When Invisible Children Sing

by Huang, Chi Cheng,Tang, Irwin,Coles, Robert

  “Thanks, Jessica,” I say. “I’ll go to the hospital after church.” I take a deep breath. Am I relieved because Tómas lives or because Gabriel hasn’t screwed up? Does it matter? All’s well. I turn to walk away.

  “Chi, something else happened.”

  “What?”

  “There was a stabbing.”

  “Who got stabbed?”

  “A boy in the park got stabbed.”

  “One of our boys?”

  “No.”

  “Um, so what happened?”

  “It was Gabriel. He stabbed another boy in the back. The boy is in surgery right now at Methodist Hospital, three blocks down the street.”

  I walk toward the hospital. I know Gabriel has done some things in the past, but he’s reformed now. There must have been some confusion about what happened. I trust Gabriel. I know him.

  I stand at the hospital entrance. A fat, elderly man is rolled out of the hospital on a stretcher, his family scooting along around him like cytoplasm. The man is so deathly pale he blends in with his sheets. And yet there is neither an intravenous line attached to him nor any medical personnel around him. I look inside the “ambulance.” It is an empty van. No people, no medications, no defibrillators. Into this shell the man is inserted and driven away.

  I spot Daniel in the hospital parking lot, talking to a national police officer. After the policeman finishes his interview, I ask Daniel if Tómas is all right.

  “Yes,” Daniel says, “but the boy Gabriel stabbed is real bad.”

  “How bad?”

  Daniel shakes his head and his eyes glaze over as he remembers the scene. “There was blood everywhere. We were in the park playing before church. Gabriel was sitting next to a tree just relaxing. Then one of the boys in the park gave one of us—Coco—a dirty look. Suddenly, Coco and this other boy started punching each other. A mob fight broke out between our boys and the other boy and his friends. Coco was taking these kids down. It was amazing for someone who never says anything. I didn’t think Coco had it in him. Then Gabriel took his eight-inch knife and stabbed the boy who started the fight in the back. The boy fell to the ground, yelling. Screeching and everything. Blood just pouring out, gushing, and his stomach getting bigger and bigger. It was scary. David took him to this hospital. He’s in surgery.”

  “Where’s Gabriel?”

  “He’s long gone. Probably in another city by now.”

  I walk into the hospital and climb its green marble stairs. Floor three. As I walk toward the end of the hall, I look into each room and see nothing. No doctors, no patients, just beds. No one walks the dimly lit hall. When I get to the end of the hall, I am looking into the eyes of four teary- and weary-eyed campesinas. A fiftysomething-year-old cholita wears the traditional clothing of a countrywoman.

  “Is your son inside?” I ask her.

  “Yes, do you know him?” she asks, wringing her hands.

  “I heard about him. I work with Bururu Home for Street Boys.”

  The woman puts her hands behind her back and looks down at the dusty floor. “He is such a good boy. He always helps out whenever he can. Now I may lose him.” Her lips tighten against the tears. A sun-worn campesina woman places her arm around her, then turns a hardened eye to me. “The doctor says he’s bleeding inside. From the spleen.” If a doctor doesn’t do surgery and put a clamp on his spleen immediately, the kid may bleed to death from within.

  “I hope that he will live,” says the mother. She looks toward the ceiling. “Can you help us?” she asks.

  “Yes, I can,” I say, trying to make eye contact despite the piercing shame I feel right now. “Does your son need blood?”

  “Yes.” Bolivian hospitals don’t have blood banks, so friends and loved ones must be present to donate. I guess motherless children bleed to death.

  “What is your son’s name?”

  “Arturo Sanchez.” I brought Gabriel to the orphanage. Not only did I bring him there, I cajoled him into coming. Then I left him to the counselors and assumed he had reformed when he made some little people out of clay. I searched him on the first day, so I assumed he wasn’t packing a knife. But a steel blade ends up in the spleen of a boy. Arturo Sanchez.

  I enter the phlebotomy room as the attendants discuss what they want to do after graduation while watching a soap opera on TV. “Hello, I was wondering if you could tell me how much blood Arturo Sanchez needs for his surgery.”

