Sarah Smethurst 1
Caddy Compson
Don’t ever call me Candace. I hate that. My name is Caddy, like the guys that carry the
bags for big-shot golfers, and it’s not hard to remember, I swear. Even Benjy gets it, and he
doesn’t really like speaking anyways. Actually, I’m usually the only one he talks to, if he can get
away with it. Jason’s always banging things around which makes Benjy wig out, and it’s not like
Quentin talks about much anymore. He mostly just sits around and writes in that journal of his. I
snuck a look at it one day when he left it on his bed but it was hard to understand just what he
was writing about. It started getting good when he began babbling about some girl but then what
do you know he walked back into the room and got really pissed I was in his things. I played it
off like I was looking for something and had only just flipped his notebook open, but I don’t
know if he believed me.
Mom doesn’t know what the hell to do with Benjy, and really doesn’t try. Dad’s pretty
much never there, either. He commutes to DC so if he’s not at work he’s working in his office at
home. Sometimes Mom makes him talk to Jason or I, but we both end up screaming, which is the
only similarity between me and Jason. I know he’s my brother and all but I can tell that he hates
me. His teeth clench up whenever he looks at me and I know sometimes he messes with Benjy
just to spite me. Ass. Like Benjy’s really into these model planes, though one time I helped him
make a model car, which is a big deal cause Benjy doesn’t like to do anything new. He was at the
table one day gluing the landing gear on some old World War II plane and Jason came stomping
in from football practice with a vengeance like someone had found and burned his porn mag
stash. He was making all this noise cause he knows Benjy hates it, and then he walked over and
snapped one of the wings right off, just to be a jerk. Like no other reason. Benjy started going on
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a bender and howling and rocking and so Mom flipped out and tried to ground Jason, but she
doesn’t have the guts to do it so that failed. It took me an hour to calm Benjy down and glue the
broken wing together. That was in our old house, though, and now Benjy has a room with a
drafting table I convinced Dad to get him so he doesn’t have to work at the table anymore.
Sometimes it’s just too much, you know? Like I’m always the one taking care of
everybody in this damn family. Mom can’t do a damn thing without chugging a gallon of hand
sanitizer, and Dad’s never here. I’m the only one Benjy shuts up for, so they’re always calling
me to the front office to chill him out. And I think I’m the only one who sees that Quentin’s
totally losing it. I told him it’s just this family and since he’s a senior and has a chance to blow
this place he should go for it. I showed him that Harvard application and told him since my
grades have tanked with the move and Jason can’t count over ten with shoes on he was the only
one who could make college happen. I think he’ll get in—the kid looks good on paper. Maybe
it’ll be good for him.
I used to get great grades, too. I was a total nerd, like all into math and languages. I
freaking took French classes for fun in middle school, but all I can remember is how to count to
ten and say dirty things like merde and voulez-vous coucher avec moi and stuff. If I wasn’t
studying I was with Benjy. He wouldn’t go anywhere without me, and sometimes Quentin would
come along and we’d go play house on the dock by the fishing pond. Quentin would be the
daddy and I’d be the mommy and Benjy would sometimes be our baby and sometimes our dog,
but Mom got mad when we taught him to bark. That was really long ago, though. Quentin isn’t
any fun anymore and Benjy’s old enough that Mom hates to let him out of the house except to
school, where he has other classes with the Special Ed kids. You know she didn’t even sign the
paperwork for him to be in the SpEd program? She was gonna just pretend like he could be fine
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in a normal classroom, which is just stupid. She keeps ignoring what’s wrong with him but it
isn’t gonna just go away. He should be going to a special school I think but you can’t get into
one of those without parent interviews and stuff I can’t fake. The school we all go to now at least
has his diagnosis and were smart enough to put him in the program so some of the day he’s with
a teacher who knows what’s going on. She keeps sending letters home to Mom but she just sees
them on the counter and stuffs them in the mail drawer under the phone, where she pretends like
she’ll get to them but never does.
