Concrete Evidence

Concrete Evidence

They say time heals all wounds.  Well, recently I was able to alter that statement.  Apparently time REVEALS all wounds.  As I get older, as most men, my hairline has started to recede…or my forehead is growing.  Luckily, it is currently at a glacier’s pace.  However, it has pulled back enough to reveal an old scar…wound if you will.  One that was hidden for oh so many years.

Before there was ice hockey, there was street hockey.  As kids, we would play all day confiscating the basketball courts for our own needs.  We organized games against other neighborhoods.  You didn’t need talent, you just needed a stick.  And I easily fit that prerequisite.  We played all throughout our high school years.  However, my first two years at Drexel there was not enough interest from my classmates to compete.  It would be during my cooperative job at the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard that I found others with the hockey bug.  Games would be set up between rivaling departments.  Our rink would be just over the bridge in South Jersey.  After a fall full of games, we decided to put together a team.  The Delaware River Destroyers.

During that time, in the dorms, my street hockey stick always seemed to be by my side.  I would shoot around in the halls and the C-shape of our building made the angles more interesting.  I used a tennis ball to keep from breaking anything important.  Friends would bet I could not get it through a door that was just slightly cracked open, and bounce it off an unsuspecting student’s head studying at his desk.  I would be successful more often than not.  I think that is why, when playing today, I hit the goalie with my shots more than I should.  One night, after hanging out with the guys in my room... and having a few too many, my roommate returned.  He had been on a date and was ready to hit the sack.  He was a little pissed that the majority of the empty beer cans had missed their intended garbage pail target.  By this time everyone had left and I was already up in my loft.  I was not about to descend to clean up the mess.  I reached for my hockey stick and started shooting the beer cans towards the pail.  My roommate chirped, “With your aim, this will take all night”…so I decided to start shooting the beer cans at him.  I must say, he definitely tolerated my annoying inebriation over the years.  He shot me a look, and exited the room.  I finished shooting the last beer can and found myself hanging over the loft a little too far.  No big deal, I would just push off the floor with the hockey stick to propel myself back upon the bed.  It would slip out from underneath me.  All my weight was shifted forward.  Only one way to go…down!  From 5 feet above I fell.  I just needed a soft place to land.

Now before my dorm room became the den of iniquity, it was pretty standard.  The usual student’s room consisted of items that were never intended to be used as furniture.  Milk crates for bookcases, cable spools for tables and cinder blocks…well, for everything else.  And it would be the cinder block my head would find at the end of my decent.  It all happened so quickly I hardly felt a thing.  Well, that could have had something to do with all the beer I drank.  As I took inventory of my extremities I noticed something on the corner of the concrete block.  Upon closer inspection I discovered what it was.  It was part of my scalp.  As I peered in the mirror I looked like Leroy Brown with a couple of pieces gone.

My roommate had left the door open when he exited.  He was chatting in the hall with a few fellow students when all they saw was a cinder block come flying out of the room.  It was my intoxicated way of disposing of my foe.  One look by them at the tossed item and it was easy to piece together what had happened.  Much easier than it would be piecing me together.  I grabbed my t-shirt from the floor and tried to stop the bleeding.  They came in to find me looking like the fife player in the Yankee Doodle painting.  “Dude, you are gonna have to go the hospital…you probably have a concussion too”.  I always wondered how they could distinguish between the drunken and concussed signs.  I obviously was in no shape to drive, and unfortunately neither where they.  I got dressed and we headed down to the front desk.  They would summon my chariot…the Drexel shuttle…to take me to Penn Presbyterian Medical Center.

My friends poured me into the van like a bartender might do to his bar fly after last call.  I rambled on the ride over resembling a scene of HBO’s Taxi Cab Confessions.  Luckily for the driver it was not a long trip.  He had radioed ahead and when I arrived I was greeted with a wheelchair.  I guess I looked much worse than I felt.   I was taken in to the hospital.  I was examined, temporarily bandaged up and wheeled towards radiology.  Before they did anything more they needed to get an x-ray of the damage.  Now, by this time, it had to be after 2am.  The hospital hallway lights were dimmed, the room doors were closed…it was desolate.  We arrived at radiology and the orderly went inside to inform them they had a late night patient.  I was told to wait until someone came out to get me…and he was off.  I was there maybe 5 minutes before my continued inebriation got the better of me.  I decided my wheelchair and I would take a tour of the hospital.  It must have been a big hospital, because I wound up getting lost.  I never thought to get out of the wheelchair to allow for easier navigation.  I just continued to wheel around and explore.  I really had no concept of time at this point.  But after a while, and a small miracle, I got back to the radiology room.  I parked and continued to wait…like I had never left.  A few minutes passed when someone came out ready to lock up.  He turned and my presence startled him.  I said, “I am here for x-rays.”  He responded, “Hey, that was over an hour ago…where have you been all this time?!?”  Around.  He opened the door back up and it was picture time.

After the x-rays I was wheeled into an examination room to await my fate.  I was told to stay put this time.  A doctor would be with me shortly.  Soon the door opened and I wheeled around.  You could almost see the light around her and hear music playing.  I tried to quickly make myself presentable…but that that ship had long since sailed…and burned...and sank!  I found out she was doing an internship.  She couldn’t have been that much older than me.  The bandages were removed and I was informed I needed several stitches.  She must have gotten a whiff of my breathe because she kidded I wouldn’t be needing anesthesia.  I told her, “In spite of my current outward appearance, the alcohol inside has long since worn off”.  She asked if I had gotten into a fight.  I said yes, with a cinder block.  As she patched me up I revealed my story.  I included my disappearing act in the wheelchair too.  She just smiled and shook her head.  I had time to tell the whole tale too…I was getting a lot of stitches.  Her bedside manner was beyond belief…and that made me swoon even more.  We had a moment…well, one of us did at least.  She was finally done and she cleaned the remaining blood from my face.  I was told to come back and see her in 7-10 days to have the stitches removed.  She also told me to avoid any more cinder blocks.  I thanked her for the advice.  I also apologized for my appearance.  She told me she had seen worse…somehow I didn’t believe her.  I called Drexel’s security for a ride back.  She would wait with me for the shuttle to arrive.  Soon it came and took me home.  I would get back as the sun was coming up.  God’s flashlight shinning on me.  I am sure he got a good laugh.

The 7-10 days would pass quickly.  During that time I eagerly awaited to reacquaint myself from my emergency room rendezvous.  I was sent to the same examination room from that night.  My anticipation peaked but soon turned to disappointment.  A nurse entered the room and informed me she would be taking out my stitches.  I asked her about the doctor and was told this was a simple procedure and she would not be needed.  My heart sank.  The stitches were expeditiously eradicated.  I was led out to the reception desk for paperwork to be processed.  With my head held low, I turned to leave...and almost collided with the person behind me.  It was her!  I took a step back as my heart took a beat forward.  I thanked her for taking good care of me last week, and how you could hardly see a scar.  She had an inquisitive look.  I soon realized she did not recognize me.  I informed her that I was the bloody and battered cinderblock guy that she stitched up in the middle of the night.  It took her a second, but her bright blue eyes finally lit up in disbelief.  “Well, you sure do clean up nice!”

Life would go on at Drexel.  I did, however, stop shooting the ball around the halls.  The first game of our street hockey season would be only a few weeks after that night.  I would blow out my knee in that game and my street hockey stick would be retired for good.

Just another wound to heal.