June 30–July 31, 2005 — Battered limbs

Jackie told me there was going to be a bonfire the night before Canada Day. Trisha was going, too, and she asked me to buy beer for her because I live closer to a Beer Store.

I’d never bought beer before. There was a police officer manning the door and making sure not too many people were in at a time. While in line I tried to figure out if “tall cans” and “tall boys” were the same thing and which name was more appropriate. I kept going over my order in my head and checking to make sure I had my passport for ID.

They ended up not asking for ID — I guess I look twenty-five these days? — and my order was coherent enough that they sold me the beer Trisha wanted.

I was late meeting her, Christy, Allison and Jackie. I kept getting text messages while walking and feeling ridiculous for responding to them without stopping. Eventually I made it.

After taking the subway to a bus stop, we waited for other people who were also late, and I felt a bit better. Still, I’d already blushed a few times. I was worried.

We took the bus even further away. I didn’t really know where I was anymore; pretty far north and pretty far east. Something about a brickworks? But I don’t know if its name takes a capital letter or not.

We walked down a steep hill to a gravel path, past some kids who made fun of us as we searched for hot dogs our friend had lost, and then up a steeper gravel path to a lookout area. The fire was there, on bare rocks.

There was a lot of shirtlessness and a lot of dousing the fire with kerosene. I was already sick, and the fumes made me lightheaded.

I wasn’t having that good a time. I decided to leave, and some other kids started down from the lookout with me, planning to climb onto the roof of a building.

On the way down the gravel path, I remember closing my eyes for a second. Then I was on the ground, on my back. When I got back up, I was limping, but I followed the others onto the roof anyway. My knee hurt a lot when I went up the ladder.

I left on my own, on foot. I had no idea where I was. I walked for a very long time, at least an hour. It was more a limp than a walk, and the steep hills and gravel paths were much more difficult now. I became very lost and didn’t understand where I was until I’d walked all the way to Bloor and Yonge.

I took two buses home and crawled into bed.

When I woke up the next day I couldn’t put any weight on my right leg. I screamed out a few times trying to navigate my apartment before I learned to go up steps with my left leg first and down with my right leg first. Before learning that trick, I’d decided to call Telehealth using the upstairs phone. This involved pulling myself up a set of stairs using my arms because trying to walk up them was too painful.

The nurse who spoke to me on the phone was convinced something was wrong but told me I could wait until the next day to have someone look at it because all the clinics were closed for Canada Day. She told me if it got really bad to go to an emergency room.

I was feeling pretty anxious about the whole thing, and I wanted to get it over with. I’d heard stories of friends who had ignored their injuries only to make things much, much worse; I limped to a bus stop and went to a hospital.

I spent the next three hours waiting. When a doctor finally looked at it, he dismissed it as bruised.

I limped home.

I didn’t have another doctor look at my knee after that. I was wrapping it and icing it as I was told I should, but it didn’t really help.

That’s most of what I remember about that month. Limping, staying in and feeling sorry for myself. Every time someone asked me why I was limping, I told them I fell down a hill. A lot of people assumed I’d been drunk, and I guess that was sort of funny. It would have been less embarrassing if they were right.