This Will Only Hurt a Little(6)

Emily’s mom dropped us off with our signed permission slips, and my mom was to pick us up at ten on the dot. Already there were kids streaming into the gym. As soon as we got inside, Emily headed to the right, closer to the speakers, which was where the eighth graders typically hung out. I very quickly found Rachel and our other seventh-grade friends on the left side of the gym, near the bathrooms and the snack table.

We must have gone to the bathroom at least seven times to look at ourselves with our “makeup” on and reapply our lip glosses and adjust our outfits and our hair—not that it mattered much, since the lights in the gym were turned off and there were only a few ambient pink-and-red lights and a disco ball.

We danced a little in our group and ate a few cookies. And then, just as I was starting to feel a little restless with my group of friends, the DJ switched it up from the usual pop R&B and put on Nirvana’s hit single “Smells like Teen Spirit.”

Now. I need to explain something about pop culture here. This was February 1992. Earlier that school year, in the fall of 1991, Nirvana’s “Smells like Teen Spirit” debuted on the radio and MTV. Most kids were still listening to pop music like P.M. Dawn, Paula Abdul, EMF, R.E.M., and Michael Jackson but that video was everything. This was before the internet, so trends and music had a tendency to trickle in a bit slower. I mean, if you were a normal kid, you really had to rely mostly on MTV and regular radio. The cool high school kids, like Rachel’s older brother, were already totally into Nirvana and Red Hot Chili Peppers. Not my sister, though. She was really into George Michael and Color Me Badd. But in middle school, there was just a small faction of kids starting to get into grunge, mostly some cooler-than-average eighth-grade boys.

So the DJ put on “Smells like Teen Spirit.” Most of the older kids went nuts, since they all could at least identify it was something considered cool, and truthfully, it’s a fucking catchy song, even if you’re just a suburban kid in Arizona. But when the song ended, something truly weird happened. The DJ put it on again. And then again. And again. It was as if he just hit repeat and went outside to smoke or something. Well, this made the cool eighth-grade boys get really hyped up . . . on Nirvana and hormones and fruit punch and cookies and as-yet-unidentified white male privilege. They started a mosh pit, something I’m sure none of them had ever really been in before but had only seen on TV. You know, like in the “Smells like Teen Spirit” video.

I wanted a better look. Did I want to be a part of it? I don’t know, truthfully. I can’t for certain tell you what provoked me to move from the safety of the seventh-grade side of the dance, where I’d been trying to make Rachel laugh and looking for John Randall. I know what I said. I said, “I’m gonna go see if I can find Emily.”

But that was a lie. I knew it then and I’m telling you now. I wasn’t going to find Emily. I wanted to see what the fuck those boys were doing. What that anger and aggression and music was all about. So I made my way in the dark over to the eighth-grade side of the gym.

Even now, I can see it like it’s a movie. In slow motion. The music distorted. The lights flashing on my little baby-fat twelve-year-old face, full of mascara and too-shiny lip gloss. I want to tell seventh-grade me not to go. I want to tell seventh-grade me to stay in the comfort of my friends. There’s nothing to see with those boys. There never will be.

But there’s no time for that, because it wasn’t in slow motion. One minute I was on the edge of the mosh pit, and the next I was in the middle of it. It happened so fast I didn’t even know why I was on the ground. I just knew I couldn’t get up. I couldn’t get up off the ground. Just like that, my left leg didn’t work. And fuck did it hurt! The searing hot pain combined with the blaring music made me panicky as oblivious kids stomped over and around me. I looked up for help. There was no one who could see me. It was just a swirl of sweaty bodies in the dark. I tried scooting backward a little on my butt, but the pain in my leg was too intense.

That’s when I started to cry. Hard. The song ended, thank God . . . and then it fucking started again. And there I was, sobbing on the ground, these horrible boys all around me, unsure of what had happened or why I couldn’t move, in so much pain I assumed my leg was shattered, but I honestly had no idea. I couldn’t even see. I put my arms around my head, tried to curl up as much as I could, and just cried. I had no idea how or when this would ever end.

Then, all of a sudden, I heard a girl’s voice.

“Hey! Are you okay????”

I looked up to see Lauren Ellis, an eighth grader, shouting over the music. She was short but superstrong, the kind of cheerleader who could do backflips up and down the football field. I literally couldn’t even talk at this point. I just shook my head no. She crouched down next to me.

“WHAT’S GOING ON?” she yelled. “CAN YOU MOVE??”

I shook my head again, through sobs. She looked around.

“OKAY! I’M GONNA PICK YOU UP.”

I shook my head again. I was in too much pain. I just wanted her to leave me there to die. That seemed way more reasonable.

“YES,” she said firmly, and with that, little Lauren Ellis scooped me up and started screaming at people to get out of the way. She carried me, cradled like a baby, to the edge of the gym and set me down gently on the floor next to the bleachers.

“OKAY, LISTEN. I HAVE TO FIND A TEACHER OR SOMETHING. DON’T WORRY. I’LL BE RIGHT BACK!”