TIME-TO-SEE-14
There are times in life when one simply goes through the motions. The body has learned what to do and moves on its own; though meaning has evaporated, and the heart is sad and lost, and one wonders: where is love that sustained just yesterday, still life goes on...
It had started to rain lightly as we came out of the hospital. We both ran to the car, but neither of us were actually very wet when we got there.
Lights reflected up from the wet pavement, and wet surfaces of everything sparkled and shimmered brightly in the street lights. Coco's was just a few blocks down the boulevard.
Neither of us said anything as we drove to the restaurant. When I turned off the car lights, Hugo opened his door to get out and go inside with me.
He took his pad with him, and we both looked at the menu but decided on the same salmon meal that we had before. I got another blueberry desert for Jilder. We sat at our table waiting for the meals to be delivered to us in their take-out packaging.
Hugo wrote on his pad, "Kevin I feel bad that I hurt you. I'm sorry."
I looked up at him and tears welled up in my eyes. I blew my nose.
Hugo wrote more: "I know that I hurt you, and I was bad for doing that. I think I attacked you because I am so scared that I cannot take care of Jilder and me on my own... I never have any money; everything costs so much. And the kind of work that I can do doesn't pay very good."
Hugo was speaking from the heart: "Then you came along and shared your love and your money with me, and now I'm scared to death that I will suffer because I accept your money... Maybe you don't understand what I'm telling you, but I do love you. I'm just scared that you will stop loving me if money problems happen. I am afraid of getting dumped on the street, like when my parents left me and Jilder here and went back to Mexico..."
I still didn't know what to say. I just started crying: for me, for Hugo, for Jilder. Why couldn't I make it alright for the three of us? I love Hugo and I love Jilder. I'd do anything for either of them, but I don't know how to respond to Hugo's fear right now.
"God, please help me to understand the truth about what is happening to Hugo and me. What do You want me to do? Not my will, but Yours be done..."
I took the pen and wrote, "But I don't WANT to scare you Hugo."
He wrote back, "I know."
"It's just the money; that scares me," he wrote again.
"If I ask you to pay part of the rent and help me with the food, would that be ok? I mean I'd need help with those things; I'd depend on you," I ventured this thought while grappling with my own fear that maybe I was hinting at a suggestion that could conceivably make things worse...
"Yeah. I'd feel better about things if I was paying something, but I couldn't pay very much," Hugo wrote.
"Well, then you tell me what you think would work. I hope you will move in. If that doesn't scare you too much.... I wouldn't want you to pay on the house as much as you pay for your apartment now. You'll need to have money for the busses and to buy stuff...(I paused and thought for just an instant; then I wrote in big block letters.) BUT I WANT TO PAY FOR PART OF JILDER'S CARE TOO.... I WANT TO! (And I underlined 'I WANT TO')"
Hugo wrote again, "Yes, Kevin, I want to be with you and Jilder both, and I do want all three of us to have a home together, but, but..."
Hugo looked at me and wrote, "Please, Kevin, go slow with me...OK?"
"Of course," I said.
There was a long pause with neither of us writing anything to the other. I became aware of the clinking of plates and glasses and the movement of people about the dining room where we sat. It was a pleasant place: carpeting, tables with linen cloths and pinkish lighting, and waiters in white shirts and dark slacks and ties.
Then Hugo picked up the pen again. He turned a page on the pad and wrote to cover the whole page: "I love you, Kevin, and I want us to live together."
I wrote back, "And I love you and want us to live together too, Hugo."
He thought for a moment more; then he wrote, "OK... When can I move in?"
"Anytime you want." I wrote and looked directly into Hugo's eyes.
After I considered, I went on "I can rent a U-Haul truck, and we can move you in one trip. Or we can make several trips, if we use the car. The car isn't big enough to take everything at once, I don't think. What do you say?" I asked.
"Can I think about it, Kevin? I don't want the move to cost any more than it has to... Let's figure out how many trips by car and how much a U-Haul truck would cost." Hugo answered.
