CP Story
All in the second week of 4th grade at a new school, I ran for parliamentarian and broke my collar bone. I'm pretty sure the guy I was up against in the 'election' is now my friend living in LA, Adam T. The collar bone was a fluke kickball injury.
Wierd.
What also happened at Candler Park just after we moved to town is what this story is about. Eli S and I were chilling down at the park one weekend morning. Maybe it was the fall. I say that cause it wasn't particularly hot or cold, but it was the morning after a storm.
Anyhow, we started playing on these poured-concrete tubes... Jumping back and forth from the larger one to the smaller one and vice versa. I don't remember anything significant before my fateful jump, except that the two of us were exceptional jumpers, probably the best jumpers these tubes had ever seen.
With the concrete being wet still from the night before, I take one last jump off the larger tube's edge. I fall quickly face-first into the smaller tube's edge. Who knows how my body followed. But soon enough I was lying on the ground with my hand on my mouth lots of blood running through my fingers.
Eli picks me up in a panic state and we run up the hill towards the tennis courts and my house. Within what I remember as five seconds from falling, we stopped at a water fountain, deciding that it would be a good idea to let water run over the bloody lip. So, at the water fountain, my blood oozes into the drain and a large chunk or two of my lip literally washes down. But the water does nothing to actually stop the bleeding.
So we keep running - about 400 yards or so back to the house, where dad and my sister should be. After not answering the door for what felt like five painful minutes, dad finds us and ushers me into the bathroom to wash up... the whole time Eli's frantically crying: "Please don't hit the bucket!" "You can't hit the can, Ben!" "Please don't die!"
Who knows where he came up with these phrases at nine years old. But they saved my life.
I didn't die. I don't think we even went to the hospital. But the scar tissue from that injury is still in my right upper lip.
And that's that.
2 comments:
When I was in sixth grade, I got into a kickball-related incident. We were going back inside the school, and a kickball came rolling my way. Being an energetic kid, I went to go grab the ball to bring it inside with me. I kind of did one of those slide-grabs that goalies sometimes do in soccer. Unfortunately for me, the kid with Tourette's was barreling down on the ball with equal speed, and just as I grabbed the ball, he booted it as hard as he could, the force from which knocked the wind completely out of me. I held onto the ball though. Go hard or go home.
All right... sorry... your post just evoked some funny memories.
Your post evoked my memories too... particularly of the first time I can remember bleeding from the general face vicinity.
I was at the top of a steep slide. I had second thoughts...some people use the word cowardly... but I use the word cautiously... I cautiously just sat there... potentially whimpering and whining. That detail escapes me.
Dusty, the class bully told me to hurry up. As I took my sweet time, I turned around to mouth off to his nagging then BAM! Dusty punched me in the nose.
I immediately slid down the slide with a bloody ass nose- punched by a boy- but most importantly, overcoming my fear of the slide.
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