Before I go any further into my love of clowns, there was another inspiration for the make-up looks that I eventually went on to do. This inspiration is beyond the influence of online trends, pop-culture, and fashion. I'm interrupting the clown chapter to write about it now, while I still have everything fresh in my mind, because unlike the other things that I was inspired by at the time, this is still having an extreme influence over how I live my life in the present day. Everything else in this chapter ('Painted Faces') is a recollection from the past but this is still happening, more so now than it was back then.
Recently, in the notes app on my phone, I wrote a list:
'REASONS TO MUTILATE OWN FACE'
I don't want to share the entries (or reasons) on the list, because some of them will seem naff. Having them here would mean I would have to explain them and I feel that that would be a pointless exercise because they would make little sense to anyone that isn't me. The list was in the making for years, but only when I completed it and all the thoughts felt clear did I write them down.Back when I was experimenting with make-up, I liked to paint wounds on my face. This is because, back then, as is the same now, I had an intense compulsion to harm my face permanently in some way.
I've planned this interlude from the beginning, always thinking of how best to phrase it. Beyond paranoia, wanting to be untraceable for facial-recognition software, this is the true raison d'etre of the whole project. It's also probably the reason I'm so into certain types of difficult violent horror movies, and it genuinely shapes a lot of my life.
If there's anyone I know personally reading this right now- I'm grand, mostly. I'm not disclosing this to bring to light a big secret, or make you worry or feel bad for me. I'd prefer it if you didn't. I'm writing it and being honest because I had the idea that writing something down in story-form turns it fictional. It helps me look at things objectively. The original plan for 'Facial Features' was to have my character, Mannibal, the author, get gradually worse and worse before eventually dying. Therefore, every bad thing he wrote down would also be dead and gone. Every fiction would be over, and my alternate self would have taken the fall. I would have been free.
Peter Graham (played by Alex Wolff) in 'Hereditary' ((2019) dir. Ari Aster). Smashed his face off a school desk resulting in a broken nose. Did this to rid himself of the spirit of his younger sister, Charlie, who was possessing him. On the other hand, potentially Charlie herself smashed Peter's face into the table, confused at her new body and re-enacting her last moments wherein she suffered severe head trauma, having been decapitated by a telephone pole.
I thought that 'Facial Features' would take this route all throughout the writing of the first chapter, 'Analogue Horror'. Even beginning this one ('Painted Faces'), knowing I would have to write a 'headbangers' of some sort, I still believed that there was a way to turn the story completely fictional. Except, I don't think that's a viable option anymore.
Marty (played by Martin Casella) in 'Poltergeist' ((1982) dir. Tobe Hooper). Pulls his own face off and lets chunks of it fall into the bathroom sink in a vision while investigating a haunted residence in California. Leaves the investigating team shortly after this, to the disdain of his parapsychologist colleagues Ryan and Martha. They think he's a coward. I always feel slightly bad for Marty when I watch this movie.
Leading up to the writing of this chapter, which I intended to be a pivotal moment in 'Facial Features', I’ve been struggling. I've been to the doctors more times in the past month than I have in my whole life, always to dance around the subject of what I think would really cure me- a box cutter through the cheek. I've taken so many sick days off work. If I write it down, it will have happened to a fictional, narrator version of me, and it won't have to happen to the real me, right? But completely by coincidence and accident, I did end up cutting my face recently. A DIY mishap involving a box cutter no less. I would call that fate, how could you not?
Alexia (played by Agathe Rouselle) in 'Titane' ((2021) dir. Julia Ducournau). Smashes her face off a rest-stop sink in order to disguise her appearance as that of Adrien Legrand, the missing son of fire captain Vincent Legrand, after a manhunt goes underway to capture her for murder. Living as Adrien, Alexia finds the love and support she never had in the father-figure of Vincent, even though Vincent knows she is not truly her son.
So, what am I meant to do if the walls between fiction and reality are that thin. If it is simply meant to be, or if I can't separate myself from the doomed version of Mannibal entirely. My mother's favourite book, which I've never read (nor have I ever seen George Romero's 1993 film adaptation, though I have plans to watch it soon) is Stephen King's 'The Dark Half' (1989). I won't describe the plot- google it- but for me, it seems that I was made for this.
After the accident with the box cutter, I tried to replicate my injury, make it deeper with a purpose. I really thought that it was the day when I would make good on my self-threat and put the box cutter through my cheek. I'll be honest, I've considered the act a be all and end all. I think that some day it's bound to happen. The only question is whether today is the day. I thought it was: I pressed the blade, not fully extended from the box cutter sheath, into the wound that was already there. I could feel the tip of the blade when I ran my tongue across the inside of my cheek. I stood there like that, still, for so long that my arm got tired. The only proof that I was actually doing anything, making any progress, was the dull ache in my cheek as I slowly attempted to push the box cutter through. Eventually, I could let go of the box cutter slightly and it would hang there without help, lodged in the side of my face.
Dale Cooper (played by Kyle McLachlan) in 'Twin Peaks' ((1990-1991) created by Mark Frost and David Lynch), s2e29 ('Beyond Life and Death'). Smashes his face into a bathroom mirror while possessed by BOB, the entity responsible for the murder in the case he is working on. Unclear as to whether BOB does this to fuck up Cooper's face as a kind of 'fuck you' to the man he now has complete control over, or, to take the interpretation of one of the members of the 'Diane' podcast: "I think that there's enough of Cooper in there to recognise the reflection and throw himself at it and to batter himself against it." I like both.
Basically, I gave up because it was too hard. The pain didn't bother me, it was just that I physically didn't have the strength to put it the full way through my face. It was very disheartening: I could push and push all I wanted, but the blade wouldn't pierce the full way. I understood that if I brought it to my face with speed, it would probably work, but I couldn't bring myself to do it. My hand kept wavering. Overall, a failure. Not my time yet, whatever.
I called off sick from work the next day. It seemed really disingenuous, hellish even, to go into work and pretend that everything was fine and that I didn't try to stab myself in the face the night before. More than that, I was upset that I clearly didn't have it in me. The scar is also upsettingly unimpressive.
Back when I was playing around with make-up, I was also drawn to the characters that I've mentioned above, although for reasons which I couldn't put into words clearly back then, but now can. That's why I'm writing this now. Fictional depictions of self-harm are weirdly exorcising, in a way.
I literally can't remember where I was going with the clown chapter apart from that, uh, they look cool. I'll move on.