  “It’s hard to say. They are doing an exploratory laparotomy right now, examining the abdominal cavity for organ damage.”

  “I heard his spleen was injured.”

  “Apparently the knife went through the boy’s back, damaging two lumbar vertebrae, puncturing his small intestine, and lacerating the spleen. The boy is lucky to be alive.”

  “How much blood does he need?”

  “He needs two liters of A positive.” My blood is O positive. I can donate to anyone. I sprint the five blocks back to the church. The congregation sings another hymn. I tap the shoulder of an elder named César and tell him in three sentences what happened. His eyes widen. As I walk out of the church, the congregation continues to sing.

  Upon returning to the hospital, I find Alejandro sitting in a green plastic chair.

  “Alejandro,” I say, “what type of blood do you have?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t want to give blood.”

  “The boy needs blood,” I tell him.

  Alejandro cringes.

  “Hey, it’s just blood,” I say. “You’ve faced worse.”

  “Chi, I don’t like needles.” Tears well up in his eyes.

  “I’ll go first. You’ll see. You will be fine. The boy may die if we don’t give him some blood. Did you hear me?” I ask. “The boy may die.”

  Alejandro’s face clears. “Okay, I’ll do it.” We walk down to the basement blood lab. I lie supine on a stretcher. I turn and see the young phlebotomist holding a 250-milliliter plastic bag and a large eighteen-gauge needle. I see him neither take the needle out of a plastic bag nor clean it. He could have used that needle all day. All week. What are my chances of getting HIV? I don’t want to die giving blood to someone who was stabbed by a kid I stupidly invited to stay at an orphanage because I wanted badly to change his life. Where did he get the knife? From the kitchen! I clench my fist. My arm veins bulge as if I’m holding the knife. Or am I the one being stabbed? A sharp pain runs up my arm and into my chest as the needle penetrates my vein. Dark maroon blood races through the labyrinthine tube and into the big bag, which grows fat and dark. Giving my blood doesn’t make up for what I did. What if it were my son who got stabbed?

  I walk out of the phlebotomy room to find twenty people from my church sitting in the waiting room. “Chi, we heard about the boy. Pobresito. We are ready to give blood.”

  The phlebotomist comes out of the lab. “We’re ready for Alejandro.” Alejandro clenches his teeth.

  “You’ll be fine,” I tell him as he trundles in.

  One of the lab technicians dashes up the stairs, carrying my blood in one hand and an IV line in another. My blood will soon course through the arteries of another human being.

  Señora Lydia walks in. “Chi, Jessica told me what happened,” she says. “How is the boy doing?”

  “He’s in surgery right now. You may want to talk to the family. They are right over there.” She glances at the mother, who has just walked out of the phlebotomy room.

  “Remember,” she says, “Gabriel did not stay at Bururu. He only came to the orphanage to have lunch for the past few days. He is not our responsibility.” I look at Señora Lydia with confusion. A prolonged pregnant pause, and my high regard for this courageous woman crumbles. None of us should be placed on a pedestal. The air is thin up there and your mind plays tricks on you.

  “Maybe you should go and talk to them,” I tell her.

  “How is Tómas?” she asks.

  “I don’t know,” I say. “He is upstairs. I am going to visit him later.” I wa
lk out of the hospital. It is 2 p.m. already. I walk down the cobblestone steps of the hospital. On the hospital veranda, women sell candy, soft drinks, toys, and trinkets. I walk up to one of the women and look over her wares. “How much is that play action figure? The one that looks like a professional wrestler.”

  “Twenty bolivianos.”

  Tómas, a ten-year-old boy, lies in bed staring out the window. He wears a hospital gown. His moppish hair looks as if it’s been given a bowl cut.

  “Hello, Tómas”

  “Hello, Chi,”

  “How are you feeling?”

  “Fine.”

  “What happened?”

  “I got hit by a car.”

  “Did you hit your head or lose consciousness?”

  “No.”

  “Show me your leg.”

  “They took X-rays and everything. I don’t think it is broken or anything.”

  I examine the leg to make sure he hasn’t been neurovascularly compromised. He has full sensation and there is adequate blood perfusion. The X-rays hang from his bed railing. His pelvis and femur look normal, thankfully.

