Second Impact

by David Klass

  “But I am letting you know that right now is not the best moment for that story, here at Kendall High School,” Mr. Bamburger said.

  I was kind of shaken. This hasn’t exactly ever happened to me before, not in three-plus years here at the high school. I mean, don’t get me wrong, there have been some disagreements with the high school administration, there had been some delicate negotiation about how we cover certain subjects, but I have never found myself face-to-face with the principal, being told to kill a story. And he’s a pretty impressive guy, Mr. Bamburger. He’s used to having people do what he says.

  So I sat up straight in my chair, which I suspected was carefully made to be an inch or two lower than his (they probably teach you that in principal school).

  “You mean because of what happened to Danny Rosewood at the Sand River game?”

  “Young lady,” said Mr. Bamburger, and I wondered if they teach that one at principal school as well. “You cover our athletic teams for the Kendall Kourier.”

  “Yes, sir, I certainly do,” I said. “I love doing it.”

  “And you do it very well,” he said. “And I think that’s because you care about our school and our students and our athletes.”

  “Yes, of course,” I said.

  “Well, surely you can appreciate that right when we make it into the State Tournament and our football team has a shot at a championship is hardly the moment for a big piece on football injuries,” he said.

  “But it’s part of the story,” I said. “Part of our team getting to the tournament—that good players get injured, that the coach has to make these calls about who can play and who sits out.”

  “This is not the right moment for that particular part of the story,” Mr. Bamburger said. “That would be a good article, potentially, which you could write after the season is over. Looking back, thinking it over, from a distance. I’d be glad to look it over and see what you can do with it. But after the season. Not now.”

  I made myself look him in the eye. “Mr. Bamburger, you’re asking me to hold the football head injury article back for now, not run it at the height of the football season when a key Kendall player has just suffered a head injury. Do I have that right?” I wanted to add, “And are we on the record here?” but I didn’t have the nerve.

  “I’m not asking you, Carla,” he said. “I’m telling you. You, and Ms. Edison, and the rest of the staff. Wrong story, wrong moment. Not good for the team, not good for the school. And I know you care about what’s good for the team and what’s good for the school.”

  Period, end of discussion. I bet they teach them that in principal school.

  So I went back to the Kourier office. I told Sophie what had happened, and she said, perfectly sensibly, that a few more weeks of working on the story would probably make it a better piece.

  “Gives me more time on the graphics as well,” she said. “Here, look at this.”

  She touched a button, and her screen filled with an image of a brain floating in space. Touched another key, and some boldface labels appeared: frontal lobe, parietal lobe, cerebellum.

  “I’m thinking maybe drawings, not photos, when the story actually does run,” she said, and I could see she was trying to get me over my snit. She knew I was still fuming. She wanted me to focus on the article that would one day run, not on the article that I had hoped would make such a splash next week.

  “And then I could put up a lot more images online,” she went on. “MRIs and even some photos—the kind of gross stuff you like—and there could be a link on the site for anyone who wanted more pictures.”

  “You think he’s right, don’t you?” I said. “You think that my story is bad for the team.”

  “Carla, I think you should leave this alone and let the season finish,” Sophie said. “Guys get hurt in football, always have and always will. But they don’t always get to play in championship tournaments. Let them have their moment. Then later you can come along and reveal the dark underbelly of the sport.”

  “That’s not what I’m trying to do,” I said.

  “Yes it is,” Sophie said cheerfully. “That’s what makes a big story.”

  She got called over to look at the layout for the next issue, and I sat there, staring at that picture of the brain, thinking about the stuff I’d been reading about sideline assessment after head trauma. That is, the way the coach is supposed to ask a player a list of questions right after the player takes a hit, to help figure out if he knows the score. I mean that literally. There’s one set of questions that are actually based on the game—what period it is, what the score is, what happened earlier in the game—to assess whether the guy who got hit is confused or has had any memory loss.

  But no one got to do a sideline assessment on Danny Rosewood. Because Danny Rosewood, whatever he says now, was not with us for a couple of minutes there.

  I thought about the articles I’d read on how doctors and coaches should make the decision about when football players can return to play. That’s the technical term, the return to play decision. I wondered who was making that decision about Danny.

  So I made a decision. And maybe it’s a dumb one. I’m going to go ahead and post this blog, and I haven’t run it by Ms. Edison. It’s my blog, my story, my responsibility. And everything I have said here is as true as I can make it.

  Here’s the thing, guys. My knee. It’s healing, I guess. It may eventually do all the things it used to do, or it may not. It may stop giving me pain, or it may go on hurting. But it’s not the same knee that it was. It’s been repaired, healed over, patched back together. It’s not just a concept, it’s a physical change. It’s not the knee I started out with. It’s something more damaged, more difficult. That’s what I’ve been learning this year; that’s what all of this has been teaching me. We’re made out of meat and bone and other kinds of tissue, and those pieces of meat and bone and tendon and ligament and nerve and meniscus (whatever that is) add up to us and what we can do. Everything that we think and do is thought and done by the pieces of us, if you get my meaning. When we damage the pieces, we damage ourselves, and you don’t always come back the same. So what does that mean about your brain?

