Año Viejo

Last year right about this time, I was bleeding. Not very seriously,
just a tiny trickle that lasted but a minute, but I felt I shouldn't be
bleeding on New Year's Eve.

The nurse said to put my arm up but she didn't put a little cotton ball
on the pinch, and no band-aid either, but this was Colombia after all
and I should have been flying back to the US that morning if I hadn't
gotten sick.

"What a fun New Year's, eh?" she said, completely rhetorically and
without even looking at me, and I figured she had said the same thing
to about a hundred people already that morning, making some feel sicker
than they already were. She looked like my sister. Everyone looked like
my sister or my brother whenever I returned for a visit after a couple
of years of being away in the Caucasian heartland.

My room didn't have a window but I could hear the blast of firecrackers
and "tacos" blasting right outside the hospital. Tacos are especially
loud and very potent firecrackers; they send a deafening wave of
explosive sound that travels many blocks. I was relived to think that
whoever was lighting those tacos would get prompt attention should
their hands or face get blown off.

The celebrations had been just too crazy and full of excess. My mom woke
me up early and called me to the table where a plate full of reheated
beans from the night before awaited me, next to scrambled eggs and
toast, and a cup of hot chocolate to wash it all down. I devoured the
meal, figuring I needed to get something in my stomach to start
neutralizing the aguardiente I knew was going to flow in plentiful at
every stop of the tour. And you couldn't say no because then they would
say that America had turned me into a fancy pants wuss. Then there was
blood sausage at aunt Daniela's, deep fried plantains and pork rinds at
my friend Carlos', we bought buñuelos that Doloritas was selling by the
stadium, and by the time I arrived at my cousin Enrique's, my chest
felt like someone beat it with a tennis racket and I was drenched in
cold sweat. "You're having a heart attack, gringo!" he said chuckling
and he called his girlfriend Linda to pick us up. I waited for her
disoriented, lying down on Enrique's leather couch. Before we left, I
vomited a white, foamy soup that I offered to clean up, but Enrique
just said "I'll send you the bill in dollars."

It was just me and an old woman in the flesh-colored room. She was
hooked to one of those EKG machines that prints the heartbeat on paper
rather than show it on the screen, though it made the same beeping
sound. They had told me I was not get up from the bed until Monday,
when they would bring the ultrasound machine to look for damage to the
pericardium. In my mind, I traveled back in time trying to locate the
"pericardium" somewhere in the thorax of the dissected man pictured in
the poster my ninth grade teacher was holding up. All that mattered was
that my heart might have been damaged, really.

My mom had brought me the books I was reading on the airplane. I pulled
"The Book of Illusions" by Paul Auster, and reread whatever chapter I
had been reading. Reading in English helped me imagine I was in my own
bed in Colorado, getting ready to go to sleep. This was truly a book of
illusions. I set the book down and rolled over to my left side, with my
arm over my head so the nurses could mess with the I.V. if they needed
to. Then I fell asleep.

At ten o'clock, a young female voice in my dreams said "hey, hey, hey,"
and I woke up. A nurse had been calling me to give me my medication.
"You understand English?" she asked me and I said yes. She had noticed
the book I had left next to the can where they expected me to pee. "I
had a brother in the United States," she added, using the past tense,
which was curious. "Where is he now?" I asked, wondering if her
brother's path might offer some insight about where I might end up in a
few years. "He died," she said and I felt wretched, even though she had
brought it up. "Oh, I'm so sorry," I said apologetic, and she waived
her hand dismissively. "Don't worry," she said, "this was many years
ago, and I was very young."

There was silence in the room, except for the sick lady's beeping
machine and for the ruckus outside the hospital: people blowing on
horns, drunkards singing. Someone turned on a radio in the hallway, the
station was playing old songs and the announcer would come on every few
minutes, updating listeners of how much - or how little - of the
current year was left. The nurse tore off the EKG print out, made marks
on it with a red pen, folded it and put it in a folder. "How did he
die," I asked her. "He froze to death," she said plainly. "He was
working at a warehouse in the city of Michigan - she meant the state of
Michigan - and was trapped in there during a snowstorm for 32 hours
with no heat or electricity. They found him all curled up like a fetus,
up in some shelf." She explained. "I'm sorry to hear that," I said,
though she had told the story with great detachment, like retelling a
scene from a movie. "Yeah, thanks," she said. "I'm sorry you have to
spend your New Year's Eve here" she said and rubbed my shoulder
affectionately. "Listen, listen!" she then said, pointing towards the
room's door. "Five, four, three, two, one, zero!" said the announcer on
the radio. "I'll let you get up just to give you a hug," the nurse
said, so I grabbed all the cables and I.V. line with my right hand and
slid off the bed. "Happy New Year" we said to each other and then the
nurse turned to the unconscious lady in the next bed and said to her
"Happy New Year to you too, Señora Lucía!"

After the nurse left, I stood there for a few minutes, looking at Señora
Lucía and listening to the banging tacos outside, and thinking about
the burning taste of aguardiente flowing down my throat and making my
stomach burn.