Free Necessary Roughness by Marie G. Lee Page B

barely swallowed a scream.
    “How’d you do this?”
    I repeated my story.
    “Did Doc Larson take a look at it?”
    I shook my head.
    While everyone practiced, I went to see the team doctor. He sat me on the training table and opened up a tackle box that contained all sorts of gauze and cotton nose plugs and bandages and clips for the pads.
    “Looks like a bad sprain,” he said. My ankle looked like a ripening mango; it was about that color, too.
    “I heal fast.”
    “I think you’d better have it x-rayed. There might be a fracture.”
    My heart stopped.
    “I’ll give you a lift to the hospital right now.”
    “Is it going to cost money?”
    “Did it happen out on the field?”
    “In the locker room.”
    “Close enough. No charge for players, professional courtesy and all that.” He reached over and pushed the hair on my forehead, the way Young did. “And where did you get this?”
    “Same place.”
    He gave me a look, like I must be the most accident-prone dope he’d ever met. How could someone who hurt himself like this ever manage to pull himself together to be a football player? I stubbornly kept my mouth shut.
    “Get a tetanus shot while you’re at it,” he said. “Come on. My car’s out back.”
    I hated it, sitting in the X-ray room, waiting for the pictures to be developed.
    A little necessary roughness, huh?
I’d heard that voice before, for sure.
    What was going to happen if there was a fracture? I’d be out for the season like Gary, the other kicker. That would be it That would be the end of my so-called football career.
    “Got a little roughed up on the field?” The radiologist came in with the X rays in hand. Even though he was wearing these professor-type glasses, he looked like he was twelve.
    “I guess.” My fingers started nervously playing with each other. Was this guy being so cheerful because he had good news—or was he being cheerful because he was preparing me for bad news? Or was he just practicing his bedside manner?
    He cleared his throat and shuffled the film, rattling my nerves at the same time.
    “Your ankle’s not broken,” he said. “We just need to fit you with an air cast. But we’re still talking two-three weeks of rehab before you go back to play.”
    I wanted to kiss him.
    “And you’re going to have to be careful in the future.”
    “I will, I will,” I said, practically hopping off the table. Let the Iron River Mafia try to get me again. It doesn’t take a whole lot of guts to gang up on one bone-tired guy. If they wanted me to give up and die, that was going to be the very reason for me to keep on going. I was one tough L.A. mo-fo.
    I hated sitting out the next game. While everyone else suited up, I wore my civvies and sat on the far end of the bench reserved for guys like Otto Jensen, a special-ed kid who was on the team but never played.
    Every time we scored a touchdown, I got up, ready to get in the field for an extra point. Then I’d sit down, embarrassed, glad only Otto was there to see my mistake.
    Jimmi went in as kicker. He made one extra point, failed another. His punt got returned for a touchdown.
    There is a God, I was thinking. We still won.

twenty
    In shop we were doing woodworking, which was kind of cool.
    Shop was required for boys, home ec for girls. Next year we could take automotive repair as an elective, but I knew Abogee was going to make me fill up that space with calculus instead.
    Young, on the other hand, wanted to give up her home ec class to take calculus now.
    “Home ec is so stupid,” she told me. “And the trig class bores me to tears.”
    Mr. Ripanen said no way, however.
    “He had the nerve to say I’d probably appreciate the home ec classes after I was married. And he called me
young lady.”
    “Maybe he couldn’t resist the pun,” I said.
    “People around here aren’t subtle enough to pun.”
    “They’re not very pun-ny, eh?”
    “Shut up, Chan.”
    *  *  *
    Me, I enjoyed the easier classes. I loved