"Whatever you think, Hugo," I wrote. "You remember that Dr. Gilroy said that he'll be letting Jilder out of the hospital on Friday or Saturday, and you have to work all week; so maybe we ought to consider tomorrow???" I suggested.
"Tomorrow?" Hugo wrote again, and I could see the terror rising in his eyes...
"Well, only if you think it's a good idea." I added quickly... "Otherwise, anytime is good with me." I tried to calm him by being cool about his reaction.
"Yeah...?" and Hugo looked down like he was thinking. "We'll have to explain to Jilder that we're all going to live in a new place. He'll need to prepare in his mind, I think..." Hugo wrote.
"Oh, God, I forgot about that, Hugo. You're right! And that's really extremely important. I'm sorry, but I just don't think of everything."
I hoped Hugo realized that I wasn't all powerful because I earned more than he did. I needed him to help with our life decisions. And, in fact, I wouldn't even be alive if it weren't for Hugo, but he was never too impressed with that reality.
At that moment the waiter walked up with a huge plastic bag containing three large Styrofoam dinner carriers. He offered the check, and Hugo reached to take it before I could.
I panicked because I knew that the bill was probably nearly $40; that was a half day's pay for Hugo.
I picked up the pen quickly and wrote, "Please, Hugo, let me get this. I was the one who invited you & Jilder to eat take-out with me tonight. You guys had no choice in the matter. And I'd feel really good if you'd let me get supper... Pleeeze, Hugo."
Hugo hadn't looked at the amount of the bill because it was stapled under a little note of appreciation from the management. My logic reached him, and he handed the bill over to me without stewing about it.
Hugo grabbed the large bag, and I took the bill and we both walked together over to the cashier.
We paid and were out quickly... "One day, the three of us will come here together," I day-dreamed while we waited to be rung up.
"Have a Good Evening, Sir," the cashier said. "Please join us again. Perhaps next time you can dine with us here in the dining room."
And I certainly hoped for that day very soon too.
By the time we got back in the ward, Hugo seemed to be feeling much better. And after he ate, Jilder started to come out of his fog, as the food began to do its magic with him.
"Do you think that many kids get sick like me?" Jilder asked.
"Humm? I hear that it's not as unusual as you might think. Have you met anyone else here in the hospital who is here for the same thing as you?" answering his question with a question...
"Yeah! Today they brought in a kid the nurse said can't breathe just like me," he said.
"Well, do you think they'd let you visit with him; so you can tell him that you are doing good, and that it really hasn't been too bad. That might be just what he'd like to hear, you think?" I opined.
"Yeah. Maybe. The nurse said that he really, REALLY, couldn't breathe, and that he is worse than me. Do you really think I should say something?" Jilder asked.
"I'd say that would be the nicest thing you could possibly do, help somebody who is very sick, and give them encouragement by showing them that you're much better, and you had the same thing they have; plus tell him that the improvement comes right away," I answered.
"Okay. The nurse said that I could go over whenever I want. See, he's over there. The kid with the funny looking red hair..." Jilder declared.
"Well, Jilder," I tried to ease out a suggestion without offending, "It might not be such a good idea to tell him that you think his hair is funny looking... I mean, why don't you wait till he's doing better to say that..." Groan. (What the fuck was I SUPPOSED to tell this kid????)
"Nooooo! Of course not! I wouldn't tell him his hair looks funny even if it does. He's sick." Jilder told me, like I had to be stupid as whale shit not to know THAT without having to be told...
"Good." I accepted his correction with humility.
With that, Jilder slipped off of his bed and in his bare feet he headed down the row of beds until he came to another injured little bird, this one with wild red hair--like a curly, red Afro. The little boy was somewhat older than Jilder but altogether just as lame and crushed looking a little bird as Jilder had been when I first saw him.
"Hi," Jilder said softly.
The other boy just looked up at him through glassy eyes. He forced a smile, but had little energy for anything else. Oxygen tubes lead into the boy's nose, and the air hissing into his lungs sounded weird to Jilder.
"My name is Jilder, and I am in the hospital for the same thing you are. The nurse told me." Jilder explained.
