The Anatomy of Desire by L. R. Dorn

Author:L. R. Dorn
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: William Morrow
Published: 2021-03-09T00:00:00+00:00

Episode Six

Girl Defended

I’m sharing this post of a poodle and an African wild dog playing with each other, #InThisTogether. First it made me laugh, then I got tears in my eyes. It’s true and it’s crazy, and what it means to me is that true things can look crazy and crazy things can be true. Plus, I’m terrified of African wild dogs but also find them incredibly cute, and that’s like in life, when we’re afraid of and attracted to something at the same time. If we can be okay with having both those feelings at once, that gives us more room to breathe.

Instagram post, CleoRayFitness

DUNCAN MCMILLAN: I’d just come back from a long shoot and post in Europe and was planning a little R and R at my home on Maui. I’m kicking back on the lanai with a rum punch and my phone pings. I think about ignoring it but succumb to the urge and click on the message. It was an ex-girlfriend sending me a link to a site with a collection of Cleo Ray videos that had been taken down from Instagram. One of her superfans had posted them and asked people to rate them. I started watching this endearingly cheery person urging and encouraging her followers, superficially aware of what had been emerging at her trial. Up until then I’d mostly bypassed the story, considering it another reality show soap opera. But now I became fascinated by the chasm between who this person had been as Mary Claire Griffith at fifteen and who she’d become as Cleo Ray at twenty-five.

And then it clicked. This was about more than a young social media influencer on trial for murder. It was a striking metaphor for this moment in our culture. So I called my producer, pitched the idea, and she said, “Go. I can set this up in twenty-four hours, but this thing is happening right now. Go.”

I pulled together a bare-bones crew and had them meet me in Independence. The court was in recess when I pulled in, and I started walking the residential streets. You can walk the whole town in under an hour. I came upon this great old clapboard church, Pioneer Memorial. It’s like out of a John Ford Western, a Methodist house of worship established in 1871.

Then I found the Eastern California Museum, a charming repository that houses a collection of historic artifacts inside and out, including the ruins of an old mining town in its backyard. The museum is run by a volunteer staff working “to preserve the diverse heritage of Inyo County, the Eastern Sierra, and the backcountry from Mono Lake to Death Valley.” I began hearing from locals about the Owens Valley Water Wars and the long, contentious history between Inyo County and the city of Los Angeles. The agriculture business in this part of the state, which given its geography should be flourishing, has literally been dried up by the money and power of Los Angeles hijacking its water resources.

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