Hey, Were We Just Insulted?

    The official was livid, his face was actually turning purple and there was spittle spraying from his mouth as he lectured Don, one of our locks.  I was the other lock.  It was all rather amusing, except to the guy lying on the pitch, trying to keep the skin on his scalp from flapping in the breeze.  Luckily for him he was partially bald so there was no hair to get into the four or five inch triangular gash high above the bleeding player’s left ear.  There was some grass and mud in there though; it made kind of a nice pattern.

    “I have never, ever in all my years of playing, officiating, and watching seen anything this vicious.”  Both teams were a bit stunned as the official stood on his tiptoes spraying Don’s face, “That, sir was completely uncalled for; kicking and raking an opponents head with your boots is far beyond the spirit of this, a gentlemen’s, game”

    The official pretty much lost everyone within shouting distance at the previous statement.  We had all, every single one of us, dealt with girlfriends, wives, or at the very least our mother regarding our involvement with, at best what has been described as a ‘ruffian’s sport played by gentlemen.’  More commonly it is referred to as a barbaric gathering of immature males (see girlfriends, wives, and mothers - we won’t go into mother-in-laws) with the sole purpose of beating up on each other and then gathering to consume large amounts of alcohol. 

    Don was a Samoan, a big Samoan.  He was at least six foot four inches tall, not an ounce of fat on his thick frame.  I suppose you could say he was built like the proverbial brick shit house.  He looked down at the official who was still livid, standing on his tip toes, and lecturing him.  Don looked over at me with a ‘what the hell is this guy’s problem?’ expression.

    I just shrugged.  The official then effectively got everyone’s attention as he sprayed out:

    “You are ejected from this match, and I am going to contact the league to have you banned.”  It’s pretty damn tough to get booted from a rugby match, but Don had again managed to earn this dubious distinction.

    This elicited the first words from Don since the incident, “But sir, it was an accident.”

    This garnered several stifled bits of laughter from those on the pitch as the bleeding player remained where he was when Don had kicked him in the head, and then drug his aluminum cleats across the opposing player's skull.

    The incident had been set in motion a few minutes before Don’s lecture, which was earned.  An opposing back had broken through the pack with a scissors move.  Leaving most of the pack and all but of one of our backs, Simi, a short tougher than nails Samoan and my neighbor, looking for their shorts.  The opposing player was streaking down the opposite sideline with only Simi between a try and our adversary.

    As soon as I found my shorts, I set off at an angle of pursuit thinking I might be able to at least force the try out to the corner.  I played with the forwards (the pack) because the club liked to have my speed in the pack.  I have no wheels to speak of, so this gives some idea as to the quality of our club.  As I approached the opposing back, Simi began his tackle and our opponent stepped right and then moved left, closer to me, as Simi wrapped on him.

    Simi was not going to be able to stop him alone.  I dove, flying towards them, wrapping my arms around our opponent's mid-section driving my left shoulder into his torso and pulling to my left with the intent of whipping him back and rolling him underneath me so that he would end up between me and the ground.  That is pretty much what happened with one minor exception.

    The good news is that a try was not scored.  The bad news is that Simi was still clinging to our foe and his upper left arm was between my shoulder and the runner.  Simi went to the ground with the opponent between us.  As we untangled ourselves it was suddenly apparent that something wasn’t quite right.  Simi was still on the ground, and the ball lopsidedly rolled away from the three of us.  Something was wrong, Simi didn’t look quite right?

    “Crap.  That was you?”  Simi muttered, “quick help me up I don’t want anyone to know I’m hurt.”  As I was helping him up the opposing player picked up the ball and scored, in the center.  Now there wasn’t even any good news.  I got Simi standing and it was pretty apparent, quite obvious actually, that he was injured.  His left shoulder was about a foot lower than his right shoulder, and he couldn’t stand up straight.

      This was sort of bad news because all we had that day was fifteen players; we would have to play a man down.  And a few minutes later we were playing two down due to Don’s incident.

    At the end of the match one of our props, Will, and I took Simi to the nearest hospital, first stopping at the after match party to fill our pockets, bags, and anything else we had with beer.  There are basically two ways to recover from an afternoon of rugby.  There is the $6,000 method, also known as the ‘hot tub’ solution.  Or, and this is the preferred method, the $12 method, more commonly known as the alcohol, and lots of it, solution.  Arriving at San Francisco General Hospital, Will and I took Simi into the emergency room.  Will went with Simi when they took him into the back and I began the paperwork process.

      Normally in this type circumstance I am the guy in back and my lovely wife handles the paperwork.  I am not big on paperwork to begin with, and going through Simi’s wallet looking for the insurance card and such was pushing me close to my bureaucratic tolerance limit.  The bored gum-snapping, multi-pierced, orange-and-black beehive haired woman behind the bullet proof glass partition was being less than helpful; in fact, I don’t think she knew of my existence.  In less then two minutes my red tape paperwork meter was pegged-out.  However, being the organized individual that I am, I had come well prepared for just such a situation.

    Reaching into the pocket of my sweatshirt I extracted a beer, popped the cap off on the counter edge and took a long draught.  For some reason the woman behind the glass suddenly became aware of me.  Her mouth was moving but no sound was emanating from said orifice.  If it had not been for the metal scattered about her face she would’ve looked like a goldfish starving for oxygen.

    As it was she just looked like a multi-pierced idiot.  Watching the comical picture on the other side of the glass I took another swallow of beer.

