surreal moments (non-neighborhood story)

There are moments in my life when I know something is a bad idea, but I'm swept into doing it anyway. When this happens the world seems dark and surreal to me. This story is about one of those times. It's not related to my neighborhood, just a thing that happened to me. It's been sitting in the back of my head since I wrote "The Price of a Good Education".

We moved onto California Avenue when I was in the third grade. It was the first year girls were allowed to wear slacks during winter. The uniform pants were brown polyester, not comfy, but warmer than a skirt. I'm glad mom couldn't afford the more expensive wool ones because what happened was, I needed to go to the bathroom. My teacher gave me a hall pass to go potty, and when I stepped into the hallway I saw Mikey, who had also gotten a potty pass. He wasn't in the bathroom like he should be, he was swinging on his locker door. This was just bizarre. The hall was unusually quiet. I could hear the standard classroom noises, and I could hear Mikey's door squeak, but the air felt very still. It was alot like the feeling before a storm, when the area around you seems to be just waiting. I felt disconnected from the rest of the school. It was just me and the row of lockers, and Mikey didn't seem to fit the picture. He wasn't supposed to be there.
The hallway was dim. The school only turned on the hall lights when they absolutely had to. I really needed to go to the bathroom, but I thought, "I should get my books out of my locker first, it will make it easier when school lets out." (which was in about 15 minutes)
So, instead of going to the bathroom like a good little girl, I went to my locker. As I passed Mikey, I said, "You shouldn't be doing that. You'll get in trouble." He ignored me and continued swinging back and forth on his locker door. I opened my locker, and started rummaging in my book bag. I was really bothered by Mikey swinging on that door. Creak, creak... it wasn't right. I couldn't get my mind around him being there. He was moving the whole row of lockers with his stupid swinging, and it was hard to get my book bag out because of the motion.
I felt my back get all prickly, then suddenly I stood up and turned to walk away from the lockers. I wasn't even thinking, just moving. As I was rising, my eyes noticed the lockers leaning toward me. I tried to pivot and wind up in the open space as I realized the entire row of lockers was coming down on top of me. I sort of made it. I wound up with my upper body and head inside my locker, the rest was being weighed down my a lot of steel. Something was digging into the middle of my spine, and it hurt to breathe. On top of all that, I had the indignity of laying in a puddle of my own urine. (ew) I imagined Mikey stuck in his locker, like I was stuck in mine. I hoped he had made it all the way in; but if he hadn't, at least he was taking some of the weight off my back.
I called out, "Mikey? Are you in your locker?"
He said, "No, just my arm."
I waited for him to ask me if I was hurt, but he didn't ask. He started calling for help, and I just laid there trying to breathe. People came out in the hallway, and someone ran for Father Ross. I started thinking everybody would laugh when they pulled me out and saw all the pee. I willed my polyester pants to soak some of it up, but polyester isn't really absorbent. I couldn't feel my legs very well anymore, and I heard Mikey say, "Sharon's under there." So then they were afraid to move the lockers, and started shooing kids back to class.
Presently, I heard my teacher calling softly, "Sharon? Sharon? Where are you?"
I replied, "I'm in my locker."
She asked, "Are you hurt?"
So I said, "Yes. I can't move my legs, and there's something on my back. Could you get these lockers off me?"
I was scared, and trying not to cry. I thought maybe if I was super-nice and used my please and thank you's they would take these horribly heavy lockers off of me, so I added, "Please?"
She said, "We can't do that, Father Ross is getting help."
I started crying and said, "I'd really like to get out of my locker. It hurts."
Nobody had anything to say to that, then the bell rang for dismissal. I had been stuck for 15 minutes. It seemed like forever, but it also seemed like no time at all. I listened to the children being herded out the door, and wondered if they could smell my pee as they passed. I could sure smell it! I focused on their passage, and thought about the bright sunny day waiting for me. I imagined myself playing at the park. I used those images to calm myself down. Crying didn't do me any good, and it made my back hurt worse than ever. It had gone from a generally squished feeling to a small stabbing pain in my spine. Fr. Ross came back with a bunch of 8th graders, and the lockers shifted for a moment. Mikey had been crying on and off, but now that his arm was freed, he was fine. My teacher said, "Were getting you out next. Are you stuck anywhere?"
I said "I'm stuck under the lockers!"

I know she meant "is some part of you going to get hurt worse if we move these things" and I know I meant "no! now get them off me!" But that's not what either of us said. Father Ross counted to three, then he and five 8th grade boys lifted the lockers and pushed them against the wall. The hallway air never seemed so fresh! They all stared at me, and when I lifted my head to look around they told me not to move. Then the adults debated whether to move me or not. I had a back injury, it could be broken. They couldn't move me, but they couldn't leave me laying there, either. I thought perhaps we should wait for the ambulance, and said so. I don't even know if they heard me. I felt like a particularly difficult engineering problem, not a person. They finally decided the best way to do it would be to roll me onto my back and carry me by my arms and legs. My teacher fussed around the boys, telling them to be careful with me. One of them grabbed my forearms, the other my ankles; they carried me slung between them like a hammock. Every step they took hurt.

I looked back at the puddle of pee I had left, and wondered who would clean it up. Then I looked at the boy holding my ankles. He was trying to be careful, but not get his hands wet. I said to him, "I'm sorry." He replied, "I hope you're ok."
They laid me down in the back seat of Father Ross' car, and he drove me to Cardinal Glennon Hospital. I asked a lot of questions on the way there. "Why did the lockers fall down? Does my mom know? Is Mikey ok? Do you think I'll be ok? I think I'm ok. Did you ever get hurt like this?" and so on. Mom met me at the hospital, she was very calm while we waited for X-rays and such. Nothing was broken. I had bruised my back pretty badly, tho. They thought the thing I felt digging into my back was the handle of the locker next to mine.