TIME-TO-SEE
THE WORLD ACCORDING TO HUGO - PART TWO
I hadn't seen my sketch pad for months. I opened it to the first unused page and started drawing a face.
Quickly the hair formed around the head and the kindness in the eyes appeared, focused on some unseen image that held his fascination. The ringlets in his mop of auburn hair made one think of cherubs and angels.
I looked at Nicky's face there on the page and felt a concern in my breast that would not allow me to forget that he was carrying a steel bar in his, that one day would free him from his biological prison.
I loved this boy, my dear son.
My mind was racing. No sooner had my sketch of Nicky filled the page than I turned it quickly to a fresh, unused one.
Another head appeared on this new page, tilted in a special way, betraying that Jilder's image was coalescing in this space. Beautiful dark eyes with curly lashes smiled up at the viewer, and gently waving dark hair gave a final touch of beauty to this handsome face between childhood and manhood.
There was no man more blessed than I to have yet a second son, my brother, as loving and beautiful as my first son, both boys healing and escaping their biological prisons together one day.
There is no measure I can use to say how much I loved Nicky and Jilder, my sons.
Jilder's image was no sooner finished than I flipped the sketchbook page yet again to another blank one. Here I paused and stared into the empty space.
I remembered that day that I stumbled into the restaurant, desperately hungry and needing to eat, only to find the kindest man I had ever known there to be with me.
I saw that face on the empty page in front of me. All I had to do was trace the outlines that my mind projected onto the paper, his beautiful understanding eyes, never judging, never pitying, just there with love for me. His face and hair were perfect. They were the very manifestations of Love itself.
This picture of Kevin took no skill to render. It was in my mind indelibly etched as the purpose of my life, the person with whom I wanted to spend all of my days in time and in timelessness, if I can be so blessed. I finished Kevin's image rather quickly.
I didn't know what had come over me. The energy would not leave my spirit nor stop driving my hand and fingers to sketch these visual thoughts that filled my mind.
In rapid succession I turned the pages of my sketchbook and dashed off images of Dr. Gilmer, who had saved my boys from certain death; of Jake, Kevin's nurse and my friend at work; of my boss, Alberto; of Dr. Kavanaugh who worked endlessly to rescue me from my gulag of silence, to whom I will always be indebted; of my.... of my...
and I couldn't bring my mind to say the word....
of my mother! And I broke down and cried... I cried so hard. I missed her so much... I want my mama and papa, I cried inside from my open, aching heart....
Perfectly their images appeared on the blank sketchpad page in front of me, both together. Like a crazed man I went after those images tracing each one with love and precision, rendering each shadow and highlight, capturing the love that I knew that they felt for me, even though they'd lost me....
That's the way I thought of it. Si. They'd lost me and Jilder when they went away. They didn't want to leave us, they lost us, as someone would lose a precious possession, whose recovery somehow eluded them and the possession seemed gone forever.
But we aren't gone! "We're still here, mama, papa. We're still here. See me, papa. See me, mama. Look I'm here and I love you both. I want to tell you how much I love you and want you to be with me." (Alberto's reassurances never helped; mama and papa were not here!-- It seemed my delusion wouldn't budge-- well, not this time.)
"I'm scared that I will not heal and recover my hearing.... But if I should hear again, mama, papa, I will search all of Mexico until I find you and speak with you and hear you speak to me."
And somehow, the images of very lovely Hispanic people, a man and a woman, appeared from my work on the sketchbook page, out of nowhere, it seemed to me. I knew that I would remember them always. I had never taken the trouble to translate my memory into pictures. But I'm so glad that I've done that now.
And I dropped the sketchbook to the floor and lay back in my pillows and fell asleep immediately.
It was a wonderful sleep filled with all of the people whom I'd just sketched, wishing me well, hugging and holding me, and telling me that I would be HEARING them soon, and we would SPEAK together.
Since it was already day four after my operation, the nurse was used to the regularity of my visitors. She didn't even bother to accompany them into the room any longer; she just saw that they were dressed and covered appropriately before they were allowed to come in on their own.
Jilder was always leading the pack. He was fully devoted to the task of keeping me happy. Nicky was his second in command. He pulled up the chairs and opened the window draperies if it were dark in the room. These boys brought the world of life and energy right into my quiet protected space.
Kevin brought in his pad to speak with me, sat on the edge of the bed, and wrote. "How are you feeling today, Babe?"
I replied by message, "I'm good, but I am finding that I fall asleep pretty often. I didn't expect that."
"Oh, yeah!" Jilder wrote. "Those operations really do that. After my operation, I was tired all the time... "
"Do you get plenty to eat?" Nicky asked when he got the pen to write to Hugo.
