“I suppose it’s a contest about who can be the most obnoxious,” Cady said with a smile. She was trying to explain to me her approach to social media. It was known by her friends and enemies that Cady started each day online, looking for a fight. Being stuck in a wheelchair didn’t help; she had a bone to pick with the world. Her situation was unfair!
“I’m not going to say it,” I said, and then I said it. “You’ll catch more flies with honey.”
“It would be poison, fake honey,” she replied, and turned back to her laptop.
I was there as her personal trainer, encouraging her through stretching, aerobics, and strength training. Her upper body and torso were exemplary, and she was a beautiful woman. Her legs were only somewhat responsive. We had to use electrical stimulation to keep those muscles alive. I showed up three times a week, and when I did, I usually interrupted some argument she was having in cyberspace. Today she was defending the “rights” of people to think abhorrent thoughts.
“A perfectly nice-looking man could be walking down the street, looking at young women, having visions of seducing, or even raping them. This could be the case! Yes, it would all be in his head, but if he did not reveal these thoughts in any way, no one would know, and no one would be harmed.” This was typical of her online comments.
People (on Facebook at least) had been responding with horror, calling her an apologist for rapists, saying her opinions were “disgusting.” But she persisted. She was stubbornly making the point that humans are free to think anything they want to think; to envision anything they want to envision. She herself often entertained scenarios of murdering the teenaged boy who had hit her with his car while she was crossing the street. But she rarely told anyone about that. And she knew the boy had suffered, too. But when she was in an angry mood, she’d envision smashing him with a two-by-four. It seemed to help.
“Entertaining hateful thoughts isn’t always good for the person who is having them,” I would say. She didn’t see it that way. “Harm,” for her, was always a physical thing. And she certainly didn’t believe that mere thoughts could make their way to another person telepathically, or even through subtle body language, at least not from a distance. And Cady was almost always distant.
She met regularly on Zoom with a philosophy discussion group. She fared better on this forum. The (mostly) men who participated were (no doubt) attracted to her face and shoulders. Who knows what they were thinking? She’d be the last person to worry about that! But she would always surprise them with her blasé response to human “evil,” and would energetically argue, like Spinoza, that there was no such thing. This would drive some of the law-and-order types crazy, but they tried to remain civil. Cady would observe their struggles with a straight face. She was not about to reveal the other thoughts in her head at moments like that.
Cady lived with her brother and mother, and kept her interactions with them to a minimum. She had part-time work editing content for several websites. The considerable damage award she’d received was invested and earning dividends. She could afford to hire me and others. The world inside her brain was her own business, and she never failed to remind me of that.
Still, there was something about her that I liked, and it might have been that she accepted herself as she was, felt, and thought. Of all my clients, she was my favorite. But I wasn’t going to let her know that!
— Macoff
“I’m not going to say it,” I said, and then I said it. “You’ll catch more flies with honey.”
“It would be poison, fake honey,” she replied, and turned back to her laptop.
I was there as her personal trainer, encouraging her through stretching, aerobics, and strength training. Her upper body and torso were exemplary, and she was a beautiful woman. Her legs were only somewhat responsive. We had to use electrical stimulation to keep those muscles alive. I showed up three times a week, and when I did, I usually interrupted some argument she was having in cyberspace. Today she was defending the “rights” of people to think abhorrent thoughts.
“A perfectly nice-looking man could be walking down the street, looking at young women, having visions of seducing, or even raping them. This could be the case! Yes, it would all be in his head, but if he did not reveal these thoughts in any way, no one would know, and no one would be harmed.” This was typical of her online comments.
People (on Facebook at least) had been responding with horror, calling her an apologist for rapists, saying her opinions were “disgusting.” But she persisted. She was stubbornly making the point that humans are free to think anything they want to think; to envision anything they want to envision. She herself often entertained scenarios of murdering the teenaged boy who had hit her with his car while she was crossing the street. But she rarely told anyone about that. And she knew the boy had suffered, too. But when she was in an angry mood, she’d envision smashing him with a two-by-four. It seemed to help.
“Entertaining hateful thoughts isn’t always good for the person who is having them,” I would say. She didn’t see it that way. “Harm,” for her, was always a physical thing. And she certainly didn’t believe that mere thoughts could make their way to another person telepathically, or even through subtle body language, at least not from a distance. And Cady was almost always distant.
She met regularly on Zoom with a philosophy discussion group. She fared better on this forum. The (mostly) men who participated were (no doubt) attracted to her face and shoulders. Who knows what they were thinking? She’d be the last person to worry about that! But she would always surprise them with her blasé response to human “evil,” and would energetically argue, like Spinoza, that there was no such thing. This would drive some of the law-and-order types crazy, but they tried to remain civil. Cady would observe their struggles with a straight face. She was not about to reveal the other thoughts in her head at moments like that.
Cady lived with her brother and mother, and kept her interactions with them to a minimum. She had part-time work editing content for several websites. The considerable damage award she’d received was invested and earning dividends. She could afford to hire me and others. The world inside her brain was her own business, and she never failed to remind me of that.
Still, there was something about her that I liked, and it might have been that she accepted herself as she was, felt, and thought. Of all my clients, she was my favorite. But I wasn’t going to let her know that!
— Macoff
A great character, daring the world to dislike and discount her. I like her too.
ReplyDeleteThis was erriey.
ReplyDeleteOops, hit post to soon. It is creative, well-written but made the hairs on my neck stand-up.
ReplyDeleteToo not to!
ReplyDeleteOur thoughts are the only thing we have that truly belong to us. I have mixed feelings about Cady. I think she's strong but also very sad. It's a really good character study, however. opelikakat
ReplyDeleteIt's really hard to write an unlikeable sympathetic character. You did it brilliantly. Last paragraph is perfect ending! (lkai)
ReplyDelete