“Ah fuck, fuck, fuck.”

“What?”

“Someone sub for me!”

“What is it?

“My shoulder. I dislocated it again.”

“Oh Jesus…I thought you forgot to turn off the stove or something.”

It was the championship game, the last game for all the marbles. I was feeling pumped at the time, ready to give it all I got, when just barely five minutes in, my shoulder gave out. Sadly it wasn’t from any fancy play; I ran into someone’s screen, and my arm was caught in an awkward position. I felt my arm slowly slip out of its socket, and I went down and rolled out like a tumble weed. My teammates rushed towards me to see what the fuck was going on.

“This better not be one of your lame jokes.”

And then they saw me clutch my arm.

“It’s his lame arm!”

The team called a time out and helped me up. I scrambled to the sideline and found the nearest chair to sit on. 

“You need ice?”

“No, I’m good. Give me a few minutes.”

I knew the drill. I dislocated my shoulder many times before. I lost count after 13… five years ago. It was a good thing a doctor taught me how to relocate the shoulder after I injured it for the 5th time. “You again? Well if this is going to be habit, might as well save some time and money. Let me show you something.”  

So I proceeded to pop it back in as my teammates played on. I sat back and with both arms, grabbed my knee. Slowly I straightened my knee to pull the dislocated arm slightly outward and then letting it slide back into its socket. Done. And that took a mere 2 minutes to do. My shoulder was slightly sore, but it felt pretty good. Team time out.

“How’s my comedian?”

“Pretty good. A little sore, but I’ll manage.”

“Nice. It’s a good thing Big Mike decided to show up today. We wouldn’t have enough players right now.”

Big Mike grinned, “Hopefully, no one else dislocates their shoulder. Knock on wood.”

And then minutes later, Mike tripped and went down like a tree. 

“Aaaahhhhhhh!”

“Is this some kind of sick joke!”

Big Mike sprained his ankle and wasn’t capable of standing up. They carried him to the side where I was sitting and let him lay there for the rest of the game. In his grimace, he yelled, “Get em team!” Now we were down two players, no subs and only playing with four guys/gals. We played like this for about five minutes and then found ourselves down 15 points. “Time out!”  Everyone huddled, panting with hands on the knees, and Mike, lying on floor and looking from afar, was yelling rallying words, “You can do it!” “Defense. Defense. Defense” “Heeeeeyyyyy”.

“Can someone shut him up?”

“Hey listen up! They’re killing us down in the post.  We need to rotate a lot quicker and help down low on the big man. And keep moving the ball around”

“I don’t know how much quicker I can move.  I am fucking tired.”

“Same. Maybe we should bring in Don. How about it Donnie boy? You up for it?”

They all looked at me. I wanted to play. I had to play. I didn’t drive 50 miles to play just five minutes. And I’d been playing so well in the past games and worked so hard to get better. There’s no way I’m done yet.

“I can play.”

“Your arm’s ok?”

“No, but I can still shoot.”

“Whoa, you sure dude?”

“Yeah I’ll be ok. I’ll take number 7.”

And I was back in the game.  I played harder than I usually did, played mostly with my left arm and cautiously kept my right (bad) arm close to me.  And I did all right.  Made a few jumpers and played some solid defense. We able to cut the lead down to 5 with about a minute to go. But in the end they held us off and ran the clock down. Buzz. End of the game, and we lost the championship. Our team regrouped.

“Well that sucked.”

We went back to benches to grab our stuff.  My friend came up to me:

“Hey, way to play.” 

“Thanks.”

“How’s the shoulder?”

“All right.”

“Hmm. I’m very impressed, you know. Didn’t think you were going to play.”

“Yeah I didn’t think so either.” Pause. “I couldn’t go out like that, Sam. Not like that.”

“Yeah. I know. I know you wouldn’t.”