By Susannah Murphine
All names have been changed to protect the innocent, the guilty, and the implicated.
I grew up extremely Southern Baptist. If I said the word “stupid” too close to one of my parents, I would get a lecture and a tablespoon of horseradish to make sure it didn’t happen again. Swearing in any capacity, then, wasn’t an option for me to express my emotions. Then I went off to college.
I started slow: a “hell” here and a “damnit” there turned into an occasional “shit.” But there was still one word that I still refused to say, no matter what. I’d avoid it to the point that MJ, my roommate, begged me to just say it instead of the progressively sillier substitutes I’d come up with. I’d gleefully refuse. After all, I’d made a promise to myself. I couldn’t let myself down!
The one person who made me come anywhere near mad enough for a bomb like that was K. He was a bully who had nearly free reign over the Theatre department ever since our other, older professor retired. K didn’t handle stress well, and had been under a lot of pressure when he took over. He ran the set construction crew, the costume crew, the technical crew, most of the productions, and Second Act Theatre Company.
This was a travelling troupe that went to local churches and performed short plays, most of them aimed at young children. One such skit was “The Hecka Big and Super Shiny Crown.” (I wish I had changed that name.) It featured a cast of animals, and the humans who played them needed costumes. Enter Erica; She was my roommate and manager in the costume shop. K had tasked her with creating the costumes for “Hecka Big,” so she was in the costume closet one Saturday morning, outside of work hours, trying to catch up on some of the costumes for our mainstage production. She was doing great, working hard, and making progress, when K came in and asked for the “Hecka Big” costumes. She gave him the bin they were in and he stood dead still.
One important thing to know about Erica is that she does not cry. No matter how sad, frustrated, or overwhelmed she is, Erica would not cry. She is as steadfast and solid as they come, stoic in the face of emotionality. So when she texted me that afternoon saying could you come down to D8? K just yelled at me for ten minutes and I’m crying, I knew something was horrifically wrong. I was still in my pajamas, but I ran over to the classroom with the closet, ready to fight something or someone. When I got there, she was sitting on the floor, still a little weepy. I sat down next to her and offered a hug. While I held her tight, she told me what had happened when he looked in the bin.
“Where are the wolf tails?” Erica had looked at him, confused. “I told you that I needed those done by today. Where are they?”
“Sir, I don’t remember you telling me that.”
“I told you that at the last meeting! We have a performance today and we need to leave now! I need those wolf tails!”
“Well, I’m sorry, but since they weren’t on my list to work on, I don’t have them ready yet.”
What followed was screaming; not a civil conversation between professor and student, not even a lecture about listening. No, this professor screamed at his student for not doing something that she had not known she was supposed to do while focusing on the tasks that were listed for her. She stood there and took it, silent, stone-faced, and stood firm in her convictions that she was in the right. Once he left, she started to tear up. The tears kept flowing. That’s when she texted me.
I got angrier at K than I ever had before. Nothing, not even his yelling at me in the past and making me cry, made me as angry as I was at him in that moment. But I didn’t yell. Erica had had enough of that today. I needed to express that anger that had boiled, but I wasn’t sure how until something slipped out.
“Honestly? Fuck him.”
It was quiet. There wasn’t any rage behind it. There was only the desire to comfort my friend and let her know that I was with her, on her side, and would fight him if I had to. Those three words said it better than I had thought it could. Now, I still use it sparingly. Words have power, after all. But now I know the power of “fuck,” and that it is, sometimes, the only word you need to say.