The other boy just looked at Jilder. He may have wanted to speak, but it was clear that he hadn't the energy even to do so.
"Don't worry about talkin," Jilder said, quickly perceiving the other boy's inability. "I couldn't do anything when I got here too, but after they put that thing in you, you'll be able to breathe, and then you get a lot more energy. You'll feel much better quick," Jilder said.
Jilder looked around and saw that the boy had no visitors. "When are you going to get your operation?" Jilder asked.
The other boy shrugged his shoulders to reply that he didn't know.
"Well, I hope it's soon, because it really isn't bad at all, and you'll feel much better after you get it," Jilder reassured. Sensing that maybe he'd done all that he could do at that moment, Jilder said to the boy, "Well, I better go back to bed. I'll come to visit again in a while. You like that?"
The boy shook his head yes and summoned up a very weak smile. Jilder reached over and rubbed the boy's head and said, "You got really neat hair." Then he patted the boy on the shoulder.
Good God this boy is certainly Hugo's brother. They both have a direct line to God; so they know exactly what to do... And this kid is only eleven years old!
Jilder turned and padded himself on his bare feet back to his own bed. "I think that kid's really sick. Did you see the oxygen tubes?" Jilder confided to me in a hushed tone. "He looks terrible," he added.
In the meantime, Hugo had taken his legal pad over to the nurses' station and apparently asked about the boy with the red hair. When he got back to Jilder's bed, he walked over to me and began writing on the pad.
"That kid with the red hair has the same in-growing ribs that Jilder has. Only his condition is more advanced by about 6 months. The nurse said that he isn't scheduled for surgery. She didn't know why, but thinks that it's probably the money. It'll probably be the same thing that Jilder's operation cost."
I read what Hugo wrote and my heart went out to the little red headed boy.
Turning to Jilder I said, "Did you find out what that kid's name is?"
"Naw. He didn't tell me, but I think the nurse said his name is Nicky," Jilder replied.
"Humm. Nicky." I thought, and then I took Hugo's pen and wrote, "Maybe we should ask the nurse whether Nicky's mom and dad came in to visit today."
After reading what I'd written, Hugo turned and walked back over to the nurses' station and conversed again with the nurse using his pad and pen. In a few minutes he came back to Jilder's bed.
"Nobody has come to visit the boy. He came in by ambulance with paramedics earlier today. She doesn't know what is happening."
I wrote to Hugo, "Too bad. I feel bad for the little guy. You know he's got to be feeling awful not being able to breathe."
"Yeah." Hugo wrote. He sighed and walked over to Jilder's bed. Hugo wrote to Jilder, which he doesn't usually do: "Will you notice whether Nicky has any visitors, and if he does, tell me when we come back. Ok?"
Jilder spoke his reply, "Sure." And then he picked up his PSP-3000 and went back to his Ghost Centurion-Predators game. Mercifully you can use ear phones with those things.
I did a few quick calculations in my head. Dr. Gilmer wants another $2,500 for Jilder's first operation. And then there is the removal of the bar in maybe two years, and that'll probably cost about the same, another $8,000. That kid's, Nicky's, parents need at least $5,500 today to get the kid in the operating room...
The nurse walked over as I was thinking. She started speaking, "I'm sure you have a great deal of concern for Nicky, the little red headed boy, since he has just what your boy has. It's remarkable what surgical intervention can do. Just compare Jilder now to what he was like only two days ago... I certainly hope Nicky's parents can arrange for him to have the same surgery," the nurse said.
"Of course, it's very hard to watch another child suffer when I know what can be done to alleviate his suffering. Not knowing what is being done to intervene is just more than I can endure. I wish the boy's parents were here; so that I could speak with them," I replied.
"Yes." The nurse agreed. "Somehow I don't think we will see any parents this evening, given the way this boy was brought in. It was an emergency referral. We stabilized Nicky in the Emergency Room with the oxygen; then they brought him up here on the ward. Ordinarily the child's parents would have accompanied him to the Emergency Room, but there was no one with him."
