I’ve replayed this conversation over in my mind hundreds if not thousands of times in the decade since we had it, and I know that he was in no condition to yell and that his voice was really barely above a whisper, but it’s hard to explain the impact each word had on me without saying that this was the biggest ass-reaming my father had ever laid on me before or since.
“You get there on time and I promise you that I will be there to shake your hand as soon as you come off the stage at graduation in four years. But if you defer, if you delay, if you leave one day late, I promise that I will give up on you and drop dead right there.”
“You can’t be serious Papo.”
“I have never asked you for anything in your life, I have never told you what to do or how to live your life, but I am telling you this, I am asking you for this, do not make every sacrifice your mother and I have made for nothing. We were not there when our parents died, we were not there to see our nieces and nephews born and there is not a single day that your mother and I do not miss being home, but we have done it because we believed in the American Dream. So I am asking you to go to Willis, and to graduate. Make me proud mijo.”
VI
Surgery was scheduled for the following morning, and by the time we left the hospital it was already way too late to consider getting any real sleep before we had to be back at the hospital. Not that I could sleep anyway. It’s not every day that your father threatens you with his own death. I read a lot and I have yet to encounter that particular scenario in literature, not to say it’s not out there, but you have to admit, “do as I say or I’ll die on you” isn’t all that common a threat. Imagine how different King Lear would have been if Lear had pulled that shit on his kids. Well, at the very least it’d be a lot shorter. “Fine old man, keel over on me, what do I care? Oh, and take this clown with you…”
What’s more depressing than King Lear? Ran, by Kurosawa; seriously, it takes a special kind of messed up to read Lear and say, “yknow, I bet we could make this more depressing.”
When I got home I fired up the modem to check my email before I went to bed, which is always a bad move when you’ve had a long night that hasn’t really gone your way.
From: Renee Costello [
[email protected]]
To: J. Diego Hidalgo [
[email protected]]
D-
I heard about your father. How is he? How are you? A shame this had to happen now, if he’d waited a few years I could have taken care of him : )
If you need anything, call me, OK? My dorm room number is
(816) 832-7782
Love Always,
{|}R{|}
Like I said, at 1 in the morning, when the day hasn’t gone your way, the best thing to do, always, under every single circumstance, is to punt. Go to bed, wake up the next morning and hope you have better field position. But, being one of those aggressive coaches who thinks that mediocre prowess with Madden makes me a good coach of real players, I went for a run play on third and long, I called Renee.
“Hey.”
“Hey. I didn’t think you’d actually call.”
“Well, you’re the only person I knew’d be up.”
“What, Erin doesn’t stay up late?”
“Not as late as your normal hours. I mean, ISU keeps her up a bit later than normal, but she’s out by midnight, flat. You, I knew you’d still be up. How’s Kansas City?”
“I’m in Missouri.”
“Why do you always assume I’m going to screw these things up?”
“Did you call to fight?”
“No, sorry. I just, well…”
“What is it?”
“My dad, it’s not looking. I mean, well, this is serious tomorrow, yknow and like, rehab’s going to be hard and I don’t know what my parents are going to do for, and, I was thinking about deferring a year and my dad found out, I think my Uncle Alfonso told him, and like, he told me if I didn’t go to school on time this year he’d die on me and that’s a really heavy thing to tell your kid, yknow?”
“See, if you’d come here with me you’d be in school already and 400 miles from all this drama.”
“It’s not drama, it’s my family.”
“No, all family is drama. This is why I’ll never understand why you love those people so much.”
“Are you saying my father did this on purpose?”
“Of course not, but this is a test for you, it’s time to grow up and leave your family behind.”
“But they’re my family, they’re all I’ve got.”
“And that attitude has always been your weakness. You really need to learn to let go.”
“Wow, we always have this same argument, don’t we?”
“Yeah, I guess. I’m sorry, I guess you didn’t need this.”
“No shit.”
“So what are you going to do?”
“I’m going to leave for school next week, I guess.”
“You guess? Listen Diego, you’re a smart guy with a bright future. Don’t throw it away by sticking around. Your father is almost right, he won’t die if you stay home, but you will.”
The phone went silent for a few minutes.
“Diego, you there?”
“Yeah, right here. I was just, yknow, thinking.”
“You gonna be OK?”
“Not really. OK, listen, I gotta go.”
“OK, you get some rest, OK?”
“Yeah, I will. You too. Don’t stay up too late.”
“I won’t.”
“Gnight”
“Love you Diego.”
“Yeah. Bye.”
