouring the internet late at night as I do in an attempt to find things that might re-kindle the dwindling light of my existence, I came across the Bone Tactical website. Naturally enough, I was immediately captivated by the image of a comely young woman wearing little else than the El Sicario shirt itself, whilst holding the barrel of a gun to her slightly parted lips. As you may imagine, Bone Tactical don’t go too strong on the more subtle aspects of retail marketing. Anyway, I thought to myself, I MUST possess this thing (the shirt not the woman), and went about some pre-sales research

Bone Tactical, it transpires, sell a range of disturbing and inappropriate items, such as savage looking ‘bone breaker’ knuckledusters, porcelain knives of the type undetectable by airport security sensors, tomahawks, karambit knives (nasty, google them), other types of lunatic weaponry and, rather sweetly I thought, bags of coffee. Well, it says ‘coffee’ on the label but order some and you’ll probably find yourself delivered with a stash of high-grade Peruvian cocaine instead. I take mine straight thanks, no milk or sugar.

The El Sicario shirt emerges out of what’s known as the ‘Every Day Carry’ movement or EDC, which rose in America when the more obviously insecure and dangerous members of the National Rifle Association started  the trend of Open Carry, which is to say walking around the streets openly carrying heavy duty firearms, which are essential when visiting the local store to buy a pint of milk. EDC is kind of a vanilla version of that.

Unable, and frankly unwilling, to lug around an AR-15 Assault Rifle, instead I express my EDC machismo by always having with me a notebook and pen, a small hand utility tool and a modest pocket knife of the type your grandad probably called a ‘pen knife’, and not the tactical Navy SEAL throat slicer of the sort you can purchase from Bone Tactical.

And so it came to pass, that in the throes of my somewhat grandiose midlife crisis, I find myself strutting around absurdly in a shirt, quite literally designed for use by a Colombian hitman. My friends at rehab have taken all this in high spirits and that is now my rehab nickname: ‘Sicario’. As far as cool sobriquets go one could do worse I guess, although I couldn’t imagine a less hitman-ish hitman than myself. ‘Midlife Crisis Nick’ or ‘Sad Twat’ don’t quite have the same street value so, for now hombres, say hello to my little friend.