The Break - Part I: Date
“What are your general feelings about ice skating?”
“Ice skating? My general feelings are that I’m rather unskilled at it. But if you would like to go, I’m down.”
It’s funny how such a simple question can have such significant ramifications. It was the second week of January, and there were only a handful of days before the rink in Bryant Park would be dismantled for the season. I personally hadn’t been ice skating since high school, but I was a decently athletic dude and I figured I could manage my way through it. Plus, I really liked this girl. She was smart, inquisitive and spontaneous. We had been on a couple of dates already and she had agreed to check out a couple of cocktail bars that I’d wanted to see, so this was only fair.
Ice skating...it’s really not that difficult, I thought. You hold hands, you skate slowly around in a circle for 45 minutes, if you’re feeling pretty confident you intentionally fall down so you both wipe out and enjoy a moment of shared humiliation. And at the end of it all, you look like a good sport because you agreed to do the most touristy winter activity in New York City for her enjoyment.
I’m prideful. I can do this.
***
“Are you nervous?”
“Me? Nah. Should I be?”
It was the evening of January 12th. The weather was frigid. We stood in line at Bryant Park with humans who had come from all ends of the Earth to experience this activity. But as we stood amongst a couple hundred obnoxious non-NYC dwellers I felt oddly excited. This could be fun, I told myself. We exchanged our boots for skates and laced up. As we stepped out from the tent and onto the ice, I was struck by an unexpected sense of awe. This really was beautiful. It was a clear night, the New York Public Library was lit up, all of the pop-up Christmas shops were buzzing with activity. And there we were, skating serenely and methodically in the shadows of the skyscrapers. I was more than holding my own. Not only was I not falling down, we were both nonchalantly maneuvering around other skaters with ease.
The famous Bryant Park ice rink, where the first part of this story went down. Little known fact: I took this picture on January 11, 2016 -- the night before my date. Never one to underprepare, I stopped by the park on my way home to scope out the scene. A lot of good that did me.
***
“I would like to watch the State of the Union at 9, if that’s alright with you. I know a bar nearby that’s showing it.”
“Pretty unique thing to watch at a bar, but I’m down for that. Our time is probably almost up here anyway.”
I sped up a bit and broke away. I maneuvered around a kid and turned around to look at her, as if I were expecting her to be impressed by my sudden burst of pace. But as I turned, I felt my skate skip on the ice ever so slightly. I had caught an edge and tried to regain my balance. More experienced skaters might normally accept this type of incident as part of the art and simply allow themselves to fall/slide as gracefully as possible, before shaking it off with a laugh and getting back up to continue on. Not me. In an effort to stabilize myself, I somehow ended up hopping on my left leg two or three times before my feet came out from under me. It was all over. I went down.
***
“Andrew! Are you alright?!”
“Uhhh...”
I was wearing my favorite pair of jeans that night. They were a dark wash pair of Levi’s. I was sitting on the ice, looking at my entire left side which was now covered in ice shavings. Something felt weird. I reached down to feel my left leg. Thigh, knee, shin...holy crap. As I moved my fingers gradually down my leg, I reached a point about two-thirds of the way to my ankle and felt my shinbone abruptly made a right turn. My leg didn’t reciprocate the sensation of my touch. No pain at all, absolutely nothing. It was just...there.
To this day, I’m still not sure how I managed to not visibly freak out at that exact moment. I’m convinced it had to have been some unique blend of pure embarrassment and shock. I looked up at my date nervously. I was definitely not alright.
“Can you stand?”
“I don’t think so.”
*Long pause*
“...Uh-oh.”
***
Have you ever felt so embarrassed that you actually wished you could just disintegrate on the spot? I have no idea how the other patrons of the Bryant Park Ice Rink reacted to my clumsy wipe out or the sight of my clearly broken leg, because my eyes were glued to the floor as I was tended to by a staff member while splayed out on the ice, then subsequently taken off in a wheelchair.
After I had finally gotten off the ice and skating was allowed to resume, I was wheeled into the park’s makeshift medical tent, where an attendant informed me they would have to remove the skate from my leg to examine the injury. I should have considered the gravity of that statement more thoroughly, because as soon as the skate came off, all of the pain that had been conspicuously absent until that point instantly rushed back into my body. There was my leg, and then there was my foot...going in a different direction. The attendant grimaced.
“What do you think it is?” I asked.
“Looks like a tib-fib fracture. You ever been in an ambulance, buddy?”
***
“Maybe you should call your parents.”
“Hmm. Yeah, I suppose that’s probably a good idea.”
My mother is, let’s just say, not the calmest of folks by disposition. She likes to be in control of things at all times and becomes stressed when she senses that isn’t possible, for one reason or another. So to say I wasn’t looking forward to that phone call would be a gross understatement. I will never forget the silence on the other end of the line when I led off the call with, “Hey Mom, I think I’ve got a bit of a problem...”
After no less than 30 questions in five minutes (probably to 29 of which I had no good answer), I got off the phone to the sound of ambulance sirens. My date had been sitting next to me the entire time, trying her best to somehow keep the mood light as a million thoughts dashed in and out of my brain about what this all meant.
They’re actually about to take me away in an ambulance.
I could be in the hospital all night.
How am I going to go to work tomorrow?
How am I going to explain this to literally anyone who asks me about it?
Am I going to need surgery?
Will I be able to play sports again?
Do I need to pay for this freakin’ ambulance?!?
***
I remember being loaded onto a stretcher and taken out to the sidewalk directly in front of a husband and wife with their two young kids, walking into the park. The kids looked so excited to be there until they saw me. The smiles evaporated from their faces as they watched the EMTs lift me into the back of the ambulance. That was probably the last thing in the world those parents wanted to see. I wouldn’t be surprised if they ended up hailing a cab on the spot to call it a night and go back home.
I thanked the EMTs as they secured the stretcher in place. I was off to the emergency room.