VII
From: J. Diego Hidalgo [
[email protected]]
To: Greg Daniels [
[email protected]]
Greg-
Bad news. My father had a heart attack the other night. He’s stable right now but by the time you read this he’ll be undergoing a quadruple bypass. We’ve talked about my deferring for a year, but I’ve been overruled and I’m going to need some help getting up to Minnesota.
My uncle and I will be mailing my stuff up to Minnesota in a day or two, but I won’t have time to get a plane ticket or arrange a ride to campus. Could you do me a huge favor and work that out for me? I know this is above and beyond, but my dad and I would consider this a huge favor.
Thanks,
-j. diego hidalgo
Willis College Class of 2001
From: Greg Daniels [
[email protected]]
To: J. Diego Hidalgo [
[email protected]]
D-
I’m sorry to hear about your dad, buddy.
I’ve booked you on Vanguard flight 394 out of Midway this coming Thursday. Flight leaves Chicago at 11:32a and arrives in Minneapolis at 12:30p. You’re booked on the 1p shuttle to campus. Just meet Ruth at baggage claim 9 and she’ll take you and another guy, Jim Evans (he’s from Portland and another really cool guy, you’ll like him) and bring you down to campus.
Also, don’t worry about paying for the ticket, I’ve taken care of it, all I ask is that you help me out with a few projects once you’re here.
Good. Take care, God Bless and see you on Thursday,
-Greg F. Daniels
Admissions Counselor
Willis College
1 N. College St.
Ames Mill, MN 55077
VIII
I was exhausted when we arrived at the hospital the following morning. Too anxious to sleep and angry with myself for calling Renee in the middle of the night I had gone to Omega to drink coffee and eat saganaki. Alarmed at seeing me depressed and alone, Denise, the overnight waitress called a few of my friends and had them come out and keep me company. The impromptu gathering had broken up in enough time for me to get home, shower and head out to the hospital with my family.
When we arrived at the hospital, Papo’s mood was, as always, brilliant.
“Wow mijo, looks like you went out last night.” He said by way of greeting.
“
Hey Papo, I heard from Greg at Willis this morning, I have a ticket to Minneapolis for Thursday morning and they’re covering the airfare.”
“Good, that is what I wanted to hear.”
My father and I never spoke of his threat. And, though I’ve thought of it almost daily in the decade plus that’s elapsed since it occurred, I’ve never discussed it with anyone.
Eventually the doctors cleared us out, they had to prep my father for surgery and we were definitely in the way. We sat in the waiting room doing the only thing we could do…wait. The hours stretched out the same way they do when you’re in a middle seat on a trans-oceanic flight. Periodically, a nurse would come out and give us an update and break the monotony. First they stopped his heart and lungs, and then they cracked him open…just like they told us they’d do and everything proceeded as normal.
Rafa walked into the waiting room right as the scheduled update about them restarting my father’s heart was due. But, his presence distracted us and we never noticed that they never came with that announcement.
“Rafa, you came.”
“Yeah, I had a feeling that I should be here. I told my boss and he said he figured I’d need to get out of there before the end of shift, so he had me double covered on the schedule.”
“Me allegro, mijo.”
“It’s good to see you Rafael. Listen, I’m going to go get some coffee downstairs, maybe some pie. Santiago, do you want to come with?” Uncle Alfonso asked.
Santi, never one to turn down coffee and pie jumped at the chance.
“Alfonso, I think I’ll go with you. Stephanie?”
And with that my brother and I were alone in the waiting room.
“Thanks for coming.” I told him.
“You’re right, I need to grow up. I’ve been…yknow.”
“Yeah, I know, believe me, I’ve wanted to as well.”
“I guess you can’t huh?”
“Nope. I’m the oldest.”
“Well, right.”
“Yeah.”
“Well, I’m here.”
“Thanks for coming.”
“Yeah, no problem.”
We sat there in silence, feeling each other out and watching our relationship evolve in the space between us.
“Mr. Hidalgo?”
“Yes,” we both answered.
It was a doctor, not a nurse, but that same cardiologist who came in a few nights ago and talked about my father’s “million dollar heart attack.”
“Is there anyone else here?”
“No, just us. My mother went with the rest of the family to the cafeteria.” It was my brother; he stepped in front of me and took the lead.
“Well, you’re eighteen right?”
“My brother is.”
“We’ve reached the part of the procedure where we restart the patient’s heart and your father isn’t responding to the treatment.”
“What?” I asked.
“His heart isn’t starting back up. We’ve tried several times to start it back up but…”
“No. That’s bullshit.” Rafa again, “I’ve been avoiding this place for days and when I finally show up you tell me that my father is fucking DEAD? No. You go back in there and pretend you’re George Clooney or something and you bring him back. I didn’t say goodbye to him, he can’t go now, I’m still in high school, I need him so you BRING him BACK.”
