Wrist Shot

I was playing hockey today at the YMCA in State College, at the farthest intersection of University Drive and Allen Street [although it turns into another street, but I forget the name, it might as well be Allen]. We had started playing sometime around 6 o'clock. A bunch of the guys from our hockey team, Blue Balls, were supposed to show up, but I think it was actually only Chas and I from our team. However, a local guy named Cole and a whole bunch of his friends showed up to play. We only had one goalie for a while, so we played full court and we'd switch after either three goals or two posts. Playing post is EXTREMELY frustrating.

He doesn't seem to have a specific title, but a guy we call Dyke [a shortening of his last name] is basically the director of club hockey at PSU. He's really good, and sort of funny, and plays with people all the time, whether they're on the teams or not. He was playing with us tonight, and sitting on the bench beside me, and I heard him talking about a kid named Dan that we were playing against tonight. He said that he was on "the team" and that he was captain, and called him "chatty," though as a good thing. I turned and asked, "Wait, which team?" And he said, "Um.... the team?" Some kids who play Club - and I think Dyke is on the B team - also play in the i.m. league, so I thought he might be talking about that. I didn't remember a "Dan" being selected for the team during announcements this year. And I said, "Like, the club team or what?" And he said, "...are you one of Timmy's friends?" I was, so I said so. Tim is from Garnet Valley, and plays on the club team. Dyke said, "Of course you are. You guys always try to hang out with us so you can drink at our parties." I said something to the effect of, "I've never tried to party with you, and I don't drink." He said back, "Sure, that's what you say, trying to get me to like you." The kid on the other side of him laughed a little and said, "I used to not drink."

The club team was coming to play at about 8PM. It was 7:50 or so and they weren't there, and we were all still playing because we wanted to get our time in, and another goalie had shown up (I think it was Judas, the goalie for the A team). I got the puck just left of the slot and somewhere near the top of the circle on the other team's side and put up a wrist shot.

Unfortunately, it went a little higher than I would like any shot to go, and there happened to be Cole standing right in front of it. It whacked him on the head, bounced off, and he went down immediately. I saw blood coming out, and I was terrified. I had no idea what I had hit. I thought I blinded him. I thought I broke his nose. It looked high so I was pretty sure it wasn't his mouth, but I was terrified. I apologized profusely. Other kids started looking for a towel, and after Cole got up I went to my car to look for a towel too, but I suppose I'd taken mine out. Thankfully, and extremely luckily, nothing "important" was damaged - it got him on the top right of his forehead, right about at the bottom of his hairline. It didn't touch his eyes at all and it didn't touch his nose. It was bleeding a good amount, but it was clear that nothing was broken, and at worst he would need some antibacterial and stitches.

He was up a little after the hit. There were spots of blood on the court, a small pool of it where he had fallen, and then more where he had skated before someone got him a pink towel. Spots of it were saturated in blood within a minute. He said, "Man, you guys know in those war movies when a bomb goes off and everything just goes silent, and then it's like ringing in the ears? I always thought that was made up, but it definitely just happened to me." I kept apologizing. I went over to him at the bench and said, "God, Cole, I am so sorry, I absolutely did not mean to do that at all, I would never try to hurt anyone playing here." He said, "Man, it's hockey. I've been waiting for someone to draw blood for weeks." I still felt terrible, but it was at the least a little relieving that he wasn't incredibly angry at me.

He talked about possibly getting stitches, but he wasn't sure he'd want to because he didn't know about his health care. Politics. Hockey. Seriously? He said he needed a ride home, and that possibly he'd need a ride to the hospital, so I said I would give him a ride. I also told him that I had health insurance and it was my fault, and that if he needed stitches or anything at all, to just do what was best for him and not to even consider cost, since it'd be on me. I hate private health insurance. He also told someone else that he owed them a towel, and I told them no, that would be on me as well. I also owe the club team a Rocket puck, and Chas an IDF puck.