"Yes. I think that I'm a better cook than the guys they have here, but, yeah, I find that there's stuff I can eat... I told the nurse that I wanted lots of fresh veggies and some raw eggs and cooked/boiled fish--lots of protein--and lots of berries: like blueberries and pomegranate. They're pretty good here, but I think we do better at our house..." Hugo wrote.
"Well, I'm glad to know that you like home better than the hospital," Kevin wrote. He continued , "I'd be embarrassed if you said anything else."
Hugo read that and smiled broadly. He looked to see if the boys were looking-- and as it turned out, they were getting themselves over to the window-- at which point he mimed giving a blow job. (If I had been closer I think my penis would have been in jeopardy...)
The boys found my sketch book and brought it over to Kevin to look at with them.
The book was one of those 18 inch by 28 inch sketch pads with a metal wire spiraling through one edge. The boys first found Nicky's picture, and they ooed and ah-ed at his likeness. He was beaming with pride to realize how handsome his dad saw him, which, I assure you, was no exaggeration on my part at all.
They turned to the next sketch and found Jilder looking peacefully and happily off the page at the world. He too was a beautiful man-child, handsome in his own uniqueness, just as Nicky was. A wide smile broke across Jilder's face, and he suddenly had run out of comments, becoming very self-conscious.
The next page was a breath-taking portrait of Kevin-- I didn't realize how beautiful it was as I rushed to get it down. Kevin's peacefulness and simple handsome masculine beauty were glowing with the love that he conveyed to everyone around him. The boys leaned over to Kevin and each gave him a hug, just returning some of the love he showered on them all of the time.
The boys went back to the sketch book and turned to the next page.
They both lit up when they discovered Dr. Gilmer was there too. They felt great pride at having been in his care and great gratitude for his selflessly delivering them from death-- a too-soon plunge into that UNWANTED Box, for sure. Even at such young ages, these boys understood the blessings that they had received through no effort of their own.
They leafed the next several pages past Jake's smiling, caring face, past my boss's, whom they neither one recognized, past Dr. Kavanaugh,
"Oh! It looks just like him!" Nicky exclaimed..., until they came to the page containing the portraits of two people.
Jilder knew instantly by instinct, although his recollection could not be nearly as vivid as mine, that these two people were his mama and papa. Jilder just stopped and looked at the picture and tears began to whell up in his eyes. Nicky grasped quickly what had occurred and reached over and took his brother in his arms in a great bear hug, patting him on the back, and allowing Jilder to bury his face in his shoulder.
Kevin stood and stepped over to the large sketch book which had fallen from the boys's laps to the floor. He picked it up to see the two faces and realized immediately whom he was looking at.
He looked over at me questioning me silently. I nodded my head "yes" with just a hint of movement. Kevin put the sketch pad on his chair and came over to my bed where he picked up my hand and brought it to his masked mouth. I could feel the heat of his breath as he kissed me, and I felt him lay his body over mine, chest to chest, telling me that he understood.
Kevin reached for a writing pad and wrote to me, "Hugo, these are your parents, I know. I can see the love for their boys in their eyes, and I understand now where your endless love must come from. How beautiful these people are. One day you must tell me about them using the sound of your voice, and you'll hear yourself telling me."
"All of your sketches are beautiful, Hugo. You may have lost your hearing, but your sight and visual memory and ability to "speak" with your hands and fingers through these pictures is a gift equal to the hearing you are seeking to restore. I feel so honored to be with you, Hugo."
I really felt awkward, 'cause nothing seemed that special to me. I could see these people in my mind, and for some reason it was no effort at all for me to put that inner image on the paper in front of me. I wasn't doing anything special.
Kevin wrote me a question: "Do you mind if I bring you another sketchbook, one exactly like this one, and then I can take this one and have the pages photographed and turned into wall sized portraits. We could bring them all here and put them on your walls... " He stopped abruptly.
"Uh OH!!!! Oh, my God. I realize something, Hugo," Kevin wrote.
He continued writing... "I'm doing it again. I'm organizing somebody else's life, which is just as fucked as it ever was.... Okay.. Okay... Hugo, IF... you'd like to have the sketches turned into permanent photographic portraits, I wouldn't mind getting it done for you. You just let me know what you'd like for me to do..."
And then he sat down next to me on the bed and held my hand. The boys finished leafing through the sketchpad and then brought it back over to the large table not too far from my bed.
I hadn't thought about it before, but maybe it would be nice to have these sketches framed and displayed with pictures of all of the important events in our life. Yeah! We're a family with a history now; that's our unique history. We deserve to treat it like other families do theirs.
Nicky said, "Dad who was that old man in the last picture? I've never seen him before either; you know, the one of the man who wore bushy hair and a big bushy moustache and smoked a pipe.
"Well, Nicky, you probably don't know Alberto yet, but I'll bet you'll come across him in your studies..."