I was twelve. Why Chad, the hottest thirteen-year old in the neighborhood, chose me was bewildering. Yet this skinny girl received his written note, sealed with a ruby-red wax stamp. I checked the necessary box labeled ‘Yes,’ and began my first relationship.
Two years before, I had learned to spiral a football to play quarterback in the Parker’s front yard. I practiced the art of tackling, even breaking a boy’s finger. This new status of being recognized as a girl delighted me. I studied my limited wardrobe, stealing my sister’s velveteen bell bottoms.
“I’ll walk you home,” he said.
I followed Chad out the bus, trying to be cool, even as we passed the fence protecting us from the meanest dog every born.
“Did you catch Star Trek?” My voice trembled. “Captain Pike was on.” At least my conversation hadn’t veered into my ballet recital or Little Women. Sweat oozed from my hairline. Should I wipe it away?
Our walks to and from the bus continued, as did the football games. Then one day, Sal, Chad’s friend, visited my house. “Hurry, you gotta see this.” We sprinted past the dirt basketball court, toward the football yard.
The gang huddled in the road, in front of the dreaded dog’s yard. Despite the animal, the grounds overflowed with hydrangeas, snapdragons, and roses. A brick walk meandered to the door. I wished the Parkers would invite me to visit their fairy-tale land.
“Chad wants to break up with you.” Sal thumped his fist on his thigh.
My boyfriend lowered his eyes. The shark-tooth necklace I’d taken from my brother laced his neck. “I need my sister’s wax kit back,” his only words.
After his letter, I’d been so enamored with the red wax seal Chad had given me the kit. “Youstole from your sister?” My moral absolutes only applied to others, not my brother.
Sal pushed Chad forward. “We have a bet.”
The guys I played football with, from Chad to Sal to Jake to Fred, squeezed closer.
“What bet?” I asked.
In the middle of the road, Chad grabbed me and dragged me to the Parker’s fence. Their dog bit at the chain link.
“I’m going to win.” Sal punched the air.
“Got’s to be over the fence,” Fred added.
Over the fence? “What have you done?” I screamed at Chad.
No words came forth. Only a huff as he hoisted me to chest level, high enough to be thrown over the wired edges into the perfect princess yard guarded by a hound of hell. Heart beating fast, I didn’t have the luxury to register hurt, but fight-and-flight welled up in me. Unbelief he had betted and planned this notorious act would come later. What were they going to do? Watch Gravy chew me to bits? Because if any dog would, it’d be that one.
The dog growling, Chad locked me tighter. All my ballet strength tightened my body. I slapped, windmilled, and wiggled out of his hold, hitting the ground. Chad hovered over me, his sweat dropping on my face.
In the battle of my young life, I kicked my foot at that part of his body, fully intending to come out the other side.
The F word lit from the boys’ mouths like firecrackers. Only Chad was silent in his writhing. I charged through their barricade. My arms and legs pumped, gifting me my first taste of adrenaline and freedom. As I dashed home, the F bomb was shouted at me as an adjective describing what kind of girl I was.
I had been weighed and measured not only by the boys’ betrayal, but by the word, the two twisting in my heart all through the night. Anybody who’s been fenced in by f words and harsh actions knows the insignificance and insecurity which follow. Memories linger. This was forty-six years ago. Sticks and stones and almost being tossed over a fence does hurt my bones. However, the rhyme lies. Words do hurt me.
Other curse words may catch for a moment like a bob-wired fence until we tug them loose.
Being bombed over and over with the f word barbs the flesh. Why is this?
In this particular case, the word bound me, like the boys’ voices, becoming like an emotional label. It seared more insecurity into my layers of insecurities. I was not worthy. I was not cherished. I was alone. Each thought served as a stake in the ground of my mind.
This incident fractured our football games. It developed distrust in the opposite sex. It confused. Weren’t men supposed to protect and care? At home, I held back tears I’d been taught to hide. Fear changed to Anger changed to Hurt. Why had they done this to me, to their best back-up quarterback? Why did they use the word as commonly as they chewed gum? Why had they changed?
I had no answers to these questions, no one to talk to. But something ‘other’ rose up in me-- something better.
I rang Chad’s doorbell. To his credit, he looked pained, even shamed. “Thank Linda for letting me borrow this.” I handed him his sister’s wax sealing kit and trod through Chad’s vast lawn for the last time.
I could have remained captive to fear. But at that tender age, I learned a bit about freedom. I had to choose to lose the embedded soundtrack of the word and deed. To break free through forgiveness. To this day, although I’ve never seen him again, I know this wasn’t the real Chad. He was better than this.
Employing forgiveness to reframe a situation builds up, rather than tears down. It does not come without effort. One must open the door of the cage and push through the barricade the word and deed have created. This is freedom. I may have been fenced in during a part of the story, but it isn’t the story shaping my life today.
Welcome to this series I’m doing on language. Emphasis language as in the kind grandma remedied with a swift bar of soap to one’s tastebuds. What we called in the day, ‘cuss’ words.
I’m not playing puritan here, nor in my previous post on infidelity. I am wondering what kind of people we become when we clean up our words and actions in light of the weight they have over others.
Let’s remake the F word into one that restores: Forgiveness. How might you unlock your memory door and exercise your freedom to render a circumstance powerless?
- When have you fenced someone in with the f word?
- Is there an action of restoration you need to take? Someone you need to forgive?
- Someone you need to ask for forgiveness?
