Breaking Badly

I’ve broken some bones in my lifetime.

When I was five, I broke my right arm—probably while playing on a jungle gym or climbing trees, but I’m not sure. I was pretty rambunctious at that age.

I made use of the time in the cast, though! Instead of playing outside so much—instead of relying on my body, really—I turned to my imagination for amusement. I created a little prison to hold the Incredible Hulk, but of course no prison can hold the Hulk!

I somehow made it through elementary school with no additional bone breaks, but middle school wasn’t so kind. Puberty had other plans for me, and I was all about putting my body in harm’s way, and all of a sudden, too. Tackle football and other rough sports suddenly appealed to me around the age of 11.

One day in seventh grade, I was playing football with some of the other kids at school during our little lunch break. As I recall it, there wasn’t a separate time for recess per se, but you could eat and then go play outside if you wanted to, or head to the library to read (my choice about half the time).

We were allowed to play touch football, but definitely not tackle football. I didn’t care and wanted to play tackle, so I quickly found a game with some other kids who didn’t mind playing rough.

I fielded a kickoff and began to run up the field, facing off against the entire opposing team trying to tackle me. I was all right at dipping and ducking, but I was also very much catchable. As I ran up the field, Greg intercepted me and executed what I remember as a near-perfect double leg takedown, but with some really nice amplitude.

Basically, Greg picked me up over his head, and then his feet left the ground as he made sure to land on top of me with his shoulder. Greg’s body was essentially a miniature adult body, but I was still soft like a little kid. Something snapped when I landed, although I’m not sure I noticed the sound.

I tried to continue in the game, but it became quickly evident that something was wrong with my right shoulder and chest area—though it was tough to pinpoint exactly where something was wrong. That is, until I tried to raise my arm up in class.

That’s when I felt the sharpest pain I’ve ever felt. I think that’s still true today, nearly four decades later. When my collarbone broke, there was some kind of nerve that was suddenly exposed to movements in ways I had never felt before. It felt like an instant electrical shock emanating from the collarbone area, but the shock resonated through my entire body.

I was sent to the ER and was put in a sling. I must have drawn a lot more comic book covers during the recovery period when I couldn’t play outside, but I can’t recall anything specific.

It was just about one year until the next major broken bone injury, and this one’s a doozy. My eighth grade year, I was running to catch up with some friends who had gotten ahead—maybe I was having a quick side conversation with someone else, but for whatever reason, I tried to save time to catch up.

Now, I have to set the scene here just a bit. This middle school really wanted to keep everyone on the sidewalks, so they set up rope barriers so that you’d stay right there (as opposed to cutting across the grass). There weren’t rules or signs against cutting across the grass, at least as far as I can remember, so this subtle programming was their way to keep order, I suppose.

The only problem is that these ropes were just below knee-height, so they were really easy to just step over.

As I ran to catch up with my friends, who were probably already nearly at the library by now, my foot caught on one of those ropes. Because my body’s trajectory was angled upward, my body was like a big lever, with the force of falling amplified by my foot-rope hook. I landed hard on my right hand, but got up and felt pretty much okay.

Three fingers on my right hand had been broken, but I didn’t know this yet. However, my ring finger was completely twisted to the side, clearly dislocated.

While I had attempted to solider on in class with last year’s collarbone injury, it was completely clear that I was going to need some help here. I let the teacher know of my mangled fingers, and she asked me to the front of the class so that she could write me a hall pass to go see the school nurse.

One kid in my grade asked if he could see my hand, and I could see that I had the attention of the entire class. I showed him. All at once, I heard the familiar cries of:

Ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww!!!!

I got to the ER after a visit to the school nurse, which I don’t remember at all. I certainly do remember the ER visit, though.

The doctor and nurse worked together to describe what I would go through next. The doctor started by asking me if I ever cracked my knuckles, and when I affirmed enthusiastically, he suggested this was going to be pretty similar. Then, the nurse explained the way my hand would be numbed: with three shots in between my digits, right at the base of the fingers.

I am sure I seemed afraid, and I can still remember her saying to me in an accent I remember being distinctly Kenyan, “The alternative would be painful.”

I saw the wisdom in what she said, but it was still unnerving (horrifying might be a better word, honestly) to note that the shots went all the way through my hand and to the other side. This dawned on me as they were dabbing blood away from my palm, on the opposite side of where the needle had gone in.

Then, after a few minutes, the doc came in and violently twisted my finger back into place. The other two fingers were fractures, so they would heal on their own, after about six weeks in a very, very smelly cast.

Clearly, not having the ability to write or draw was a huge impediment to the things I’d normally do. For instance, it snowed while my hand was in a cast (a very rare event in South Carolina, even back then), and I had to watch as my friends played on impromptu sleds made from garbage pail lids and the like.

Drawing was my usual escape, but this wasn’t going to be possible… or was it? I decided I’d try drawing with my left hand for a while. I also had to continue to turn in my assignments at school, so I gave writing with my left hand a bit of a chance as well.

I was very good at drawing for my age, but drawing with my left hand seemed like a real obstacle. However, it was still possible to produce some decent looking stuff—provided I really took my time. I’m afraid those drawings seem to be lost to the dustbin of history, but if I come across them, I will share them here.