Feel the Pain

"Is it true that women have a higher threshold for pain than men do? We do have to give birth, after all…Write (very graphically) about a sensation of pain that you have had or that your character is having. And I’m not talking about emotional pain. Use your own blog for that crap."

The first real "I'm gonna die I know it" pain I can recall happened in 1989. I was an extremely skinny seventh grader trying to find my place in the world. I had picked up basketball after considering football and realizing it was not the sport for me. My face and bones carried a lot of value in the temple that is JBee circa 89. Playing football with kids that were already 100 pounds heavier than myself only reminded me of semi-required Thanksgiving family football games. Collar bone, blood, fingers, toes, coccyx and loss of consciousness. These words come to mind. After 3 practice games I was given the position of "tight end". This new title didn't help secure my slight interest in the game. I quickly spun some excuses and juked around that possible massacre with my budding manhood still in tact. I joined the basketball team a short while later. It seemed less dangerous and I felt more at home with all the other wanna be gangsta hip-hop kids at the time. Though I weighed nothing, I was already 6 feet tall and could dunk the ball. My position was Point Guard and I loved it for a couple months.

During my first real game, a game where the cheerleaders and classmates were watching my every move, I became a little over zealous and began giving it "110 percent". I wasn't the best kid out there but I could make it look like I was to anyone who didn't understand the game. This need to be accepted and look cool was my ultimate downfall. I went for a stray ball that was headed directly for the bleachers. I had seen it on TV so many times. Jordan leaps past out of bounds and swats the ball back to Pippin for the the 3 pointer. At the very worst Jordan slides across the floor and crashes into a ESPN camera man. Well I wasn't Jordan or Pippin or the ESPN camera man.

I did save the ball by tossing it back in bounds while leaping through the air. Whether or not a guy on my team caught it I will never know. The integral part of this seemingly easy maneuver is the turn around after the jump. I didn't read the manual. I tossed the ball behind me and landed with so much momentum that I took off running instantly and soon as my feet hit the court. I only had made three steps before I was directly in front of the polished pine bleachers. To prevent my face from being smashed into a tangled mess I planted my hands directly in front of me and pushed up. This face saving move resulted in my abdomen crashing into the bleacher instead. The sounds produced from the collision caused every single person in the gym that day to stop what they were doing and collectively gasp.

I clearly remember those sounds. The squeak of basketball shoes, the crashing into the bleachers and the collective sucking in of air. I leaned into the L shape my body was pressed into even more. I didn't ever want to turn around again. The coach came up with a half concerned, half smiling face asking me if I was okay. I attempted to turn and sit on the offending bleacher and found that I had severe pains in my back. I thought that I had broken it somehow. I sat but couldn't understand what I was feeling. My spine and neck felt like they were was broke in pieces. There was a burning sensation that was so powerful I instantly felt weak and nauseous. The pain made me feel like I had crossed the threshold of the living and entered the afterlife or had transcended this world somehow. How else could I be experiencing something so intense and still be alive?

I lied down on the cold resined wood and the pain receded a little. The coach asked me to lift up my shirt which I did so unwillingly. We watched my abdomen change color from tan to deep purple as if an ink bottle had tipped over inside my chest. My coaches face was horror filled and that scared me more than the pain I was feeling. I nervously asked him what was happening and he said that I probably broke most of my ribs. He asked me to sit up and I promptly told him to fuck off. This was the first time I talked to an authority figure in this way and he didn't seem to mind. My feet and hands were freezing after a couple minutes and it reminded me of the movies where the old cowboy says he can't feel his feet and dies right afterward. I thought I was the old cowboy that day. The ambulance had driven from Orange Park and took about 20 minutes to arrive though it felt like hours. Our little town didn't have a hospital of it's own or working firetrucks when my house was burning to the ground.

I woke up a week later with tubes coming out of almost all of my orifices. I imagined myself as a young Weapon X without the adamantium skeleton. I had ruptured my spleen internally I was told. It was cut almost in half when the doctors pulled it out of me. The only joys I found during my 2 month stay were from the hot nurse visits. I suppose the morphine drip wasn't bad either. Even at that age I remember thinking that I liked the morphine too much and it concerned me. I spent several weeks in bed at home afterward attempting to recover. My stepfather felt that I should be working instead so while I was out of school for a major surgery I was also vacuuming, and doing random outside work. I felt like this prolonged my healing but I didn't talk about it. What is there to say to the Prison Warden when you have a six year sentence ahead of you? I removed the staples out of my stomach when they were ready to come out just like an old cowboy would.