Rememberment, Chapter XIII: The Battle of Wounded Knee

I didn't particularly look forward to my third year of school. We had a new teacher which was probably the hardest pill to swallow, as I was very fond of our old one. For some reason it also felt strange to have a man teaching us.

A lot of my classmates were now fans of heavy metal music, of which my dad had already warned me. Bands like KISS, Mötley Crüe, W.A.S.P. and Black Sabbath played Satan's music and I didn't hesitate to point this out to my classmates. Somehow this didn't make me any more popular, even though I was just trying to save them from eternal damnation.

I told my dad that I was getting bullied for speaking about Jesus. "Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven" he would then say. But I didn't feel too blessed, instead I often felt like shit.

But there were good things too. We started studying English, which I found very cool and useful. We also started writing essays which I enjoyed quite a bit. Because I read books all the time I was also good at writing stories, which were often read aloud to the whole class.

Dad was also feeling a bit better, and had plenty of energy to attend the Free Church meetings every week. He was also running a children's club with another Free Church member; the club was about building model airplanes from wood (the kind that actually flew). I obviously had to attend as well although I didn't particularly enjoy it - I wasn't really interested in model airplanes, nor did I much care about the company as some of the other kids were my schoolmates. I had enough of them during the day.

The year went on, and then it was spring again. Towards the end of school there was a big outdoor event for all the kids. The last game we played was "Who is afraid of the black man". As everyone was running towards each other, I bumped into another boy and fell hard on my right knee. The pain was astronomical. I held on to my knee and bawled my eyes out, but nobody came to ask me what's wrong.

Eventually I got up. The yard was empty. I managed to limp to the nurses office, where she was already starting to leave. I told her I hurt my knee. "Can you walk well enough to get home?" she asked, to which I said I guess so. With that I dragged myself to the bus stop, got onboard and eventually got home.

My knee was hurting like hell and I was exhausted. There was nobody home as Dad was on his way to pick Mom up from work, so I just rolled onto their bed and placed a pillow under my knee. I fell asleep right away.

I woke up when my parents came home, and realized that my jeans felt incredibly tight around the knee. I looked down and saw that it had swollen up to a remarkable size. Mom came to help and had to cut my jeans open in order to remove them while I told her what had happened. Then we went to see a doctor, and it turned out my kneecap was fractured from the joint.

The next day my dad called the principal of my school and asked him how the hell was it even possible that I had fractured my knee during school without anybody noticing (one still has to wonder about that, no?). Meanwhile I had to learn how to move around using crutches. I also had to visit a doctor each week, because the knee kept swelling up and they had to suck out the liquid using a needle. It usually didn't hurt - Mom knew one of the doctors was an expert when it came to dealing with damaged joints, as he had treated Mom's rheumatism often as well. So she asked for that particular doctor to treat me also.

But one time that doctor wasn't available. Instead there was a short, bald man with round glasses who said he's in a hurry, and therefore won't be applying anesthetic to my knee.

The pain made me scream my lungs out while trying my best to remodel the good doctor's face with my good leg. After the ordeal I told my mom that if I ever met that doctor again, I would kick his nuts in. Fortunately, it was the last time I saw him.

It took a long, long time for my knee to heal - it was spring when the accident happened and I was still using crutches during the winter. Even these days it still sometimes starts acting up; suddenly there's a sharp pain and can't walk properly for a while. I wonder if there's an encapsulated bone fragment or something still in there.