Part IV: Spin – God’s Wild Children: #3 (Chapter 74) (***Trigger Warning***: Children Cussing and Using Racist Language)
I sidled away. “Like what?”
“I bet I know more bad words than you,” he said,
daring me to take up the challenge.
Although it was likely true, I couldn’t give up
without a fight. “Oh, yeah, says who?”
“Says me.”
“You don’t know squat.”
“I’ll prove it. You say a bad word, I’ll say a
badder word.”
“Worse,
not badder.” I felt pretty good about being smarter than him, at least in one
respect.
Danny rolled his eyes and sighed. “Big deal, it
means the same thing.”
“Makes you sound like a big dummy if you don’t
talk right.”
“Just say the first word.”
“How bad does it have to be, I mean, will we have
to go to Confession tonight?”
“JUST SAY A WORD!”
I
sucked in my breath. “Okay. Here goes: PEE!”
Danny
laughed. “That little old word don’t even qualify. Try this: PISS!”
“J***BOO!”
I shouted.
“N***R!”
N***r was a
really bad word because I had gotten into trouble with the nuns at school
the previous year for yelling the word at a second grader, so now I had to
really dig in for a bigger bad word: “SHIT!”
“SCREW!”
“That’s not a bad word.”
“It is too!”
“Is not!”
“Is too!”
We went back and forth with this argument, neither
wanting to give in.
Danny said, “I bet you don’t even know what it
means.”
“I do too!”
“You do not!”
“Do too!”
“Do not!”
“Do too!”
“Then prove it.”
Knowing I was treading on unfamiliar territory, I
thought for a minute before answering. “It’s a noun and a verb.”
A blank look. He had no idea what I was talking
about.
I said, “The noun ‘screw’ means a piece of metal
that looks like a nail with a slot on top and whirly things on the part that
goes into the wood. And the verb ‘to screw’ means to put a screw into the wood
with a screwdriver. So there!”
Danny snickered.
“What’s so funny?”
“You don’t know the real meaning.” Danny made a circle with his left index finger and
thumb and pushed the second finger of his right hand back and forth through the
hole. “That’s what it really means.”
Still confused, but, more than anything, I didn’t
want Danny realizing the depths of my stupidity. “I get it.”
“Okay,” Danny said. “Whose turn is it?”
“Mine, and I got a good word: ASSHOLE!”
“That’s nothing. How about FUCK?”
The worst bad word. I could never top that word,
even if I took the Lord’s name in vain a million times.
I had first heard the word in second grade when
two eighth grade girls got into a fight on the playground. They threw their
schoolbooks to the macadam, rolled up their sweater sleeves, and circled each
other. One yelled, “Fuck you!” and jerked her second finger into the air; the
other echoed her opponent, and then locking onto each other, they fell to the
ground, rolling around on the stones, fighting, scratching and biting each
other, their long hair straggling from their ponytails and snarling into knots,
their red plaid skirts whipping around, revealing flashes of schoolgirl
underpants: balloony white panties.
Sister Mary Ursula, the principal, came out and
broke up the fight, but for the rest of recess, I walked around the school
yard, whispering fuck over and over, resting my second finger on my nose, and
crossing my eyes as I tried focusing them on the finger.
Later, I asked Nana what the word meant.
She washed my mouth out with soap. So, it had to
be the worst bad word. But I never knew the meaning until my sophomore year in
high school, when my friend Kathy told me.
“So,” Danny said, “You got a badder word?”
“This is a silly game, and I don’t want to play
anymore.” I picked up the bowl, now filled with tomatoes. “I’m going in.”
“I win! I win!” Danny leaped out of the garden,
ran around the yard, and yelled, “FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK...”
Just then, Mr. MacIntyre from next door limped
over. “You kids be quiet!” He shook his fist at us, his white hair blowing
around in the wind like dandelion fluff, the veins in his scrawny red neck
popping out.
We froze and stared at him glaring at us, locked in this standoff for what seemed like hours.
He finally turned away, shook his head, and
muttered, “My, my, I don’t know about these youngsters...”
Danny and I looked at each other. “Think he’ll
tell?” Danny asked.
I thought for a minute. “Nah. He’s old and forgetful. At least that’s what Nana says.”