I just had to go to visit Nicky myself. I stood up and walked off to Nicky's bed leaving the nurse and Hugo still with Jilder.
"Hi," I said. "I know you don't feel like talking; so don't try... I'm Jilder's Uncle, and he told me about you. That made me want to come and tell you not to worry. The hospital and the doctor's will be able to help you and make you feel much better." I reached across and rubbed his arm up and down a couple of times...
The boy stared up at me not appearing to register my conversation, but when I touched him, his eyes focused and he looked at me in a way that I knew he realized I was there and that I cared.
"I don't want to tire you; so I'll go back to Jilder's bed. But I want you to know that I will not forget you, and I'll come to see you again."
He followed my movements with his eyes, and he spoke a barely audible, "Thank you..."
It was so difficult to leave this boy alone and walk back to Jilder's bed. When I got back, the nurse had returned to her station. Hugo sat on the bed watching Jilder jab the buttons on his PSP-3000 with great enthusiasm and stare mesmerized into the tiny little screen. It looked silly to me, but Jilder was having a wonderful time waging his fantasy war games....
It was growing late, and I hadn't even finished my dinner; so I picked up the carton and continued to eat what was left. Hugo seemed to have settled in with the idea that we would be living together. It was just a matter of timing... I was hoping that he would want to get the main part of the moving done tomorrow, but I guess it really didn't matter when things happened. Hugo and Jilder and I were going to be together. That's what mattered.
Across the ward at Nicky's bed there was a gathering of several medical staff. I noticed that Dr. Gilmer came scurrying up to Nick's bed. Of course it was too far away for me to hear what was being said, but since virtually nothing in this ward was private, I realized that there was an urgent quality to the haste of the nurse as she moved around the bed.
By now an orderly was rolling a gurney up to Nicky's bed. The nurse and the orderly together moved Nicky to the gurney immediately, and the doctor was holding a portable oxygen tank. Everyone formed a little parade that moved quickly down the middle of the ward and out the main doors into the hallway.
This was more than I could endure. I jumped up and hurried out of the ward just in time to see the elevator doors closing; the gurney and staff must have been on the elevator. I watched as the indicator left the 7th floor and went to the second. That's where the operating rooms were.
I ran back to get Hugo. I grabbed him by the hand and mouthed, "COME ON...." I pulled him along as I ran back to the hall outside of the elevators. "Fuck!" I yelled in frustration at finding no waiting elevator. I pulled on Hugo again and dragged him with me into the stairwell, and then I began leaping down the stairs three at a time; Hugo, right behind, jumped down the stairs three at a time too, right after me not knowing what in hell I was doing....
On the second floor, I pulled open the door and looked around for some sign of Nicky and his caretakers. A swinging door off of the end of the hallway bobbed back and forth indicating that the parade had just passed that way. We walked uninvited into the surgical prep area. There we found Dr. Gilmer and the nurse in one of the little rooms where Jilder had undergone preparation for surgery. I stuck my head in and said stupidly, "Can I help?"
Dr. Gilmer looked around at me and said, "If you can hold this oxygen tank and stand here, you'd be a great help."
I looked down at Nicky whose eyes were rolling around in his head. He wasn't seeing a damn thing. He didn't even look conscious. His chest wasn't rising and falling...
Dr. Gilmer rushed out, and the nurse said, "Nicky can't breath at all. We have to operate immediately."
"Who's paying," I said unceremoniously.
"Nobody." the nurse said not looking up from her work washing Nicky's body and applying the iodine pre-op solution.
In record time Gilmer was back. "Just give him the injection, skip the valium tablets... He won't be counting backwards, that's for damn sure... I just hope we can get him breathing quickly..." And the two of them rolled Nicky out to the surgical suite... One intern and one operating room nurse were prepped and ready to assist.
Things went down like lightning. Without being told, Hugo headed up to the gallery above the operating room. I was right behind him, and there for the next three hours, we sat watching every move the surgical team and Dr. Gilmer made. There was a problem inserting the retainer, and Dr. Gilmer had to use the surgical saw again to open a larger portal to Nick's ribcage. But finally, the bar was in place, secured, and Dr. Gilmer handed the closing over to the intern.
