The Biography of Cass
I, Cassandra, prefer to be called Cass, a name not bestowed upon me by Apollo, who is both the spring and bane of my existence as disbelieved prophetess. Rather it is a name I have chosen for myself and as such, holds little chance of being believed or invoked. I am the daughter of King Priam and Queen Hecuba of a place kind of like Troy.
I am not the most beautiful of Priam’s wild brood, because as my frustrated brother whined [in a litany of other perfectly packaged characterizations] one day, “Cass is the smart one.” I wanted to be the “good-looking one.” Or I, had it not been for my two left feet, would have gladly been the “athletic one.” But I was the “smart one,” which doomed me to eyeglasses so thick they could stop stray bullets and a paperback on my person at all times. To quote a nimble and self-absorbed 1990s ice princess of bludgeoned fame, I wondered, “Why me?” Why do I, Cass, have to be the smart one?
Word to the wise: don’t brush off a prospective suitor with Apollo-like powers, particularly when you’re just the “smart one,” and neither the “good-looking” nor the “athletic” one and therefore not really worthy of his affections in the first place, nor capable of using your athleticism to kick him in the balls and run. He’ll never get over it. Like many disgruntled Greek gods before him, he will mark you as his once-traversed territory, and that marking will smell a bit like urine and may take the form of a curse. And you, you will find yourself in the fine company of my Greek namesake and me, fated to foresee coming events, never to be believed.
My Greek name, in all its fullness and glory, means “one who entangles men.” And perhaps that’s where Cassandra’s and Cass’s paths diverge in the wood of disbelieved prophetesses. Cassandra’s life is chock full of men who loved, exploited, possessed, and sought to possess her. To which I say: not this Cass, not this road; because I can assure you that I, Cass, took the road less traveled—by normal heterosexual male suitors, that is.
Despite the fact that I predicted she would be crowned Goddess of Wisdom at Homecoming, Athena never picked me to occupy a coveted corner of her temple, nor to wear the Carolina Herrera-designed robes a priestess of Athena must be entitled/encouraged to don when spewing wisdom. But like fair Cassandra, I, too draw attention from the likes of Ajax the Lesser, or the Little (depending upon your degree of orthodoxy in translation). I, Cass, am doomed to brush elbows with little men; seriously, my elbows brush the tops of their heads. These Ajaxes the Littles see my 5’9ness as the perfect genetic donor, or in plain, non-prophet speak, as their shot at medium sized children.
And many years before the fall of Troy, I, Cass, a wiry Olive Oyl-like figure, leaned my bony elbows across a chain link fence and muttered “No, no they won’t make it to the Majors.” To which my companions guffawed, rolled the waistband of their pleated uniform skirts again and giggled louder at the boys throwing a baseball on the other side of the fence. “And if they do, which they won’t, do you really think they’ll be faithful to you?” They stared harder at me and tied the ends of their Oxford shirts tighter across their busts. And Shelly said, “Why do you always have to be such a know-it-all pain-in-the-ass?” as she hiked her skirt up and hopped the fence to retrieve Pete’s ball. She smiled at him, he grinned and then took the rest of us in with a swooping leer before spewing tobacco at her feet. “See Cass, it is true love,” the others clicked, before they too bounded over the fence to collect other stray balls. A year later, I was spending my free time with the mock trial team, and Shelly was pregnant with Pete’s twins. Pete hadn’t made it to the majors, but he was still swinging for Mister Tony’s Restaurant Monday nights and riding a lawnmower around the diamonds the rest of the week. The others, who still believed it was true love, simultaneously blamed me, as if my stray words crept up Shelly’s skirt, impregnated her, and landed Pete with Mister Tony instead of Mr. Steinbrenner. Not sure if Shelly, Pete, and the twins are still together. I hope they are, but if I was a disbelieved betting prophetess asked to comment on the matter, I’d guess….
And my teenage prophetic powers weren’t limited to the sunshine task of predicting doomed relationships. Like my Trojan predecessor, I foresaw the collapse of the place of my birth, perhaps without the same epic inducing ripple effect as the fall of Troy. So yes, I, Cass, predicted that the gigantic wooden horse that appeared at the city’s gates was full (not of blood-thirsty Romans bent on rape and pillaging) of kick-back hungry politicians and their cronies who bled my birth city of its youth, businesses, and fortune. Unlike Cassandra, my prophecies did not land me in a maximum-security tower without a key, but rather on the road in search of a job in neither a restaurant nor a beauty parlor. And I thundered my way down the Garden State Parkway for a brief respite in the Boss’s state. But visions and a modest salary propelled me across the Hudson and onto the most expensive island in all of Greece, ahem, (because even prophetesses need to clear their throats at times) America.
On this island there is an axis, and at this axis there is a station, and this station pours forth commuters onto the anger-management or nervous-breakdown-inducing (depending upon one’s predisposition) streets of Midtown. In this station, there are tunnels and merchants peddling their price-inflated wares, and in these tunnels, I stumbled upon the blind prophet Tiresias fresh off the midnight train from Georgia. And this brings me to the present, or as much of a present as any prophetess is entitled.