  TAKE IT DOWN

  Posted by user JERRY on November 23 at 9:47 p.m.

  Okay, Carla, so I just sat down to do my math homework, but instead I read your blog, and now I can’t concentrate on trig at all.

  I have three simple words for you: take it down. I know you believe you have the right to write anything you want and that freedom of the press and the need to know trump all other considerations, but I have a scoop for you. In this case you’re flat-out wrong.

  Danny had a right to privacy. He was being examined in a hospital by a doctor when you snuck in to follow your story. I’m sorry, but that’s the only way to put it. At least you’re honest enough to admit that you felt a little uncomfortable being there. You should have acted on that impulse and left right away. Your dad may be the CEO of the hospital, so he can waltz past security, but that doesn’t give you the right to listen to a private conversation between a doctor and a patient. And it certainly didn’t give you the right to post it on your blog so everyone in the world could read it.

  Take it down. Sophie West was right. We’re trying to bring a state championship back to Kendall and we don’t need distractions. Let us have our moment.

  Two games. That’s all that lies ahead of us now in our division of the States. Granted all four teams in our championship bracket are undefeated and tough as hell, but we have a great shot. Listen to Sophie. Let our team alone. Let us finish what we started.

  Mr. Bamburger was right, too. Your reporting serves the Kendall School community, which includes students, parents, and all our fans. We’ve had a sweet season, and now let them enjoy the icing on the cake. Don’t try to freak everyone out, even if it generates a record number of blog hits for you.

  Danny Rosewood is my best friend in the world, and if he’s not ready to play next Friday
against Jamesville then he won’t play. Simple as that. But that’s a decision for Danny to make, with his doctor and his father. So stay out of his private business.

  And by the way, Carla—a word to the wise—I don’t think you’re going to do yourself any favors by posting private conversations you had with our principal.

  I’ve gotten to know you a bit in the past month and I respect you a lot. I’m sure your blog entry came from a good place and you put it up with the best of intentions. Now, do us all a favor and take it down.

  TAKES ONE TO KNOW ONE

  Posted by user CARLA on November 23 at 9:53 p.m.

  Oh, come on, Jerry Downing. You’ve turned into quite a blogger, haven’t you? You know as well as I do, you don’t make something more private and less “out there on the Internet” by writing about it on your blog, now do you? You just double the chance that people will come across the story—because now they can read your reaction and go looking for my original post. And then, gee whiz, you can be all hot and bothered because all you were trying to do, really truly, was make it go away, that’s why you wrote about it … so you get to have your cake, with self-righteousness for icing, and eat it, too.

  Well, no dice. You want to talk it out here in the blogosphere, I’m up for it. But let’s not play games about how we’re really keeping secrets.

  Okay, then, your call. Here goes. First of all, you’re right, I felt funny in Danny’s room, and I got out of there pretty quick. But there was no sneaking in. I identified myself to his father, and I told Danny I was writing about him. And the story I was following was Danny—Danny playing like he did, Danny getting hurt—and yes, I knew a whole lot more about that than I would have known if I hadn’t just spent some time looking into head injuries in football players. And I can sure see why it would upset you, and some of the other players, to have someone who knows even a little bit about that particular subject covering a story like this. Next time we’ll have to send our fashion reporter.

  But you know me pretty well by now, Jerry. I’m not really very pushy. I may manage to get pushier as I go on working, but you know as well as I do that if Danny, or Danny’s dad, had had any problem with me being there, if they’d said, “Wait outside,” if they’d even said, “Maybe later,” I would have been out of there. Funny thing, they didn’t.

  So that leaves you in sort of a sticky little dilemma, doesn’t it? I mean, in your fine high-minded blast of analysis, you left out two kinds of important points, didn’t you?

  The first one is this: I was actually reporting on a conversation that Danny Rosewood had with me, wasn’t I? I mean, the new piece of information in my story was the conversation between Danny and Carla, two people who knew one another, one having said clearly she was writing a story. You can hardly be worried about my reporting what he told his doctor. That’s the public information part, the party line, no loss of consciousness. That wouldn’t bother you one little bit, despite all your fulminations about his right to medical privacy, if I hadn’t happened to report the conversation between Danny and me. And that one, I think you’ll have to agree, I have a right to report.

  Unless, of course—and this is what I mean by sticky little dilemmas—you think that Danny Rosewood wasn’t really in shape right then to know what he was doing. Maybe you’re about to tell me that I took advantage of someone who was really woozy, really not with it, really didn’t know what he was doing, because, after all, he had just suffered a big-time head injury? Was that your point? Think about it. Looking forward to your response!

  But as far as taking down the blog, that’s not going to happen. And to be honest, I don’t really think you want it to; all you’ve done is expand the blog, made it more complete and more interesting.

  And I’m afraid you’re wrong about who my reporting serves. I mean, I do believe that it serves the school and the community to have good and thorough reporting, but it’s not about writing the stories they want to read. It may just be a little high school paper, but it serves the school best when it at least tries to tell the truth, even when the truth isn’t easy.

