Slow Getting Up: A Story of NFL Survival from the Bottom of the Pile Read Online Free Page A

arm as if to free the sword in the stone. But she was no King Arthur. The muscles were spasming around the dislocated humeral head and wouldn’t let go. So I rode in the back of an ambulance to the hospital, dressed in my full Menlo Oak regalia, where I was sedated, my muscles relaxed and my skeleton realigned. Thankfully there are no humeral complications this time. Lindsy reaches under my shoulder pads, lifts, twists, and pulls. Whoosh. I feel a powerful relief and jump to my feet. The more you dislocate your shoulder, the more likely you’ll do it again. But the recovery time improves with each dislocation.
    Nate dislocated his left shoulder two days ago. He has near full range of motion. He had signed a waiver on this shoulder and had dislocated it in college on several occasions. He is going to rehab and get a shoulder immobilizer. He will be allowed to play but he does know that he has a risk of further dislocation and further damage both soft tissue and bony damage in the shoulder [ sic ]. . . . We did talk also about the possibility of stabilizing his shoulder if he desires at some point before or after the season depending on how things go.
    A few days later I strap on a neoprene shoulder harness that looks like I’d got it at a sex shop in North Beach and go back on the field a day before our trip to Osaka, Japan. We are set to play the Washington Redskins in the American Bowl in our first preseason game. During minicamps we had our passport photos taken at the facility between practices and filled out the necessary forms. By training camp we have our brand-new passports. We board the huge plane and set sail to Glory. They stamp my passport as “Entertainer.”
    Five days in Japan flies by in a jet-lagged blur. Coach Mariucci gives us a good amount of time to ourselves, time we spend wandering the streets of Osaka, frightening the locals. Eminem blasts from storefront speakers. Adolescent Japanese girls sing along, unaware of what they are describing. We walk through the crowded streets as a pack of lanyard-clad Godzillas. The locals point and stare and run inside screaming. Big black man! Big black man! I’m given my own room at the hotel because another rookie did not make the trip. I push the small beds together and stretch out. I turn on the bidet, chuckle, use toilet paper instead. The Redskins are staying at our hotel. So are their cheerleaders. I spot one in the lobby who shoots an arrow through my heart. We fall in love immediately. She chooses not to acknowledge it, though, and so I give her the space she needs. I’m still waiting.
    On one of our nights out I tag along with some of the veterans, a few girls who work for the Niners and some Niner cheerleaders. We go to a club on the top floor of a nondescript office building. The rookie-veteran barrier seems broken down, if only temporarily. We’re united as strangers in a strange land. To the locals, we are interchangeable monsters. There are fifteen of us. When we walk in the record screeches to a stop and the entire club recoils in fear. The Japanese patrons slowly back into the corners of the room and watch us the rest of the night as if we are a multi-culti variety show. We party NFL-style: shots and dancing and yelling. And a few buff dudes with their shirts off. Jeff Garcia dances on the bar and passes out beers. Terrell Owens knows better than to get drunk during camp. But he takes off his shirt anyway.
    We play the game a few days later. I watch from the sideline with my neoprene harness cinched up tight. Stew had told me I wasn’t going to play. Rest the shoulder, he said. Don’t worry about this game. You’ll get your chance. But it’s hard not to worry. I can feel my chance slipping away, like the Japanese girls when we walked into the room. Konnichiwa!
    W e fly back to California and back to training camp in Stockton and I am back in my metal bed, lying awake once again as the light cuts through the blinds. Soon the assistant coach