Bet Cuh

My 7th grade English teacher was a meticulously made-up woman who was thrice divorced and renamed every year. Her severely cropped pixie haircut and heavy pink blush underscored a 1980’s no-nonsense attitude. Mrs. Brown demanded action in her class. We were not to let her down; we were not to blow off. We were to become literate, by God, and respect the written word. Or she would kill us.

Messing about in Mrs. Brown’s class was a quick trip into oblivion, a lesson Graham McDonald encountered as he opted to lighten the intensity of the mood during a discussion of Great Expectations with an ill-advised wisecrack. Mrs. Brown ceased her examination of Miss Havisham’s treachery and turned her full attention to Graham. If you can recall the cinematic moment in which Clarice Starling first meets Hannibal Lecter standing peacefully in his cell in the movie The Silence of the Lambs, you will just about have it. Her blood pressure never got above 85. She glided across the room until she arrived in front of Graham and clicked her perfectly manicured acrylic nails on his desk. She leaned down and smiled at him. “Get Out.”

Graham began to laugh nervously as she continued to stare unblinking into his eyes. It’s interesting to watch someone become visibly nauseated. “Where do you want me to go?” he stammered. She held him in a stare down for almost a full minute of crashing silence before she whispered, “Oh, I don’t care, just get out.” Mrs. Brown never raised her voice; she simply eviscerated you with a feather. Graham stumbled out of the classroom. 50 minutes later, we discovered him motionless clutching his backpack in terror on the other side of the door.

Despite some serious serial killer undertones, Mrs. Brown was a most beloved teacher. She was determined that all her students learn to write. Every last dodo among us would become a proficient essayist under her watch. Even Graham. To that end she demanded that we read voraciously and look up unknown words in a dictionary. If your sentences were suspect during vocabulary work, she would deliver a dictionary to your desk with the soft slide of shame. After his near-death experience, Graham changed tune and became an enthusiastic class participant especially with regards to vocabulary. His vocab sentences the stuff of legend.

“I like to be sanitary.”

“Well Graham, we are all grateful for that. Thank you.”

Mrs. Brown was our guru. It is because of her that any of us were able to go to college or hold a job. She browbeat us into grammatical correctness and slapped us into literacy. It was Seal training with a thesaurus. And this hardline indoctrination is at odds with the unlearned 15-year-old male child who resides in my home part time.

It has been at least three years since I have been able to either understand or ascertain the meaning of anything my stepson says. I understand that mush mouth mumbling is a normal trait of any teenage boy specimen. However, this bonus child of mine is also employing a completely heretofore unknown language that cannot be confused with English. When he does attempt to form words, they often get caught and dispersed into utterances that can only be described as a “human choking on a bag of marshmallows.” Sometimes he simply grunts like a farm animal.

The English Language Arts class he sits through 5 days a week has had zero effect. I cite vocabulary amongst his most pressing issues. Words are selected or created at random with no meaning in tow. I bought him a runner’s magazine from Barnes and Noble. He deemed it “aesthetic.” I asked him to explain. He rolled his eyes. He uses the word aesthetic often yet displays zero comprehension of its definition. Once he did use it correctly in a sentence, but this was purely accidental.

He is excited about his “pastelic” new Vans sneakers. What the heck is pastelic? I frantically googled the word on the off chance that in fact, I am the moron who lacks vocabulary. Nope, it’s not there. Does he mean “of pastel color?” The sneakers are black. I quizzed him. He responded with great irritation, “It’s just pastelic, bruh. Cringe!”

He refers to all persons be they family, friends or acquaintances as “bruh” or “cuh”. I riddled out that “bruh,” is a derivative of brother. “Cuh” required a bit more sleuthing. I have come to understand it as a play on the word “cousin” which then deteriorated to “cuz” and finally to “cuh”. Even the brief “cuz” required too much lingual effort, ain’t nobody got time for a consonant these days.

His favorite phrase “bet cuh,” or more accurately, “beh cuh,” sounds as though he is struggling to articulate after having been in a coma for 20 years. “Bet” is to be taken as an affirmative. The phrase “bet cuh” should be taken as “ok, dude.”