He left the operating table and walked over to a rack that contained patient charts and began writing. It was well after midnight when Dr. Gilmer finally walked out of the operating room and Nicky was rolled out.
Hugo and I went up to him, and I said, "Thank you, Dr. Gilmer, for being here to save that boy. I don't know what to say. You were a miracle worker."
Dr. Gilmer looked at us and smiled a weak smile. "Thanks, guys. I'm glad Nicky has more than just me on his team," indicating us. I hate to tell you, but Nicky's parents aren't functional. He lives with his father who is an alcoholic, and the father was doing well just to call the paramedics. Thank God he did, because unless Nicky had gotten to the hospital today, he wouldn't have lived through the night."
The doctor clearly wasn't into conversation. He looked exhausted. Hugo and I left right behind him, rode that fucking slow elevator up to the 7th floor, and looked in on Jilder. He was sleeping peacefully; so we headed down to the parking lot.
I reached into the glove compartment and pulled out my checkbook. Hugo looked at me like I'd lost my mind. "What?" he asked.
"Come on with me," I said dragging him by the hand once again.
We made it back inside and into the Recovery Room. The nurse and doctor both were sitting there waiting for Nicky to come out from under the anesthesia. I walked over to a convenient counter top and wrote a personal check for $2,500 to Dr. Gilmer. Then I walked into the Recovery area and up to Dr. Gilmer. I handed him the check.
He looked down and said, "What's this for?"
"For Nicky-- a down payment," I said.
Dr. Gilmer looked genuinely humbled. "You don't need to do this," he said. We'd manage...
"And you didn't need to come in at the end of your day, work all night, and save this boy's life either! So we're even."
As we talked quietly, there was a stirring over on the bed. Electronic monitors flashed their reassuring green signals noting blood pressure, pulse, and blood oxygenation all satisfactory. Nicky's blood oxygenation was indicating 100%, and he was breathing on his own.
Nicky moved his head and blinked his eyes and said, "I feel really sick. I'm going to upchuck..." and with that he tried to give a dry heave, but his energy wasn't up to it... He just lay there with an awful expression on his face...
"Poor baby," the nurse said, as she lay a rubberized pad under Nicky's chin should he actually lose the contents of his stomach. She wiped his forehead and turned his head to one side to insure that his airways would remain clear.
"Ohhhhh.... I feel really, really sick," Nicky said again.
"Just lay still, baby, and as soon as the anesthesia wears off, you won't feel sick," the nurse said.
Nick just lay there, quietly. I reached out to Nicky and held him by the hand. "I told you that I'd be back for another visit, Nicky... But I didn't know you were going to be putting on a show."
Nicky opened his eyes and searched the faces in the room until he'd identified who was speaking to him. He smiled at me and said, "I'm sorry I'm not feeling very good for visitors..."
"You're doing just great, Nicky," I said.
"You just lay still and you'll feel better quickly. Try to get some sleep. It's really, really late, almost one in the morning, and Hugo and Jilder, and I will be coming over to your bed to visit you later. I promise you that you'll feel more like company later in the morning... And for sure... in a day or so."
"Take care, Nicky," I said quietly and patted his head.
Hugo patted Nicky's shoulder, and then we turned to the Nurse and the doctor.
"It's been a long day for all of us."
"Yes," Dr. Gilmer agreed.
Life was seeming more worth living each and every day. However, thank God we could sleep in again. I wasn't used to those long, extraordinary nights; furthermore, I was supposed to be convalescing, for God's sake!
Hugo pulled me close to him as we walked across the parking lot. We just sat in the car, not attempting to go anywhere.
Hugo leaned across the console and gave me a very tender, lingering kiss on the lips. He kissed me also on the eyes and ears and behind my ears. We didn't speak, but we did communicate. I knew Hugo loved me, and I loved him... and I loved Jilder... and I loved Nicky too.
My God, our house was filling up fast.