Member-only story
The Myth of the ‘Nice Person’
Nice is a facade grown from habit while kindness is a genuine act
It was a late winter afternoon. I sat, back rigid and upright, on a half-moon-shaped waiting room couch. It was a little before dusk and work hours for some had just come to a close. I yawned as I stared into the changing skyline from the 22nd-story view. It was damp, cold, and hazy out. I glanced at my watch, then at the glossy display of magazines on the glass coffee table. I gleaned much cultural information from perusing these shallow magazines as I sat and waited my turn. It turns out, America is obsessed with happiness, I thought to myself, but is happiness a sustainable something to be had?
“ — Alia?” Her raspy voice interrupted the stream of conscious thoughts. I put the magazine down and walked toward her room.
Ruth was all of 4 feet, 10 inches. A diminutive, self-sufficient woman in her sixties of Ashkenazim descent. Modestly dressed, she wore knee-length pencil skirts of muted tones, Dr. Scholl’s loafers, and tan-colored pantyhose from a bygone era. She had chosen not to marry or have children of her own accord. A wise woman with a strange obsession: Ruth’s proclivity was to relate all things big and small to the events of September 11, 10 years after the fact. “It still feels like yesterday…” she would lament. Somehow, every occurrence in my life, and presumably anyone’s, could be related either directly or metaphorically to the tragedies of that day.
I sat down on her convertible loveseat. She turned the ringer of her landline phone off, flashing an impatient shade of red with unanswered messages.
“So, how are you? How has your week been?”
“I’m alright — well, the other day at work, I tried to stand up for myself. I freaked out a bit at a co-worker for rifling through my belongings and another co-worker told me I ‘wasn’t nice’ and that got to me. I mean, I want to stand up for myself but I don’t want to not be nice. I can’t think of a much worse description, to be honest — ”
“I’m not nice.”
“What?”
“I, Ruth, am not nice.”
“Uh… okay, I’m not sure how to respond.”
