Swearing

I am eleven years old, staring at myself in the mirror. The door to the bathroom is closed and locked, the ventilation is on.

I form the first letter at my lips. "F."

Licking them, I think, "I am in sixth grade now. I am not a baby anymore."

Yes. Time to grow up Clara. Time to do grown-up things now.

Mark Twain was smoking cigars well before my current age. I can certainly say a word without an issue.

My upper teeth lightly bite down on my lower lip. "Ffff," I say. "Ffff."

I breathe in. "Duck," I say. "Stuck. Muck. Freakin."

I think of all the words my dad says when he swears:
Mexican Dog Doo.
Crap in a hat.
Balogny.

I think of the words my mom says when she swears:
Merde. Merde, merde, merde, merde.

 I had been told in the past by my dad that I wasn't allowed to say "Frickin'" because it meant something worse. I retorted, "Well 'dang' is the okay word for 'damn.'"

I can say damn. Well, sure I can say 'damn.' I read the word enough, hadn't I? It was everywhere, in all my favorite books. Everybody damns. I remember in elementary school a kid telling me that if the word was in the Bible, you could say it.

Damn and Hell.
But not the f-word.

I tighten my lips across my teeth, my dimples showing, and pushed out the air. "Ffff," I say. "Uck," I say.

"Ffff."
"Uughk."

Softly, the words come out inaudibly. I make the motion with my lips, no voice escaping into the loud bathroom around me.

Again, I try.
"Fuck," I whisper. "Fuck fuck fuck." I smile briefly, then quietly stay still, wondering who may be around to listen. No one. No one I know of. It's just me.

"Fuck," I say again. Satisfied, I turn off the ventilation in the bathroom.

I am prepared the next day to bewilder my friends. They will see how clever and mature I am. They will all be impressed. They will all want to hang out with me.

Truth be told, I don't know mostly anyone in my class. I know most of the boys and girls in my class, having graduated with me from elementary school, but I didn't call them 'friends' in all senses of the word. I have partners I can hook up with when doing projects and people I can sit at lunch with. But at the end of the day, when I go home, I am on my lonesome.

It doesn't really bother me.

But today is the day to impress. I will say the word, and it will be as if the universe kowtows to my very whim. Clever Clara. Mature Clara. Wise Creature Clara.

I have written a short skit that my teacher lets me use class time for working on. I want to perform it. I thought it would be fun. Besides, all the individuals who want to work with me are individuals that I like. And as far as I know, any child that can be taken out of class to do what he or she wants is a happy child. I like to make people happy. Performing the skit will also take time out of class, and so the rest of the class will be equally as delighted for my distractions.

When rehearsal time comes, I have difficulty keeping everyone's attention on my instruction.
I am a harsh and demanding director. I want to read the script out loud, mark it, then have them memorize it. Everyone wants to add their own take on the scenes. They want to add characters, start fights, be absurd. I don't want any of it.

That's why I practiced using the word that would make everyone respect me. I'd never heard anyone say it unless they were on the television, and only then when it was a movie we had popped into the VCR. If it were a movie on the television channels, the words were typically bleeped out.

So my word is a big deal.
This is the word that will "make me or break me."

Everyone is running around.

"I want to be an angel," says one girl.

"I think we should have a battle and the angel should come in and say 'stop the violence!'" another adds.

Everyone is giggling. I don't understand the joke, but I giggle too.


"Okay, let's get back to work," I say. No one is listening to me. I bite my lip. "In this next seen the character Mellot and his friend Geppo are..."

No one is listening to me.

"I hate when people don't wear the right kind of clothes," one girl is saying to another. "When they wear crappy stuff and they're worth more than that. They just trying to get pity." The other girl nods knowingly.

I look down at my bedraggled terry-clothed jacket. Raggity with nasty food splotches on it. Does she mean me? But I like this jacket.

"I think we should get back to work," I say softly, and still no one listens. They are still chatting; still coming up with their own ideas; still making jokes that I am not sure what they mean.

"Can we fucking start?" I ask.
I hold my breath.
I look around.
Into the eyes of....
...no one.

No one cares.
No one is listening.
They are too busy.
Or maybe they have heard it. Maybe their dads don't say 'Mexican Dog Doo' when he drops something on the floor. Maybe their mom isn't French and doesn't say 'merde merde merde' when she's pissed.

Maybe everyone says goddammit.
Or shit.
Or maybe even fuck.

Maybe no one cares about the word 'fuck' anymore.

Maybe its not a big deal. Everyone says it. I bet everyone says it. What's the use of it if everyone says it? Isn't it true if you overuse a word, it just becomes normal vocabulary? Maybe fuck doesn't mean anything.

When we do the show the next day in class, I let everyone do what they want. I giggle and pretend that I'm having fun. I say that I'm proud of my skit when I'm not. Eagerly, my classmates put their notebooks away because they don't care what I say. They just want a distraction. The instructor lets us take the rest of the class time off until the bell rings. It should be a good day, and I'm sure for the majority it is.

I decide that words don't make you mature or clever, and give up on using fuck as a word of power. Instead, I use it the way it seems to be perceived: everyday vocabulary.

And thus, my swearing sailor's mouth started at 11.