Catcalling Chemo Cuties
“They believe they should want to visit the edges where things have overgrown and become irregular, but they want to know they’ll be able to leave. ”
For the first time in months, I was left alone to try to walk the couple blocks to the grocery store all by myself. Basement level blood pressure sat me on the curb after only a hundred feet while I prematurely sweated through the same early gift cooking my ovaries into barren, Venusian irrelevance. On the way home, I thought about how embarrassing it would be if I passed out right here in the street. I didn’t pass out, though, and things aren’t all bad: I got to have a little treat on the walk back.
Standing and conversing on the sidewalk on the way to my apartment were two gentlemen. They wore jeans and shirts like everyone else, and only barely appraised my approach with light eye contact. These days, I am easy to size up. The shining of my bald head has turned to window glass; an absent minded glance allows even the least discriminating of observers to gather All The Information They Need.
Sometimes I wonder if my eyebrows have been replaced with the documents my oncologist and surgeon mail me recapping our conversations. As I passed, one of the men standing there on the sidewalk enthusiastically let me know, “I still think you look sexy!” The thought on the front of my brain was of course being amused that damn, people really will catcall anyone at any time. Even a bald wheezing dumbass who hasn’t Finished Physical Therapy but craves the crispy-fried rock-bottom prices of Cheep Chicken Monday isn’t immune.
Of course when analyzing intent and meaning, word emphasis matters, so I am delighted to point out it was impossible to discern. This leaves us some possibilities to be enjoyed: maybe the comment was backhanded, a kind of “I still think you look sexy, even though—and I don’t need to tell you, toots—no one else does.” Or maybe he meant “I have watched you walk to the grocery store many times, beginning before your cancer diagnosis and chemotherapy, and while I haven’t said anything lately, I still think you look sexy.” We will never know if he was expressing unrequited admiration, assuring me “I know you do not think I am sexy, but I still think you look sexy.” More pressing than these problems of identifying emphasis, this guy made me wrong which of course I hate and now I am supremely irritated. Not an hour before deciding to attempt to walk for chicken I had just been explaining on the phone to my friend Kerri how I have begun noticing (or lost the ability to ignore? who cares(?)) being “othered” by people in public due to my visible sickness. I am counted among the “sick” now. One may now only experience me by wading through and temporarily diffusing into the gossamer sticky “cancer” mythos which emanates from and surrounds me. People remember being children and they remember adults telling them how their face might Freeze Like That and while it isn’t the same thing, they can’t be too careful. They also remember how wild animals can be unpredictable, and so it is best to enjoy them from a safe distance. People know that isn’t really the same thing, either. They believe they should want to visit the edges where things have overgrown and become irregular, but they want to know they’ll be able to leave.
“I was bitching the point that people no longer register me as what I called a “viable sexual adult.” I’m now included in the same category we place children and the elderly. ”
People whisper when they speak to me. Sometimes they avoid eye contact, and sometimes they make eye contact but pull their lips weird in that way that absolutely, universally means “sucks to suck.” When I was talking to my friend Kerri on the phone—less than an hour before The enWrongening—I was bitching the point that people no longer register me as what I called a “viable sexual adult.” I’m now included in the same category we place children and the elderly. Treated as one of the protected rather than a protector. The way we perceive other people’s power and position is tied to how we perceive their sexual viability. How we assign worth to others is, in part, based on how we perceive their sexual viability. A person’s perceived attractiveness, fertility/virility, willingness to engage in sexual behavior, and their appearance factor into conclusions we draw about their appropriate level of power or position within a group. Now that chemotherapy has made me infertile, what does that mean in terms of my perceived usefulness? An awful lot of people are going to an awful lot of trouble just for me, and I can’t be bothered to fulfill the most basic biological request. I bitched and bitched about these things, and here this guy lets me know he still thinks I’m sexy. Do I not get to have ANYthing?? I wish I had asked him any question after I politely thanked him (which I did, because I liked his tone, and hey, he did correctly identify me as a person who hasn’t been hearing “sexy” so much as I’ve been hearing the greatest hits: “The Doctor Will Be Right With You,” “When Was Your Last Period,” and “How Are You Feeling Today?”) because there’s marrow to be sucked here and, as you can imagine, that’s about as precious a commodity can get. If I had my way, he would have explained the “still.” Clarifying, “you mean I’m still sexy, even though I’m wearing a blue dress?” I would have liked to have asked if “I’m still sexy, even though I’m under six feet tall?” What is my sexiness in spite of? He’d get to fumble through avoiding saying “even though you are sick.” Ultimately, his catcall is acknowledging the natural/appropriate/expected reaction to my being and person is one that is patently unsexy. Me being sexy is something to point and stare at now, and qualifying my sexiness with “still” drives the point home that I currently, visibly Have A Condition. That’s the answer to the question of “still.” He means “you are a person living with a condition which doesn’t allow sexiness.” Probably I would also have liked to have asked “why did you think that, in my enfeebled prostration, I would at all be concerned as to whether or not you still thought I looked sexy?” This is an easy one. Healthy People love to tell me how they feel about things. Healthy People love to tell me about me. It is not surprising a Healthy Person believed I was interested in hearing his opinion on whether or not I’m—believe it or dont!—still sexy. If I had thought of it, I could have even asked him why he pegged me as a person who needed to be paid a compliment. I don’t remember walking down the street projecting dejection or anything, either; the scent of lilacs was on the breeze today.
My money’s on it’s this thing people have been doing to me since becoming someone who Has A Condition: Cheering Up. People are very concerned with the evolution and status of my relative cheer levels. People NEED me to be cheered. The man on the sidewalk assumes I need someone to fill my Cheering-Up Cup because Having A Condition must be just god awful. What a perpetual slog, eclipsed in its shittiness only by its constancy. He was throwing me a bone. Brightening a cancer-person’s day by letting me know aloud I am still sexy.
Beaumont Sugar is an essayist, poet, and painter based in Anchorage, Alaska. They live with Penelope and Waffle, their wife and cat. More of their work can be found on Instagram at beaumontsugar.