I am not the most beautiful of Priam’s wild brood, because as my frustrated brother whined [in a litany of other perfectly packaged characterizations] one day, “Cass is the smart one.” I wanted to be the “good-looking one.” Or I, had it not been for my two left feet, would have gladly been the “athletic one.” But I was the “smart one,” which doomed me to eyeglasses so thick they could stop stray bullets and a paperback on my person at all times. To quote a nimble and self-absorbed 1990s ice princess of bludgeoned fame, I wondered, “Why me?” Why do I, Cass, have to be the smart one?
Word to the wise: don’t brush off a prospective suitor with Apollo-like powers, particularly when you’re just the “smart one,” and neither the “good-looking” nor the “athletic” one and therefore not really worthy of his affections in the first place, nor capable of using your athleticism to kick him in the balls and run. He’ll never get over it. Like many disgruntled Greek gods before him, he will mark you as his once-traversed territory, and that marking will smell a bit like urine and may take the form of a curse. And you, you will find yourself in the fine company of my Greek namesake and me, fated to foresee coming events, never to be believed.
My Greek name, in all its fullness and glory, means “one who entangles men.” And perhaps that’s where Cassandra’s and Cass’s paths diverge in the wood of disbelieved prophetesses. Cassandra’s life is chock full of men who loved, exploited, possessed, and sought to possess her. To which I say: not this Cass, not this road; because I can assure you that I, Cass, took the road less traveled—by normal heterosexual male suitors, that is.
Despite the fact that I predicted she would be crowned Goddess of Wisdom at Homecoming, Athena never picked me to occupy a coveted corner of her temple, nor to wear the Carolina Herrera-designed robes a priestess of Athena must be entitled/encouraged to don when spewing wisdom. But like fair Cassandra, I, too draw attention from the likes of Ajax the Lesser, or the Little (depending upon your degree of orthodoxy in translation). I, Cass, am doomed to brush elbows with little men; seriously, my elbows brush the tops of their heads. These Ajaxes the Littles see my 5’9ness as the perfect genetic donor, or in plain, non-prophet speak, as their shot at medium sized children.
And many years before the fall of Troy, I, Cass, a wiry Olive Oyl-like figure, leaned my bony elbows across a chain link fence and muttered “No, no they won’t make it to the Majors.” To which my companions guffawed, rolled the waistband of their pleated uniform skirts again and giggled louder at the boys throwing a baseball on the other side of the fence. “And if they do, which they won’t, do you really think they’ll be faithful to you?” They stared harder at me and tied the ends of their Oxford shirts tighter across their busts. And Shelly said, “Why do you always have to be such a know-it-all pain-in-the-ass?” as she hiked her skirt up and hopped the fence to retrieve Pete’s ball. She smiled at him, he grinned and then took the rest of us in with a swooping leer before spewing tobacco at her feet. “See Cass, it is true love,” the others clicked, before they too bounded over the fence to collect other stray balls. A year later, I was spending my free time with the mock trial team, and Shelly was pregnant with Pete’s twins. Pete hadn’t made it to the majors, but he was still swinging for Mister Tony’s Restaurant Monday nights and riding a lawnmower around the diamonds the rest of the week. The others, who still believed it was true love, simultaneously blamed me, as if my stray words crept up Shelly’s skirt, impregnated her, and landed Pete with Mister Tony instead of Mr. Steinbrenner. Not sure if Shelly, Pete, and the twins are still together. I hope they are, but if I was a disbelieved betting prophetess asked to comment on the matter, I’d guess….
And my teenage prophetic powers weren’t limited to the sunshine task of predicting doomed relationships. Like my Trojan predecessor, I foresaw the collapse of the place of my birth, perhaps without the same epic inducing ripple effect as the fall of Troy. So yes, I, Cass, predicted that the gigantic wooden horse that appeared at the city’s gates was full (not of blood-thirsty Romans bent on rape and pillaging) of kick-back hungry politicians and their cronies who bled my birth city of its youth, businesses, and fortune. Unlike Cassandra, my prophecies did not land me in a maximum-security tower without a key, but rather on the road in search of a job in neither a restaurant nor a beauty parlor. And I thundered my way down the Garden State Parkway for a brief respite in the Boss’s state. But visions and a modest salary propelled me across the Hudson and onto the most expensive island in all of Greece, ahem, (because even prophetesses need to clear their throats at times) America.
On this island there is an axis, and at this axis there is a station, and this station pours forth commuters onto the anger-management or nervous-breakdown-inducing (depending upon one’s predisposition) streets of Midtown. In this station, there are tunnels and merchants peddling their price-inflated wares, and in these tunnels, I stumbled upon the blind prophet Tiresias fresh off the midnight train from Georgia. And this brings me to the present, or as much of a present as any prophetess is entitled.
posted by hobos in space @ 4:36 PM
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