“Curse…”
…a forgotten nickname from my pre-teen years.
At 12, I had a “foul mouth.” Cursing, or, for black folk, cussin’, came more naturally than it should. At that age, if cussin’ was an art form, I was the Michelangelo of this shit. None of my peers, nor any adults in the immediate area, were spared from my proliferation with profanity.
The name itself, however, is another matter entirely.
One random summer day in South Florida, my friends and I were playing football in the middle of a North Lauderdale street. To say that day was hotter than a motherfucker would be an understatement. It was the kind of heat that made clothes stick to sweaty, teenaged, bodies during a rigorous game of “touch on the street and tackle in the grass.”
Those rules were in place to keep our mothers from worrying about a trip to the hospital. But on this day, I was a victim of someone violating our unspoken agreement. We broke out of the huddle and I took my position to the right of the quarterback. As soon as the ball was hiked, I took off, running a “go” route toward the silver car which demarcated that day’s endzone.
What happened next was an unfortunate series of events. I caught the pass, then got unceremoniously trucked off the dirt, which bordered both sides of the road, and onto the pavement. I verbalized my dismay at the offending party, the quarterback, who just so happened to be my friend Earl’s father.
“Aye man, you gotta watch where you throwing the fucking ball,” said a version of me who hadn’t even known the touch of a woman.
Yet.
“You know Earl remedial as fuck and the nigga plays like he’s finna be drafted to the NFL with his stupid ass.”
Earl’s pops shook his head sideways, undoubtedly taken aback at my method of communication. “You know what,” he said. “I’ma just start calling you “Curse.”
An apropos name if there ever was one.
Some people believe the excessive use of profanity belies a lack of intelligence. Others say it underscores a lack of proper diction. Most just think it’s rude, especially when it comes from children who aren’t old enough to carry a state ID.
There could very well be some truth to that.
However, I give not one, solitary, fuck.
I love words. Manipulating them. Writing them. Saying them. Hearing them. The way they dance on my tongue. How they can shock someone into another perspective. What I feel when people efficiently use them. Words are my love language and I respect them enough to use them appropriately.
That courtesy extends to cursing because curse words are fucking beautiful. I’m partial to their usage as exclamation points or excited utterances. They make everything sound exciting.
There’s a difference between, “yeah, we’re going to the party” and “hell yeah, we in that bitch!” The former indicates a meager enthusiasm for attending a social gathering. The latter leaps off the page like prime Lebron James from the free throw line.
Not cursing is like riding in an old Ford Explorer with the bass turned to negative six, listening to the radio station’s “Quiet Storm.” Cursing is like driving a box Chevy with two “15’s” and listening to J Kwon’s “Hood Hop” so loud even a negro might think to call the police on you for disturbing the peace.
And, to my mind, there’s no better situation to use profanity than emphasizing an insult. Calling someone stupid just doesn’t feel the same as saying, “boy…you’se a stupid motherfucker.”
It’s as if some shit just doesn’t sound right until you put some stank on it.
Riley Freeman, of “The Boondocks” fame, once wrote a letter to Santa. In the letter, he called Santa Claus a “bitch nigga” before erasing it and calling the North Pole resident a “bitch ASS nigga.” Mr. Freeman understood the importance of letting Mrs. Santa’s husband know exactly how he felt. And, by my calculation, he took the most efficient route to air out his feelings.
We should all strive to be as prolific in our efficiency with words as an eight-year-old from an animated cartoon show.
Because…why the fuck not?
