OH - !

So there it was, last practice of the season, in that dingy girls gym, where the white kids looked green and the black kids looked greener. Shooting around. We had a mediocre year, 13-9, very disappointing. I hadn't played in several games.

Shooting around...

So I'm just standing there, on the line, dribbling mindlessly while talking to some kid, and OH-!

It was like someone had stabbed me, in the mid back, on the right hand side. It literally took my breath away.

I felt like I couldn't breathe in, and since I had been inhaling, I couldn't breathe out. I tried, very tentatively, to sip in some more air. OH-!

I began to get a little worried, and clutched my side. Tried a small breath again - OH-!

The kid say, Hey, you all right, man?

I bent over, slightly panicked. You get that flight response, like, hey, you're in danger! Rather than just stand there, I let out what little air I could, and straightened out again, trying to gingerly inhale as I did so. This time no pain.

Yeah, yeah, I'm okay, just got a twinge or something. I resumed dribbling, but I'm sure I wasn't smiling. I pushed myself a bit, ran after my own rebound, went up to get it. Fine. Shot around some more. Fine.

I went thru the rest of the practice, wherein I played my now usual role as opponent straw man, without a hitch. Fine.

I more or less forgot about it. One of them things that just happens. Once, when I was 12, I was walking from the livingroom to the kitchen when I just felt my body let go - I just collapsed to the floor like a pile of bones. My mother, whom I was speaking to, came over, concerned. I was all right and got up, and went on with my day, and my life. Never happened again. So there was reason to believe that this was just one of those things.

Then, a few days later, I was walking down the hall to class and OH-! Again, I could not inhale without feeling like I was being stabbed. I did what had worked in the gym - I bent over, exhaling, and inhaled as I straightened up. No problem.

But I was shaken.

The season was over and the drinking continued. Everything was cool, except that during one CYO dance I did feel like my whole insides, towards the back of my body cavity, were seizing up. I could breathe fine, but bending over wasn't helping. I had learned that the best way to deal with being drunk was to focus all my remaining attentive powers at self control, to not let myself just "go with it". I was drunk, but I was now focused on what was happening. I was not nauseous or about to pass out - on the contrary, I was almost shocked into sobriety.

But something was up.

You're 15, nothing's ever happened that won't pass, so you figure, aah, just some weird shit...

But I knew, something was up.