When David Lee crashed to the ground, his hip flexor torn and his face contorted in agony, I immediately looked away, uninterested in seeing the brutal replay. When Russell Westbrook hobbled to the scorer’s table, concern and anger flashing brightly across his visage after a meniscus-destroying collision with Patrick Beverly, I chose not to watch the replay. When Kobe lost his achilles, his powerful figure crumpled under the basket, his corrupted lower appendage gathered gingerly into his midsection, I uttered the word, “no,” and never looked back. There was no reason to look again; no reason to re-immerse myself in acute pain and anguish. There was no point in bearing witness to sudden misfortune.
Yet, when the bombs went off in Boston, I sat in front of the TV, eyes wide open, mouth agape. When still and moving images of war-like injuries — blown off legs, bloodied faces, bleary, teary eyes — were shared on the television and internet, I clicked through every gory detail, and listened intently to every wail and shout. When the manhunt ensued the next day, and Boston police swarmed streets and avenues I’d neither heard of nor seen before, I couldn’t bear to look away; hooked to every meaningless detail of wall-to-wall coverage. I hooked myself up and locked myself in, ready to let information run in seamless line from a screen to my brain, allowing me to internalize — and distance myself — from the pain of strangers, and remove myself from the nastiness that comes with massive trauma; the unpleasantness of a life permanently altered.
Its chillingly compelling that I (and I suspect others as well, though I cannot be sure) will quickly look away when an athlete is injured while engaging in sport, but will glaze over and move closer to the distant pain of complete strangers embroiled in a distant calamity. When a knee explodes, or a leg shatters, or a shoulder tears, we all scream alongside the fallen athlete, with neither side daring to look at the damaged body part, for fear that we’d be nauseated, angered or depressed by what we see. When injury fails to slay an athlete the first time, and they get up, hobbled and disjointed, we implore them to be okay; to either run it off and keep living their lives like nothing happened (until we turn the TV off and move on with our own lives), or to sit down on the bench and let anonymous trainers work their magic on the ailing piece of hardware. When Steph limps, or Blake grimaces, or Melo favors, or Durant stays down a little longer than normal, I hoot and holler loudly, as if my well-being is being directly affected by the relative integrity of their bones and ligaments.
Yet, when strangers are affected by everyday tragedy, ranging anywhere from random car crash to viciously calculated marathon bombing, I do not shout “no! no! no!” at the unfortunate innocents, mowed down by shrapnel-stuffed pressure cookers or cars driven by drivers who had too many margaritas at happy hour. As the emotional posts appear on social media, or CNN delves into their 25th hour of 24-hour news coverage (where nothing seemingly is covered) I crave more; more stories of anguish, more vignettes of suffering. The misfortunes of others who are not me, but indeed, are like me, cause me to drool and desire; a disgusting sense of blood lust informed by the unpredictabilities of the real world, driven by the crazed desires of humans unhinged. Whereas the fallen athlete seems best paired with averted eyes and solemn laments, the fallen citizen calls for gawking and rubbernecking.
Perhaps this isn’t surprising. We know them through their bodies. We know these athletes — muscular, beautiful men and women, strong and sinewy at the same time — chiefly through the movements of their coveted bodies. We happily watch them gallop to-and-fro, running, jumping, leaping, diving and dunking. Their personalities have been muted to a marketable monotone, and we are forced to put our fanhood chiefly into their ability to walk, and by extension, play the game they’re paid to play. That’s why we watch them; that’s why care. When they cannot do these things, for either a short period of time, or perhaps for a long (and permanent) period of time, our brains cannot process the change in dynamic. There is something offensive about a dazzling athlete in a suit, relegated to the bench, their mouths moving in an anxious chewing motion as they bite down into pieces of bubble gum, standing absent-mindedly in a huddle that does not concern them. It’s not right. It does not compute.
We’ll never know why injuries happen; why bad things happen to seemingly good people. We’ll never know why it seems that star players are falling in these playoffs one by one, felled by troubling injuries that will require both surgery and rehab. At the same time, we’ll never know why normal people running marathons or spectating at large public events can fall victim to the murderous whims of others. The world is a cruelly random place, where danger lies around every corner, and innocence won’t win you any favor from the powers that be. While some ankles stay unturned, others shake and tremble with every hard cut and sudden shift in direction. While some marathons go off without a hitch, others turn quite gruesome, with or without improvised explosive devices stowed in murderously placed backpacks. It is an unpleasant world, where any of us can fall victim to either a blown out knee or a clandestine weapon of mass destruction, whether we’re handsomely paid professional basketball players, or amateur athletes, trying to accomplish a personal feat as significant as an NBA championship.
It teaches us to be caring and considerate to all, even if we do not — and cannot — know, recognize, or touch their damaged bodies.
