I dislocated my shoulder cause of Jerry.
It happened outside Nassau Community College. I had just moved back home to Long Island from Boulder, Colorado. I was twenty years old.
I signed up for acting classes and so that’s why I was at the college.
One day, outside the theatre department, either about to smoke a joint in my friend Vanessa’s car or having just finished up smoking a joint in Vanessa’s car, Jerry showed up.
Jerry was a jealous fuck.
He hated that I was a better actor than he was, and personally, not to be a dick about it, I think he hated that I was prettier than he was, not to mention the clout I got from my disturbing past. That mighta cut into his “bad boy” monopoly. So, anyway… That piece of shit came up to me one day and greeted me with his signature punch to the shoulder:
“What’s up…” — and he tightened his fist — “KAY-uh!?” and his punch deadened my arm and killed all the nerves in my shoulder for like a minute.
I got mad.
Too mad.
Mad enough so that without much time to think, my reaction blindsided me and my leg lifted up and wound up to trigger a roundhouse kick, one that I had been studying at Kung Fu in Boulder, and it landed him right in the ribs.
Fuck yeah, I thought. I goddam roundhouse kicked that motherfucker. Seriously, I was happy I landed such a great shot…
…till I saw he was still standing. Then I saw his face.
Uh oh.
See, here’s the thing about me: I’ve always been good at throwing the first punch or kick, but never good at the other ten that came after.
The other thing about this whole scenario is, I had no idea this dildo was the number two ranked wrestler in Long Island or some shit, and so the motherfucker picks me up in some weird wrestler typa way and chucks me from over his head onto the concrete.
The pain exploded in my body like a firecracker.
I hadn’t felt that kinda pain before. I wasn’t sure what happened. It was a pain that I couldn’t figure out. It was clear as glass I lost the fight. Game over. The gnawing pain spurts stayed with me all day and I could barely function. Jerry apologized to me after the hot chicks from the theatre department called him an asshole, and we shook on it, as if to say this was over.
That was sixteen years ago.
Lemme tell ya about all that’s happened since then. Well, first thing is, turns out that immense and odd pain I felt was my shoulder dislocating. It musta popped back in on its own, I don’t remember. I didn’t know it had even happened, but then one day it popped out during sex, and that was weird.
I was bangin this chick and someone I didn’t want to see us walked in the room, and I tried to roll over and pretend like nothin was happenin, but my arm got tangled in the sheets and when I lunged to get up, the sheets ripped my shoulder right outa the socket. That was the first time I knew for sure my shoulder dislocated. I told my dad about it cause he’s a doctor.
“Well, are you sure you never dislocated your shoulder before? Usually this is from a prior injury.”
That’s when I remembered:
Jerry.
Fuckin Jerry. Of course Jerry isn’t his real name; his real name is a piece of shit name, which shall remain off your screen and floating in the ether. Even I have the decency not to shout his praise as a dickhead to my email list.
But anyway, that’s how my recurring injury of shoulder dislocation started, and it ran its course for nearly sixteen years. All because of Jerry. Should be noted I fucked his girlfriend ten years ago, and that was a good fuck. The girl also told him about it, which is also a perk… but that’s neither here nor there.
The point is I just scheduled my surgery, at age 36, to finally fix a bad decision I made when I was twenty. It’s popped out six or seven times by now, all cause I roundhouse kicked Jerry to the ribs, not hard enough to knock him down, but hard enough to make him angry enough to destroy my shoulder.
So the surgery was scheduled…
…and then I tested positive for Covid. They canceled the surgery. Then I got better. Now I’m scheduled to go and get this thing fixed on March 19th.
Anyway… I just wanted to write an ode to Jerry so he can fully understand this when I say:
Fuck you Jerry.
Seriously, fuck you.
And now here’s a book about how I ended up in America’s most infamous juvenile institution…