0144 Clickety

Clickety. The old-fashioned slide machine you thought that you'd abandoned long ago suddenly goes clickety out of nowhere, and throws up an image you didn't particularly want to remember. And you wonder why it's still there, and why now, and why then? I was cast as the visiting celeb in Midsville, when all I wanted was to drink it all in without being anything except a privileged observer, fly on the wall, tourist with a visa. No dice. So I had to do the things that go with a paid ticket which they don't tell you with the invite - I had to meet the local press and TV. That was part of the deal. I felt that the egos, maybe even careers of others depended on my unscripted performance. Who was this stranger in the town? Who was I, for that matter? What part was I to play? Uncomfortable. Was it a small town in big America, or a big town in small America, big-town aspirations in small-town minds? Money lurked behind culture; oil wells jigged in rural fields; that was uncomfortable in itself; I was sponsored; that seemed to be significant; I felt I'd left one class structure for another, the same differences, a different sameness. We lunched at the local exec's club, I guess: black professional staff crisp in white, well-scrubbed smart white students also in black and white. Silver service, impeccable; aspiration I'd not met before in my previous laid-back world. Then I saw her - the press. I'd never considered the phrase, 'bandbox-fresh' - but she could have walked straight onto the set of Meet Me in St Louis, and her make-up girl and costume designer would have been looking on proudly; I guess she wrote the social column. She interviewed me. I doubt it got printed. I had the feeling that whatever she was looking for, I didn't have it. But what was it? All I wanted was to love America. Just that. Other people's everyday lives; my American Moment. A frozen slide in the forgotten film of life; and I'm none the wiser. Clickety.