Derbylife Writing Contest: "Tenderized Meat" by 9lb Hammer

I’ll just start as Fresh Meat, I told my husband. No one will have to know that I’ve skated before.

Yeah, your scuffed skates, stinky bag, and mouth guard with your derby name on it won’t give you away at all, my husband joked.

I sighed. Coughed. Looked at the stray dog kibble on the floor. Reconsidered. Kicked a piece of dog kibble under the fridge. Gave my husband a dirty look, just because I could.

Hi, I’m 9lb Hammer. You don’t know me. I skated with a small league in Alabama for three years. I trained hard, bouted harder, and wrote a novel inspired by my experience.

But for the past year, I’ve been in bed.

As I trained and bouted for three years, I acquired a very unglamorous back injury that forced me to renounce exercise. To give my body time to heal, multiple doctors suggested that I stop derby and other activities that caused me pain. Although I was unable to be as vigorous as I once was, I still went to work and wrote most of a still-unfinished dissertation. But when the workday ended, I came home, struggled to find a comfortable position on the memory foam mattress, and watched a lot of Family Feud.

In my imagination, the survey said that if I got hurt, it would be for a badass reason. A derby reason. However, none of my imagined scenarios materialized.

I did not have a spectacular fall into the suicide section.

I did not leap across the apex, land on a loose wheel, and send pieces of my femur splaying into the unsuspecting crowd.

No ambulance sirens sang throughout the South to signal that yes, 9lb Hammer, a small-town derby girl whom you don’t know, was headed to the emergency room for a bilateral lobotomized elbowplasty…

…which is totally made up, but you get the point.

Instead, one day I felt crippling back pain that did not go away after practice. It became excruciating to walk, bend over, or sit. I finally gave up on multiple brands of topical, old-man muscle rubs and visited doctor after doctor after doctor. I had two epidurals. I endured a painful outpatient procedure, where a surgeon admitted that he should have given me anesthesia so it wouldn’t hurt when he jiggled a thick needle into my spine. However, nothing worked.

As of this moment, I still don’t have a diagnosis, and I remain in pain. However, all the doctors I’ve seen have agreed that I am not in danger of hurting myself any worse. I may constantly feel as if there is a shard of dull glass wedged into my spine, but I cannot do additional damage.

So, after a year of rest, I’m going to start again. My husband and I are moving in a few days, and our new hometown hosts a WFTDA team that I greatly admire. Even though I’ve skated before, I am going to attend practice as Fresh Meat.

Processed Meat?

Ground Beef?

Tough Cut?

Grilled Tenderloin?

The name isn’t important. The important thing is that I know I am not the first or last derby player to bout, take time off, and start again. I am not the first or last derby player to go from Hey, I have an awesome right shoulder block! to Wait, how do I execute a crossover? You want me to skate how many laps in five minutes? I’M A BLOCKER, BUT YOU WANT ME TO START DIRECTLY IN FRONT OF THE JAMMER LINE? WHAT? HAVE I REALLY BEEN GONE THAT LONG?

Obviously, when I start skating again, I will remember a few techniques and rules. However, I have lost a lot of the skill that took me so long to learn. I have always been more of a bookworm than a natural athlete, so I know I’m not going to lace up my skates and immediately fly onto the track like a derby boss. Instead, I am going to swallow a pride-filled toe stop and start very basically and very slowly.

I’m going to improve my form.

I’m going to build my endurance.

I’m going to “skate healthy” instead of beating myself up over every little mistake.

Of course, my ultimate goal is to try out for the team in my new hometown. If I don’t make the team on my first try, I’m going to train harder and try again.

Part of this process is realizing that my husband was right. I cannot pretend that I haven’t tried this derby thing—this derby life— once before.

But I can retrain my body and mind to play roller derby again. I can relearn techniques and strategies. I did it once, and I can do it a second time. I may not be true Fresh Meat, but I look forward to tenderizing myself and skating forward.

This is an entry for the first Derbylife Writing Contest!

9lb Hammer is a freelance writer, English professor, and author of Pivot: A Book About Roller Derby, Love, and Other Things. She loves skating, baton twirling, and game shows. In addition to a dog named Gatsby, 9 is owned by three cats: Prufrock, Pip, and George. You can find her blog at 9lbHammer144.tumblr.com.