Clowning With Hitchcock

It’s all laughs and just enough cheese until The Photo Guy strides under the door frame wearing a swank black tux and tail, that he bought himself, and a bizarre clown hat sitting atop his matted down perm. A thought slaps me with ‘dignity is always the first to go’, but there he is, eyes upon his nose, and his nose upon an acrid buttercup, wearing that fucking bizarre clown hat.  He is standing there across the room; just standing, statuesque, and already I’m losing track of time, time is leaving me - i’m losing track of noise. The room is struck by a firm white light; I am blinded and time is no longer around. His work has begun and he has begun with it, only it takes me a bottle of wine to register that Photo Guy is absent and it is, in actuality, Stand-In Photo Guy working tonight, dressed in real Photo Guy’s clothing. He stands with his pristinely cut nails, tapping the shutter button pretending to be the real photo guy, wearing a clown hat that no longer appears bizarre; I try to explain how he ought to be dressed in drag and I am beyond any chance of comprehending this change.



The crowd is now cheesing, greasing and I have been abducted; meanwhile,

Stand-In Photo-Guy is uncomfortable in his not-his-clothes, kneeling on the ceiling getting technical or photographically astute (I can’t tell the difference when the difference is behind what is shown). I may be missing and if I am, his job is done. I am blinking my way through a crowd of laughter. I am blinking through a pack of Maltese dogs and their handlers. A crowd of wannabes wanting to be what they don’t want to be. But he wants me. I am lying down yet I am standing; on my feet. I have hunger yet I have no mouth. I am nodding except I don’t approve. I am found, but I was not hiding; in the lens of a camera. I am in bits and I am bundled, on a reel of film. I am a still-frame and I am a movie. He keeps me awake and then he awakens me. He is an intruder but he is welcome. He shoots me with an eye full of glass; and I am in vertigo.