  So this time, the truth isn’t easy. I don’t want this to be true, because, believe it or not, I love the team and I want them to win, and I want the people I like on the team—which includes you and your best friend in the world, Danny Rosewood—to be there and win that victory together. That’s the right, heartwarming ending, both in your worldview, where principals are “stand-up guys” and football players are “warriors,” but also in mine, where I see a team that’s learned to play together so well that they almost transcend their level, playing for a coach they care about and a town that needs a win.

  And, Jerry, I don’t want this to be true because I don’t want to see anyone I know get hit as hard as Danny got hit that day. I don’t want to hear those noises, or watch someone lying there like that. I don’t want to think about it. But I did see it and hear it and watch it, and I have to think about it.

  You got hit hard in the Midland game. But what happened to Danny was a different order of magnitude. I saw both hits, and I saw Danny afterwards. And Danny’s health and the inside of Danny’s head matter a lot more than all the rest of this. You can try to convince yourself that he’s not at risk, but you know what the truth is, I think. I really think you do. You wouldn’t be half so concerned about what I posted, and privacy, and all the rest of it, if you thought it wasn’t true. Deal with it.

  HOW I DEALT WITH IT

  Posted by user JERRY on November 24 at 1:16 a.m.

  You may be wondering why I went storming out of my house at ten in the evening, heading for the golf course. If I can remain calm and focused on a football field with the seconds of a big game ticking down, why did a stupid school sports blog set me off?

  First, understand, there was no chance of my doing any trig homework. Hell, I couldn’t even stay seated in my chair. Carla twisted everything and made it sound like I was ready to endanger my best friend. That pissed me off, and the next thing I knew I was outside, jogging through the cold evening darkness in search of my partner in blogging for a real face-to-face.

  You know one advantage of meeting face-to-face, Carla? Two real people stand in the same room and look each other in the eye. It’s very different from sitting alone and typing something on your computer about somebody else.

  I admit I’ve enjoyed telling the story of our season week to week. But I’m not sure I believe in blogs. What are they, really? They’re not responsible journalism. No one’s checking your facts or telling you to be impartial. They’re an open invitation to spew and vent and name names and make accusations without any rules.

  I can see the attraction of that to an aspiring journalist who doesn’t pull her punches. But I can also see the dangers of it, and I hope you can, too, Carla.

  I reached Overlook Lane and took the hill at a half sprint, fingers folded into fists, arms pumping like pistons. I sped up as the grade steepened—even Danny would have had trouble matching my pace. Anger was driving me forward, and I felt no pain.

  Beneath me, the fairways and greens unfolded in the starlight in a quilt of gray and black shadow patches knitted together by darkness. Beyond the last fringe of that quilt, the lights of my hometown glinted. I felt like I wasn’t even in Kendall anymore—at least not the Kendall I knew. These two dozen or so estates were spaced so far apart that some blocks had only three houses. The gargantuan homes were set so far back from the curb that you couldn’t even see their walls or rooftops from the street. Winding driveways disappeared behind gates, and signs warned about security patrols and alarm systems.

  I crested the hill and turned onto Overlook Terrace, the roof of our town. I had been up here before on training runs, but never in the evening and never planning to go inside one of these behemoths. I was getting so nervous that I was tempted to turn around and go back home.

  Then I reached Carla’s house, or at least the security gate outside her house, and before I could chicken out I jabbed the �
��Call” button on the keypad with my thumb.

  I heard ringing and then a crackle of static. “Yes?” a woman’s voice asked.

  “It’s Jerry Downing. I need to speak with Carla. I’m sorry it’s so late. Can I come in just for a minute?”

  There were a few seconds of silence. “Jerry Downing the football quarterback?” she asked.

  Apparently they even know me this high up on Overlook Terrace. “Yes, that’s right.”

  The gate slowly slid open.

  I walked up a long driveway that twisted between grand old trees and trimmed shrubbery. The walls of greenery suddenly spilled open to a giant lawn, and I saw Carla’s McMansion all lit up like a four-story wedding cake.

  Lawn lights blinked on as I walked past, as if some sort of high-tech security system was tracking me. I climbed the front steps, but before I could knock or ring, the door was opened by Carla’s dad. He’s a distinguished-looking man who I’ve seen sitting next to her at games. “Jerry,” he said. “Joe Jenson. An unexpected pleasure.”

  I shook his hand, and he had a pretty strong grip. “Sorry to bother you so late, sir,” I said. “Is Carla around?”

  “She’s coming down,” he told me. “She was taking a shower. Come this way. Have you met my wife, Vickie? She’s in the kitchen. Don’t ask me why, but that’s where we all hang out. So how does it look for Friday’s game?”

  I followed him, muttering answers to his football questions, and tried not to stare too hard at the rugs and the leather furniture and the original art on the walls. Their kitchen was bigger than our living room and had a center island that a couple of people could be marooned on.

  Carla’s mom waved at me. She’s a petite, dark-haired woman, and she was sitting at a computer. That’s right, they have a computer desk in their kitchen! They also have a flat-screen TV there, and it was tuned in to a basketball game. The kitchen smelled sweet; somebody was baking something. Mr. Jenson clicked off the basketball game.