    The human pin-cushion finally managed to get some noise out from between her rhythmically pursing lips.  “You can’t have that in here.”

    I looked behind me.  Evidently she was speaking to me.  “Huh?  I can’t have what in here?”  I asked her.

    “That beer, you can’t have that beer in here.  It’s against the rules to drink in the hospital,” she said, somewhat put off I might add.

    “Oh, okay,” I said.  I quickly finished the beer and put the empty bottle in the little tray beneath her glass partition.  “Can you throw that away for me please?  Or actually, if you could recycle it I would appreciate it.  Now, about all these forms, exactly what am I supposed to do?”  I reached into the bag at my feet and placed another beer on the counter.

    She looked at me with more than a little apprehension displayed on her face.  “Sir, please,” man I was moving up in the world, I had gone from non-existent to sir in a beer and a threat.  “You can’t have beer in here.”

    “What?  I can’t have this one either?  I thought you meant the other one, this one?”  I said pointing to the bottle in her little tray

    “No, you cannot have any beer in here, please put that away.”  Wow, I had gotten a please from her.

    “Oh.  Well how am I supposed to fill all this stuff out if I can’t have a beer?”  I asked her while positioning the bottle on the counter edge to pop of the cap.

    “NO, don’t.  Here, give me the forms and insurance card, put the beer away, sit over there,” she pointed to an empty seat far from her, “and don’t talk to anyone.  I’ll take care of all this.”

    “Hey!  Cool, thanks.  I should call my wife and let her know I’ll be late, is there a phone I can use?”

    She gave an exasperated sigh and pointed to a payphone in the corner.

    “Oh,” I said somewhat let down.

    “Oh for God’s sake, you rugby players are all the same, here.”  She slid a dime (I know, this was a long time ago) under the glass.

    My wife, a nurse, answered the phone, I could hear the kids playing in the background.  I explained what had happened and told her where we were.

    “You’re where?  Did you say San Francisco General Hospital?”  She said this with some enthusiasm, or it may have been terror.

    “Yeah, what’s the big deal?”  I hesitantly asked.

    “Do not touch anything, do you hear me?  Do not touch anything.” She said with some force.

    “But – it’s a hospital, gimme’ a break.  It’s a hospital, what the hell is going…”

      “Listen John,” she interrupted, “you touch anything there, and I mean anything, and you are not coming into this house until you have been disinfected and deloused.  Do you understand me?  Am I making myself clear?”

    “Yeah I got it don’t touch anything, geeze I get it, okay.”

    We exchanged a few more pleasantries, hung up and I went to find Simi and Will.

    Will was waiting outside the room Simi had been put in.  We leaned against the wall in the corridor talking quietly.  Neither of us had changed or showered.  We’d come straight from playing, well there was the brief stop for beer, to the hospital still in our shorts with assorted cuts, scrapes, and mud as adornment.  Also, by now, some of the bruising was starting to show so we had some good color going.

    Our opponent with the bloody cranium came out of a room down the corridor.  His head was wrapped in white gauze.  He had gauze around the crown of his head, he had gauze wound from under his jaw up over his forehead, and yet more gauze wrapped under his chin and up over his ears and the back of his head.  He walked towards us.

    “34 stitches.” he said with a Kiwi accent.  “Pretty good eh mate?”

    “Yeah, dang good, you kinda’ look like a mummy though,” I responded.

    “Must have been a rookie nurse or something,” he laughed.  “I’ll take it off as soon as I get out of here. Looks like you’ve got a pretty good black eye blooming there”

    “Yeah, I caught somebody’s elbow; good thing it wasn’t my nose again, my wife is starting to get tired of my broken nose.  She says I am going to have problems with it later.”

    The three of us laughed and started talking about the match, discreetly sharing a beer or four.  His name was Ronald and he was from Auckland, a pretty nice guy.  One of his team mates left him at the hospital, and had then gone back to catch the after match gathering.

    “It’s going to be bit of time before your mate can go I think,” Ronald said.

    “Why’s that,” said Will, “It’s only a dislocated shoulder?”

    “Some poofter came in and they moved him to the front of the line.”

    “Whys’ he get to go to the front of the line?”  I asked.

    “I’m not really sure,” said Ronald, “All I really caught was ‘gerbil’ and 'stuck in’.  Actually I didn’t really want to know anymore.”

      Several jokes followed and we were having a pretty good time in the hall.  A couple of nurses came down the corridor towards us, distaste evident on their faces. 

    “What’s with those three?”  One asked her companion.

    “They must be rugby players, they’re the only guys that stand around bleeding allover the place.”  Her companion responded with disgust.

    “Hey, I think we were just insulted.”  I said to my friends.

    “Yeah I think so,” Ronald responded. 

    “That kind of hurts our feelings ya know ladies,” Will called out after them.  “Did it ever occur to you that we ruggers are very sensitive types?” 

    To their credit, both stopped, turned around and looked at us.  Shaking their heads witrh a smile, they continued on to their destination.

    We had been at the hospital for quite a while and it was getting late.  Simi and I had come together so I was going to drive his truck home.  Will offered Ronald a ride to where he needed to go.  Ronald accepted and we said our goodbyes.  I reached into my bag and gave them each a beer.

    “Don’t let the lady in front with the orange beehive see those,” I told them.  “She’ll make you drink the entire thing on the spot, she’s odd that way.”