The doctor stood there stunned for a few seconds, because outside of some television medical drama, I doubt he’d ever heard a colleague spoken to like that, especially not by a doughy 16 year old. I was stunned too because if you swap out the “been avoiding this place” line with “been here all day” and “high school” with “college” that was pretty much what I was going to tell the guy before my brother cut in line.
“Mr. Hidalgo, I understand your frustration…”
“Doctor, I don’t think you quite understand my brother. We don’t believe your doing everything you can to save my father’s life, because you’re out here talking to us, not in there trying to raise the dead, he is dead right, that’s what this is about, this is about preparing the family for the news that you believe is inevitable, that my father is gone, he is no more and that your early prognosis of a quick recovery was a complete fabrication created from half-truths, wishful thinking and resentment of having to give up your early tee time because some spic wetback had a heart attack during your call shift. I know for a fact that my father has the will to pull through this, so no matter how hard you try to assuage your guilt and convince us that you did everything you could, the only way to prove this to us is to go back into that operating room and not come out until you have some better news.”
Yeah, that doctor’d never had one guy talk to him like that, never mind two.
“I’ll be back when we have something else to report.”
Rafa and I sat back down to watch the Cubs dismantle the Expos on the TV in the waiting room and we didn’t speak. He was seething, I was scared. We’d made our deal, I told him I was going to school, so now he had to pull through the surgery. Hadn’t I made things clear to him? Didn’t he read through the lines? Greg bought me a plane ticket, I was going to school, he couldn’t die on me now…five Cubs runs later a nurse came into the waiting room.
“Mr. Hidalgo?” She said.
My brother turned to look at me and motioned for me to be “Mr. Hidalgo.”
“That’s me.”
“Dr. Stefano wanted me to come out and tell you that your father’s heart has restarted.”
“That’s wonderful news.” I said as I glanced back at Rafa.
“Yes. The downside is that since his heart was stopped for so long there might be some long-term damage.”
This got Rafa’s attention and he sprang up. “Like what?”
“Well, we don’t know. It could be nothing, but there could be some lingering brain damage. A slight chance he won’t be able to walk, more likely there will be some speech issues, and he’ll most undoubtedly think a touch slower, there’s really no way to know. But what we do know that is when this occurs to bypass patients we don’t like to tell them, we find that the prognosis is always better when they never discover that they’ve been clinically dead. The psychological strain is just too much.”
“Oh.” I said.
“What can we do?” Rafa said. Well, the doctor will go over this with you afterwards, but does he have a recliner? Some place where he can put his feet up? Because that’s going to help his rehab process if he can keep his feet as elevated as possible, his heart will have to do less work that way.”
“OK, we’ll take care of that.” Rafa replied.
“Anything else?” I added.
“There will be other things the doctor will want to do in terms of his rehab, so I’ll leave that to him.”
“OK,” Rafa said, “I’ll talk to him about it when Dad’s awake again, the three of us. My brother’s leaving for Willis College in a few days so I’ll be in charge of my father’s rehab. You heard of Willis, it’s a really good school, it’s in Ames Mill, Minnesota.”
“Oh, isn’t that where St. Sven is?” The nurse asked.
“Yes, yes it is” I replied.
“My sister went there, she mentioned some other college across the river that was really good but kinda strange. That must be Willis.”
“Yeah, that’s Willis” Rafa said, the shit eating grin on his face signifying that the benevolent, grown up, take charge brother had been replaced by the asshole once again.
At this point Uncle Alfonso, Aunt Stephanie, Santi and Mom walked back into the waiting room.
“Sorry we were gone so long guys, that inning was crazy, wasn’t it? We didn’t want to miss any runs while we were in de elevator.” My Uncle said.
“Que paso?” my mother said, looking at the two of us.
“Dad’s heart has just been restarted, they’re closing him up right now. Looks like things were good ma
.” I said.
“Yup.” Rafa said shooting me a look sealing our pact not to tell Mamacita what only we knew, that Papo had been gone for a while.
IX
The next few days were a blur of preparation. My Uncle Alfonso took me shopping for last minute provisions before we spent an hour at the local UPS distribution center sending everything up to Minnesota. We loaded all my winter gear in one Rubbermaid steamer trunk, sealed it with half a roll of box tape and sent that off for the whopping total of $20.39. Another trunk was loaded up with my summer gear, which ended up being $26.24 to ship. My stereo, computer and various odds and ends went in four other boxes that brought the grand shipping total to something in the neighborhood of $200 including insurance and it was all due to get there on Wednesday, so it’d be waiting for me when I got there on Thursday.