So anyway I didn’t have like any friends in Mississippi and I decided things were gonna
be different once we moved. Once I stopped caring about grades I had a lot of time so I started
hanging out with people. I figured that if I laughed at the right things and wore the right clothes
guys really started to like me, and for the first time I was popular. It wasn’t like I had been dying
all my life to be like the popular girl or like part of some crowd or anything like that. It was just
cool to get some attention I guess. I mean I’m not a whore or anything. I hadn’t even done it until
like a month ago. By then I had a reputation I guess and it was nice to be recognized in the
hallway by people I didn’t know. It’s not like I don’t know what they say about me. They can all
just go to hell. Those other girls are just jealous cause all the guys they like, like me. Well I’m
not apologizing for it. It’s not like it’s hard to smile at certain people or just be in the right
places. There are a lot of cute guys at Lowood and being the new girl has its advantages. I mean,
come on! It’s not like the other girls don’t wear push-up bras or anything… just cause I roll my
uniform up a bit doesn’t make me worse than anyone else.
I knew what I was doing in the closet, you know. I’d been flirting with David forever and
it wasn’t like we both didn’t know what was gonna happen. We’d been lab partners since like the
first day of bio and he was always making these jokes about Bunsen burners and fume hoods and
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stuff. He was nice enough and all. Sometimes I felt like he actually was listening, you know?
Nobody else really listened. We’d hang out with a bunch of other guys and we’d all laugh and sit
around on our cars and usually someone would bring a handle or a bottle of wine and we’d pass
it around and get silly and sometimes I’d end up in the backseat with someone, just kissing and
stuff, and it just started consistently being David. But in lab he was different, not rowdy or
anything, but still into me, and I could tell him things. I guess I really needed that. I found out
that he thought I’d already done it, which makes sense I suppose cause let’s face it, I acted like it
most of the time.
But then one day I was kinda upset cause Benjy had had this big thing in the cafeteria and
he freaked out all the teachers and other kids there and they called me here to the nurse where
they had him in a back room and he didn’t know what was going on and they were all weird
around him and it pissed me off. It’s like he’s just a kid, you know? It’s not like he chose any of
this. It wasn’t his fault, and the teachers were all asking why my Mom and Dad never called
them back or anything and I was like I don’t know cause she doesn’t give a damn? And then they
got pissed at me for cussing and I was just done with it all. And when I got to lab David was so
nice and asking about Benjy and he never calls him a retard like the other guys do, and I get tired
of standing up for him sometimes. And I told David that I hadn’t actually done it and I was kinda
scared about it all and so we decided to just do it now so I could get it over with. He got a hall
pass and then I waited and got one too and we met in the janitor’s closet, which worked pretty
well until the janitor came back. And somebody else may have opened the door but they went
away pretty quick and I wasn’t really paying attention then anyway.
It wasn’t bad or anything I guess but we got caught and now it’s kind of all over school,
which I guess isn’t really like a surprise or anything. My parents still don’t know but when they
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find out I’ll just ignore my Mom and when she sends Dad to try and talk to me I just give it back
to him and he hates that and then they’ll leave me alone. They’ll probably ground me but I
already figured out that the roof of the porch is outside my window, and it’s not too far from the
ground, so I’ll just get slip out when I want. Like this guy John always throws the best parties,
and there’s one on Friday and I think David’ll be there.
I think I’m going to do it again, with him you know. I guess he’s kind of my boyfriend
and all, though he’s been acting sort of weird lately, so I think I’ll do it again and then he’ll be
good. I got condoms, so don’t worry or anything, I’m not stupid. I got scared enough when I
skipped my period and all and I so don’t want to do that again. That would be the worst, having a
kid right now. I’m not really the mom type so I don’t think it’d work out very well—she or he’d
probably hate me. I gotta get out of here either way. Lowood isn’t really the place for me, and I
hate my house. I think when I graduate I might go move into DC, but that’d still be close to Dad
even if it’s farther away from the house, so I was thinking about New York City. I think it’d be
cool to live there, you know? I could get a job and find somewhere to live on my own, or maybe
with someone, that’d be easier.
I’d be hard to leave Benjy, though. I don’t know who else would look after him when I
go. Maybe Mom would hire somebody so she wouldn’t have to do it. Might even be better for
Benjy without me around. I hate to pull him into trouble with me, cause he doesn’t get what’s
going on always. Well anyway thanks for talking, I just wanted to let you know that everything
worked out and all. I mean, when I’m in here like every week I just think it’s courteous to keep
you updated, I guess. And it’s nice to have someone to talk to—even if you have to listen to me.
It’s like, if someone wrote a book about my life sometimes I think I wouldn’t even get my own
chapter.