  “I got this for you.”

  He cautiously opens the packaging, as if it might explode. His eyes don’t light up, but he starts moving the hero’s arms and legs around and making him fly and save people. Out of his mouth, he lets dribble a weak “gracias.”

  “I’d better let you rest,” I say, pushing open the door. I glance back at Tómas. “Gracias, Chi,” he says emphatically.

  Later that evening, I hear that the surgeons removed Arturo’s spleen and that he has awoken from the anesthesia. He will leave the hospital in one week. The next morning I visit him in his room. He is a fourteen- or fifteen-year-old boy.

  “Hello, Arturo.”

  “Hi. Who are you?”

  “I work at Bururu and gave you some of my blood yesterday. How are you doing?”

  “Better. I still feel weak.”

  “I want to apologize for what happened. I know that does not make amends, so please tell me what else I can do for you.”

  “My father died when I was young. My mother sells candy in El Alto Obrajes. She’s in debt to the person she works for. She works hard so that I can live a better life than she has. But we keep sliding backward.”

  “Did the director of Bururu visit you?” I ask Arturo. “She is a middle-aged woman with curly brown hair.”

  “No one visited me,” says Arturo, “except you and my family.”

  “I will talk to Señora Lydia to see if Bururu will pay for your medical bill.”

  Arturo remains silent. He blinks slowly.

  “What happened, Arturo? Can you tell me why this happened?”

  Arturo folds his hands together. “I was in the park in the morning with my friends. This boy gave me this look that I didn’t like. I demand respect. So I went up to talk to him. All his boys ganged up behind him, and all mine stood behind me. But before too many punches were thrown, I felt a sharp pain in my back. I fell to the ground in agony. I don’t remember much after that.”

  “This didn’t have to happen,” I tell Arturo. “If someone gives you a look, you can walk away. Your mother has suffered a lot because of this.”

  Arturo’s entire body stiffens, but he does not move. “You know I demand respect. That’s all I want. Respect. I’d do it again if I had to.”

  “You mean you would die for respect.”

  Arturo blinks slowly.

  9

  Into the Night

  12:30 a.m., November 7, 1997;

  Alonzo de Mendoza

  A child, having worked hard all day selling snacks and having made almost no money, gives in to hunger and eats some of his inventory. I finish treating a boy next to him with an infected cyst on his eyelid. Rodrigo whispers in my ear, “Guess who I found.” I turn in the direction of Rodrigo’s chin to see a boy with his fist to his nose, getting high. After wrapping up with my patient, I slowly walk over to the intoxicated boy.

  “Hello, Gabriel.” Three seconds pass.

  “Hiiiiiyyyyaaa, Doooooctttor Cheee.”

  “What have you been taking?” Five seconds.

  “Eevveerrythhinngg.”

  “Paint thinner?”

  “Yep.”

  “Glue?”

  “Yep.”

  “Alcohol?”

  “Yep.”

  “Marijuana?”

  “Yep.”

  “Cocaine?”

  “Ooooohhhh nnooo.”

  “Why are you taking all these drugs?”

  “Doctorrr Cheee, yoou shhhoould knooow theee answerrrr to thaaat.”

  “Actually, I don’t. Why?”

  “To escaaape thisss terrrriiiible exiiistence.”

  “Where have you been?”

  Moving his arms in a sporadic manner, he replies, “Everrrywheeere.”

  “Where are you sleeping?”

  “Heeerrrre aaand theeerrrree.”

  “Why so many places?”

  “Oohh, Doooctooorrr Cheeee, yooou knoowwww whyyy.”

  “Why?”

  He lifts his right arm up in the air and cocks his head to the left in the manner of a hanging.

  “Beeecaaaause theeey aaaaare loooooking fooorrr meee.”

  “Why?”

  “Beeecaaause I ssstabbed a kiiid.”

  “You nearly killed him.”

  “Reeealllyyyy. Thaaaat’s tooooo baaaad.”

  I search hard for remorse in his eyes, in the way he holds up his head, in the twist of his torso. “You ruptured his spleen,” I say, “and he bled into his abdomen.”