We put his things in his car, and I gave his cell phone a call so he'd have my number and I'd have his. He got in my car with his skates on and a towel to the wound, although it didn't seem to be bleeding very much anymore at that point. He didn't want to drive, just in case something bad happened. I asked him if he was dizzy on the way home, and he said no, he just had a headache, which I guess was a good sign. His house was just two left turns away, and on the right. There was a small red car in the driveway, which was cement and sloped up a whole lot. It was a nice house, white sidings, with a light on at this point. It was 8PM at this point. I had planned to be back by then for [H]ouse, but I wasn't going to skip out on Cole when I just did that to him.

We went inside. His large brown dog greeted me. He said it's name and asked it who I was, but I forget what its name was. He still had his skates on in his house when his dad came into the foyer to talk to us. He had talked to his dad at that point, and I came in and jokingly said, "Hey! I did it, I'm the criminal. Sorry." His dad had a pretty good sense of humor about it. He took a look at it and said it didn't really look too bad - it hardly even split the skin, he said, more like gave it a very serious dent. Cole asked him if it needed stitches, and his dad went and got a flashlight, and concluded again that no, he probably didn't need stitches. Some gauze, he said, not peroxide, though.

I told Cole again that if he thought stitches were the best idea, to do it. I didn't want him to be left with something worse than what he had to be left with because he was afraid it was cost money or be a bit of a hassle. He said that he didn't want to get stitches, and that he liked scars. He showed me another one he had from when he fell off a roof during some construction work that had split his entire hand open. I guess if he made it through that, he'd make it through this alright.

He and his dad seemed to agree the best plan was to just wait for a little bit for the bleeding to stop, put some gauze on it, and check it out in an hour or two. Cole asked if I could get text messages, and said he would send me one if they went to the hospital. I excused myself since it seemed like he wouldn't need a ride for a while. I drove out of the driveway very slowly to make sure I didn't hit the car at the bottom and screw up even more things in their life.

I haven't gotten a text and it's been 4 hours. I guess he's not going to get stitches. I hope that's the right thing for him to do.

Peace out.

Waiting for an Elevator

If you walk out the door of my room and turn left, you'll go through a heavy puke-colored door, and legend has it that there have been at least two puke incidents just on the other side of the door, so whenever we go through it we walk around where there supposedly was vomit. If you keep walking after you go around the mythical vomit spot, you'd come to another really heavy puke colored door. On the right side of that door, before you go through it, is the most useful elevator in my building [Simmons], since it actually goes to all the floors, from Basement to 5. Beyond that door is the entrance to the terrible, terrible Simmons cafeteria, which I promise I will get to at some point.

So anyway. I left my room tonight to go talk to Tanvi, who lives on the second floor, so I went through the door and hit the button to go up on the elevator on my right. As I was going over, I saw someone in a white shirt with red/green squares somewhere in the design in the cafeteria entrance, beyond the next door [the doors have a rectangular glass window in them]. I know that Jason, my next door neighbor, sometimes talks on the phone in there. I hadn't seen him in a while, so I thought I would bother him and just say hey, but I opened the door and saw that it wasn't him. The kid had longer black hair. He was probably a junior or a senior. He was standing behind the counter where the person who swipes your card usually sits, and all the posters and whatnot were up, including the one saying "THE NORTH CASHIER IS CLOSED, PLEASE USE SOUTH CASHIER."

I closed the door and just waited for my elevator. But as I was waiting, I started to hear him talking. I don't remember exactly the first few things he said, but I remember thinking that he had a particularly high voice for a guy of his size and age. I didn't really mean to eavesdrop, but I couldn't help hear. In a sad, pleading voice, he asked, "I don't understand, how could you just break up with someone like that?"

I felt pretty terrible for him. I have no idea what the circumstances were but it looked like he was hurting a lot and terribly confused. He said a few more things, but unfortunately I forget those too, but they were definitely about a relationship and a break up, and it was clear that she was the one doing the breaking up with him, and he didn't know why. The elevator came after stopping on the floor above, so I got in and went to talk to Tanvi.

Peace out.