once upon a dream

The Word - Or, How I Publicly Embarrassed My Mom and Lived to Tell About It

We all have formative memories. Some of them we recall well; others have been told to us second-hand, the edges a bit soft and fuzzy, like a paper continually folded and refolded and stuck back in an errant pocket. This story is one of the latter.

It was a cool day in early fall. Or perhaps it was late spring. Either way, the window to our house was open, the curtains belling out with the breeze. The year was 1984, and I, a chipmunked-cheeked child of three, was playing amongst the various baubles and costume jewelry that my mother owned and kept in a drawer, which she would deposit on the floor as a shiny distraction while she worked from home; the late-afternoon sunlight played its rays over me as I scrunched myself within the confines of that wooden rectangle. Metal clicking and clacking kept time with the soft sthip-sthip of my mother stuffing envelopes in the next room, adding advertisements to eventually-mailed credit card statements.

And then came The Word. It floated through the air, buoyed by a zephyr, and squeezed itself through the tight grating of the window screen, like Tinkerbell through the keyhole in Peter Pan. The Word ducked quickly under the curtain and flew to the caverns of my ear, and burrowed its way through to my developing brain. What a pleasing and interesting mix of sounds! It was something I half-remembered. I couldn't wait to share The Word with my mother.

I bided my time, sliding bracelets up and down my arms like the beautiful princess I was, until my mother came in and told me it would soon be time for dinner. "So let's clean this up, okay?" she said.

"Fuck," I said, brightly, eying my mother through the hair cascading over my lashes. She stared at me with an expression of horror, mingled with some mild amusement, perhaps. Then her face cleared, and she asked, "Where did you hear that word?"

I shrugged one shoulder. The Word had come in the voice of an older kid, the high schoolers who would sit on the wall near our house after classes.

"Well," my mother said, picking up after my mess, "you shouldn't say words like that. That's a bad word."

A bad word? I was learning to read by this point, curled up with my brightly-colored hardbacked books and sounding out syllables with the help of my parents. Their pleased faces every time I learned something new . . . So why was this word bad? I couldn't understand it. And as I puzzled over it, I recalled that I had heard that word before. Daddy had probably said it, and Grandma. How come they could use it, and I couldn't? I decided to plead for my father's assistance.

We settled down to dinner that evening; the parents asked about each other's day while I made a mess of my food. We dropped into a silence that I decided to fill.

"Daddy," I said, "the big kids hate fuckin' school."

My father nearly choked on his mouthful of food, whether with laughter or astonishment, I couldn't tell. He and my mother just looked at each other. "Uh," he said, and then gently admonished, "Nice little girls don't use words like that."

Damn, parried again! What if I didn't want to be a nice little girl? What then?

When the grandmothers came visiting, I showcased my newfound vocabulary. Much to my mother's chagrin, they were rather tickled by it. Vulgarity issuing from a sweet cherub face. And so, I continued to play with The Word.

One day, Mom popped me in the stroller for a shopping trip at Alexander's, a NYC department store that had an outpost in New Jersey with a colorful tile mural encasing one side of the exterior. I had brought a friend, Gabby, my favorite Cabbage Patch doll.

My mother started pushing clothes around the circular racks, while I kicked my feet and made conversation with Gabby. Suddenly, an older woman came up to me and leaned down to address me. "OH, aren't you adorable? And what a lovely doll!"

My tiny brain whirled. First, stranger danger! I don't know you! Then, I remembered a snatch of conversation Mommy had with Grandma a few days prior, about people stealing Cabbage Patch dolls. Even the little people inside the TV were talking about it!

Now, Gabby was quite well-loved: missing her socks and shoes, her hair partially unplaited, her face overdue for a wash . . . nevertheless, I sounded the alarm.

"Mommy," I said, loud enough to summon the dead, "this lady is trying to take my fuckin' doll!"

The woman snapped upright and narrowed her eyes at my mother, who could only smile weakly at everyone in earshot. She quickly rehung the clothes she'd selected, grabbed the handles of my stroller, and made a beeline for the exit.

Mom tried valiantly over the years to get me to stop. When I was about nine, she decided she'd had enough of my filthy mouth after a barrage of f-bombs from my general direction. She grabbed a bar of soap from the bathroom and chased me through the house. "Get your ass over here!" she yelled.

I pounded up the stairs to my room and tried to close the door, but I was not quick enough. My mother grabbed me by the arm and held me down on the bed, trying to edge the square of Ivory into my mouth.

I started crying in earnest, and as I hitched for breath, I felt the corner scrape over my front teeth. That seemed to satisfy her, and she did seem to feel bad as I dry-heaved. The filmy residue was a ghost in my mouth for hours afterward.

I'd like to say I stopped swearing after this, but of course, I didn't.

The battle was over. Mom surrendered, but not before exacting a promise that I'd keep it in the house.