Free Necessary Roughness by Marie G. Lee Page A

Added to that was the smell of the stuff the janitors used to clean the showers—some major fungicide, I suppose. It was acrid and burned my nose.
    I shed my pads like I was a snake molting, and peeled off my T-shirt and pants. The concrete floor was littered with torn tape and used Band-Aids. One of them was a Sesame Street Band-Aid—Bert and Ernie. It made me grin momentarily, but I was still tired. I sat down.
    Even if I had been expecting it, I don’t know what I would have done.
    A rough, mildewed towel suddenly covered myface—my nose, eyes, everything—and a split second later bodies leaped on top of me, grabbing my arms and legs. Whoever they were, they were strong.
    I kicked out, hit something, and heard a muffled “Damn!” But someone still had my arms and I couldn’t twist away.
    Arms grabbed my legs, and I felt my jock strap being pulled down. I tried to kick, but I couldn’t move. Then I realized they were tying my ankles with my jockstrap.
    I hate the thought of being tied up. It makes me sick. Everything in my insides jumped and skittered like tiny fish. I twisted, kicked with both feet, yelled, and got a mouthful of towel for my trouble.
    “A little necessary roughness, huh?” It came out barely audible, like the hiss of a tape player. There were at least three of them, I think. They got my hands tied.
    Someone shoved me into the lockers and I fell like a stone to the wet floor. I couldn’t breathe. I twisted my neck until a bit of the towel gave by my mouth. I gasped in the air.
    I screamed. The cold cement pressed into my hip. “Come back here, you cowards!”
    I was tied with some kind of cloth; once I wriggled my hands free I saw it was one of my socks. There was blood staining it. The jock was still knotted tight around my ankles—one of which was beginningto swell, right above the bone. Now that I’d stopped yelling, I realized it hurt like hell. It was golf-ball size now, which meant it would be much bigger later.
    “Who did this?” I yelled. No one answered. Only the lockers stood in silent, solemn testimony to what had happened to me.

nineteen
    “What happened to your leg, Oppa?” said Young when I limped through the door. I felt like I was going to puke.
    “I wiped out on the street walking home,” I said, doing my best to control the shakes in my voice. “I think I sprained my ankle. Ha, ha.”
    “Did you hit your head, too?” she said, pushing aside my hair. “Ewww, this looks terrible.”
    “Actually, I fell in the locker room—but don’t tell O-Ma. She thinks football is dangerous.”
    “Let me get you some ice. You should have called. Someone could’ve picked you up.”
    But then I would’ve had to explain why I was crying.
    I felt like I’d been raped, honestly. Being tied up and left naked on a dirty locker room floor is probably the closest you can get to it.
    It hadn’t been horseplay. People wrestled and did dumb stuff in the locker room, sometimes with acouple guys ganging up on another. But this was different.
    It was all I could do to keep myself from breaking down again.
    It had to be the guys I knew. Who else would have access to the building at that hour? Who else would know I was there?
    My teammates.
    “What happened to you?” said Kearny when he saw me limp into the locker room, my ankle huge with swelling and an Ace bandage.
    “I fell in the locker room,” I said, looking around. If anyone was going to have a crisis of conscience, it would be now.
    No one did. At least, not that I could see. Rom was sitting on the bench, adjusting his pads. Jimmi sneered.
    He had a bruise on his nose.
    “Nice going, klutz,” he said, when he saw me looking.
    “You’re not going to be any good for the team this week. We got a game Friday, you know. Jesus.” Kearny was talking as if he thought I had done it on purpose.
    “I’ll come to practice and watch,” I said.
    “What’s up, Jann?” Coach walked in. He bent down and gave my ankle a squeeze. I