The Authentic Life: language

On Wednesday nights, Dad would pull up the driveway in his Carolina blue Mercedes and honk the horn, cigarette perched in the corner of his mouth, hairy forearm hanging from the car window. My brothers and I would run down the front steps shouting, “Shotgun!” tugging at each other’s collars, attempting to hold the other one back.

He would take us to the Village Inn Pizza Parlor on Battleground Road, where they played silent films on a canvas in a dimly lit, wood paneled dining room. By the flickering light of some bygone silver screen stars, we’d devour a large cheese pizza and drink pitchers of Coca-Cola with crushed ice and talk about nothing in particular and everything in general.

“All these youngins yours, sugar?” the waitress would ask, surveying me and my three brothers like we were a certain sign of his virility.

“They sure are, honey,” Dad would reply.

That was the year language changed. “Our home” became “The house.” Possessive adjectives were too hefty to place into a sentence. Dad left Mom for a woman who was all of the things that she was not, blonde, young and childless. But, Wednesday nights and alternating weekends were ours, possessive. If he wanted to flirt, he could do it on his time, singular.

“I look just like my mother,” I said to the waitress.

The midweek meals and weekend sleepovers dwindled when my older brother went off to college. The last time we participated in a Wednesday night dinner, a Formica table divided the space between us at a McDonalds, while Dad drew down a cigarette. We spoke of nothing at all until he asked, “You about done?” and I replied “No, but we can go now.”

When Dad became ill, there was a sense deep down in my marrow that I needed to say something to him. The old, if you need to say anything, you better say it now, feeling. We’d be sitting in the afternoon sun on the brick patio, just the two of us and I’d rack my brain trying to fish up something worthy to say. Some timeless version of I love you, or I forgive you. I’d look over at his chemo withered frame and hairless head, but the words I was trying to push out would be sucked back in by a tide of embarrassment too strong to ford.

Funny, the things you remember when someone up and leaves; a cluster of red and yellow petals swirling in the sunlight on the front porch, the stench of stale breath and sweat soaked linens, a pair of skinny, pale legs twitching a death jig in a rental hospital bed and a smoke colored moon drifting through an inky black sky.

The last time I said anything to Dad was moments before he left. I sat in the coveted spot by his head and my brothers at his feet, as we counted the seconds between his final breaths.

“It’s OK, Dad, you can go now.”

That’s all I said.

Because the most important words I could think of to say were the ones my father was waiting to hear.

“Don't use the F-word in your writing.” My mother said peering over her glasses.

I recognized the all too familiar look on her face. It was the one she used for things such as, oh, the discovery of “nasty” magazines stuffed between my mattress and box spring. But I was an adult man in my forties now and if I wanted to use the F-bomb, then fuck it, I would use it.

“I agree with your mother.” Paul blurted out. I shot him a look that said we’d deal with this act of treason later.

“Well, if you do use it, it should be reserved for punctuation.” He said smiling nervously, his index finger making an imaginary exclamation point. His eyes were darting between me and my mother, trying to move us somewhere into the middle. But I wouldn’t budge.

“This is the way people talk. I’m just trying to keep it real.” I said doing my best what-what? thug body pose.

“You don’t talk that way. I taught you better.” My mother said, and she was right. I don’t talk that way. But that was not the point. The point was that I was being told by my seventy three year old mother that I should not do something. She should have learned by now that if she told me not to do something I would pursue it with fucking gusto.

But every time I started to write, I found that I could not use the word.

“There are a plethora of substitutes: ‘Darn it’, ‘Gosh’ and if you want to give it a British flare, how about ‘Bloody’?” Paul said trying to be helpful.

“Right. That is just bloody brill!” I replied sarcastically. I had not forgiven him for siding with my mother and added “Why should I listen to someone who uses the fucking word plethora anyway?”

As a writer, I wanted to feel free to express my thoughts, emotions and experiences without feeling that a censor was looking over my shoulder. But my mother’s “tsk-tsk” echoed in my brain. Using the f-bomb made me feel less literary and more trailer-trash, looking for a cheap laugh with a fart joke.

And then I picked up The New Yorker magazine. Right there in the middle of the magazine was an essay that had not one, but three F-bombs in it, four if you included wtf. It also included the term dick-slapped, but I thought that might be pushing things a bit. And besides, I wasn’t sure if being dick-slapped was a good thing or a bad thing. I mean, I could see both sides.

This was irrefutable proof that using the F-bomb was not only acceptable, but might actually help to get me published more widely. So, by my count I’ve used the word three times in this post, four if you include wtf....which I have just used again.

The New Yorker should be calling me any minute, but my mother is going to be so fucking pissed.

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