He is concerned that his “fit” is “cringe.” He wants it to be “drip.” Fit translates into fashion; his fit is his look, if you will. His 15-year-old fit consists of mangy t shirts and mismatched athletic shorts and currently, he is trying to pack the lot of them into a suitcase to attend a 2-week debate camp at Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania. Debate, an activity in which one needs to speak persuasively in a comprehensible manner. Good luck.

Since I have been unable to help him speak, I decided to help him pack. I like to ensure that the bonus children are away from the house as much as possible, thereby giving me fewer opportunities to meltdown and cry in a fetal position. At debate camp, 15 will be required to live in a dormitory and eat food in the college cafeteria. But his father has allowed him access to the Uber Eats app in case the food is “mid.” I offered to loan him one of my extra-large suitcases and pack it for him. He accepted the luggage but passed on the packing assistance. “Got it bruh, you got no rizz.” Apparently, my lack of “rizz” renders me unable to fold shirts.

Days passed and the departure loomed, I saw no evidence of anything that would indicate packing. The afternoon before he was to leave, the suitcase appeared on the floor of the foyer. “ ’s done bruh. No cap.” The suitcase was unsealed allowing me a moment to assess its contents. It looked empty save maybe a couple of t shirts and a small hand towel. I took this to be the beginnings of packing, not the conclusion of a job well done.

“So, this is it? This is everything you are taking?”

“Yeah, ’s it. No worries,” he said with growing irritation.

“Ok, cool,” I said while trying to sound cool but sounding like a middle-aged loser with zero rizz.

“Can I just check through it though?”

“BRUHHHHHHHHHH…It doesn’t have to be extra!”

And with that he left the room.

The debate camp in Philadelphia is 2 weeks long. For the 2 weeks he had included the following: 2 pairs of underwear, 3 T-shirts, 2 pairs of shorts, 14 pairs of socks, a washcloth and a pair of plastic gardening slippers known as Crocs. I gently asked if he planned on doing laundry every two days. He was disgusted. “COME ON bruh!”

He was also visibly shocked when I suggested that to avoid laundry he might make some additions. “I need more fit?” He seemed confused and genuinely surprised. “You do,” I said. “I just think it will be easier.” I delivered my ideas in an upbeat casual tone in hopes of reeling him in; no one comes back from being the smelly kid at camp. Three years from now you may be at Yale and odor-free, but your reputation will precede you. “I met that guy at debate camp. Total genius but he smells like shit. Wore the same damn underwear every day.” If I can accomplish one thing as your stepmonster, I will keep you from being the gross kid. The rest is up to you.

He finally came round to me adding to and repacking the suitcase for him. He even threw out some kind of gang hand signal to thank me saying, “Dab me up cuh.” In his toiletry bag he had included neither toothpaste nor toothbrush, so I threw those in for good measure. I was proud that he had included a bar of soap on his own. It’s something. I couldn’t talk him out of the lame-ass plastic clogs, but hey, choose your own fit, man. I was sending him off with an ample amount of clothing, what he chose to do with that clothing was beyond my control.

I feel like I should support their individuality, but it’s hard when they look so stupid. Diane must have suffered tremendously while trying to support my burgeoning fashion sense. I am quite certain my she wanted to die every time I appeared at the bottom of the stairs looking like a 12 year old refugee from a Bangles video. In my defense, it was hard to interpret high fashion fit into day-to-day life in Montgomery, Alabama in 1987. It’s possible my 6th grade lewk of acid washed jeans, gold lamé blouse, and splatter painted earrings the size of handcuffs may not have been drip’.

On the morning of his departure for camp we saw him off. He hugged his dad offering the parting words, “Say it wit yo chest cuh.” I asked if the debate camp would be conducted in English. Unimpressed with my humor, he shook his head, “Hella cringe.”

During the two weeks in which we eagerly awaited news, we received the following text responses:

not pulling up rn

chill

das facts

you good like that

food is cringe

We also received an image of something resembling a bug-eyed squirrel with no context.

Once he returned and we were able to question him in person we learned that the camp had been “pretty fire” though the other attendees were “low-key mid.” The “drip” was “chill,” no one made any big flex. Instructors were “fr” and he feels like he will shred this year.

I think it went well? We don’t really know. I do know that he is still wearing those plastic clogs. And to this I can only say…

Karen wants her shoes back, Bruh. No cap. Total cringe.