  “Hooooowwwww looooong diiiid heee staaaay iiiinnnn theee hooooossspppitaaal?”

  “Five days.” Gabriel shifts his weight, starts to limp away. “What’s wrong with your leg?” I ask him.

  “Anooooother boy staaabbbed meee iiiin the leeeeg.”

  “Do you want me to treat it?”

  “Noooo, thaaat’s okaaay.”

  “Okay then, be careful.”

  “Byyyye, Doctorrrr Cheeee. Yooou shoooould beee caaarefulll tooooo.”

  I walk away from Gabriel, and I stand before a large group of street children hanging out on several concrete benches. Some of them carry little babies by piggyback. All of them have their fists to their noses. I open my arms to get their attention. My heart jumps. Anger and sadness at Gabriel coalesce.

  A teenage boy walks toward me. His body swings in semicircular motions as he attempts to maintain his balance. The fumes of his paint thinner penetrate my nostrils and cause me to get a mild high. He drops his ball of yarn into his pocket and attempts to gather enough neurons together to form a thought. “Chi,” he slurs, “why are you here on the streets with us every night? Why would anybody in their twenties spend their weekend nights on the streets when they could go to parties or the movies?”

  Silence. I don’t respond to his question.

  A boy shouts out, “It is because you are a Christian!”

  “Yes, I am a Christian. My faith plays a major role in what I am and what I do.” The children ponder this.

  “So how do you tell who’s a Christian on the street?” I ask them. “Does he have a big nose? Does he have long hair? Is he a good person? Is it a person who says that Jesus is God? Does that make him a Christian?”

  There is no answer.

  “What’s a llama?” I ask the children.

  “It’s an animal that goes uurruu!” shouts out a boy. The children giggle.

  “Where does it live?”

  “In the mountains!” shouts a girl.

  “Does it have fur?”

  “Yes, it has fur,” explains a boy. “That is why they can live up in the mountains!”

  “Since you know so much about llamas, does that make you a llama lover?”

  “No, they smell bad!” exclaims the boy. The children explode in laughter.

  “It is the same thing with Jesus. Many people say that they know who Christ is. But they just know the fa
cts. They do not really know Him. You can go to church every Sunday and still not know Him.”

  “So how do you know Him?” asks the boy.

  “By praying to God, reading the Bible, and looking at myself honestly each and every day.”

  I think of Gabriel. “For many people it goes in one ear and out the other. In reality, it needs to go from your ear to your heart. I came to accept the presence of God in my life eight years ago. It changed me so much that it is my desire to live a godly life, even if it is at midnight on a Friday night. That spirit lives inside me and continues to change me. Because of this, I am just trying to do what Jesus asks: to serve my neighbors. That’s you.”

  Glancing at my watch, I notice that it is 1 a.m. I look over to Rodrigo, who is explaining Christianity to one of the street girls. I unlock my backpack and dig for more songs. I ask the children if they would like to sing. Everyone responds with a fervent “yes.” The children grab for song sheets. Rodrigo tunes his guitar, and we start with “Cuan Bello Es el Señor.”

  Cuan bello es el Señor, cuan hermoso es el Señor.

  Cuan bello es el Señor, hoy le quiero adorar.

  La belleza de mi Señor nunca se agotará.

  La hermosura de mi Señor siempre resplandecerá.

  Their off-key voices careen outward and upward like winged, uncoordinated chimes flying into each other. Police officers, soldiers, drunks, and prostitutes glance at the children momentarily and move on.

  11:30 p.m., November 8, 1997, Bridge over Sewer System

  Between the street and the sewer system fence, the twenty-four-hour vendors in their yellow metal stands busily grill hot dogs and hamburgers. A woman wearing a stained apron carries a bucket of dirty water from her burger stand and dumps it onto the street. The brown water hits the black street and ripples outward, then settles together to form a new puddle. A tiny foot skirts the puddle. The foot belongs to a small black boy wearing a dirty, grayish-white hat and dark, frayed blue jeans. He stands before the burger stand. He turns around and looks for something or someone. No one is watching him. He walks between two yellow stands. He crouches down and crawls through a hole in the sewer system fence that looks as if it were made for dogs.