Be Myself! - 39. Blessed Escape

This chapter was written based on the Viñas’ recollection of events. My own memories of that Sunday afternoon never translated to more than quick flashes, sounds and impressions. Even now, any attempt at recovering those memories causes me nothing but pain and distress. I apologise for the slightly different style of this chapter, but this is the only way I found of communicating the aftermath of my meeting with Joseph Schubert.

(...)

It was mid-afternoon, but the pouring rain and the dark clouds made it seem like it was already late evening. Sam was on his way out of the bathroom when the annoying noise of the flat’s buzzer blared right next to his ear. He quickly answered it, though not before cursing his bad timing.

“Hello?” The boy was cautious. The Viñas were not expecting anyone that day, so even eight-year-old Sam knew he should be suspicious of anyone bothering his family.

“Hi, I believe I have a friend of yours with me. His name is Oscar, and he insisted I brought him here,” the deep male voice answered. He sounded worried, but not exactly panicking.

“Oscar? But he has a key!” Sam argued, getting even more suspicious.

“He’s not exactly able to open the door.” This turned Sam’s reservations into curiosity. He opened his front door and stepped into the hallway. Because the Viñas’ building had only two flats per floor and they lived on the ground floor, their hallway was really just a small space separating the two opposite front doors of the flats. The entrance door to the building was merely a few steps away to Sam’s right.

“Shit! What happened? Mum! Mum!” the boy screamed. The entrance door had its upper half in glass, so as soon as he turned to face the unexpected visitor, Sam was greeted by a scene that was horrifying even to his ‘I-play-all-the-most-gory-videogames-and-don’t-even-flinch’ standards. A tall black man with short curly hair and a wild beard carried in his arms a boy who was barely recognisable as Oliver’s boyfriend. There was blood all over his face, his nose was bent in an awkward shape, one of his eyes was swollen shut, and his jaw was definitely in the wrong place. There was blood on his clothes too. He seemed to still be bleeding, and barely breathing.

Miranda Savage heard her son’s screams and ran to the hall. Her husband and older child followed suit. Oliver hurried to open the front door and let the man and Oscar in, while his parents asked the stranger about what had happened.

“I found him trying to walk down Anniesland Road. I offered to take him to the hospital or call an ambulance, but he insisted I brought him here instead,” the man explained. He spoke with a slight middle-eastern accent. Oscar gave the first indication that he was awake and listening to the conversation by slowly nodding and mumbling something incomprehensible.

“You shouldn’t have listened to him! We need to take him to the hospital now!” Ms Savage exclaimed, guiding the man to the living room. He carefully laid Oscar on the three-seat couch, holding his head to the side to prevent him from choking on his own blood and vomit. No one seemed to care that the couch was soon covered in dark red stains. “I’ll call an ambulance. Leo, get our first aid kit!”

“I have already tried to administer some first aid, madam, but I’m afraid it wasn’t enough,” the man said, never taking his eyes away from Oscar. Oliver and Sam stood next to him, unsure of what they could do. Oliver seemed torn between feeling horrified by everything and doing his best to help. His indecision caused him to be unable to avert his eyes away from his boyfriend, despite the increasingly nauseating feeling brewing in his stomach.

“Well, then, we’ll do what we can here too.” Ms Savage left the room to call the ambulance as Mr Viñas approached with the first aid kit. He cut through Oscar’s shirt to find countless bruises on his abdomen and a few open cuts. This was finally too much for Oliver. He threw up on the spot, and his little brother had to help him walk to the bathroom.

The two men worked to stop the bleeding and clear up Oscar’s face while Ms Savage ignored the pouring rain and waited outside of the building for the ambulance. Oscar’s skin had turned horribly pale. He vomited on the black man’s hand, and and blood never stopped dripping from his mouth. Sam forbade Oliver from approaching Oscar again, so the Viñas children observed everything from a distant corner in the living room. Ten minutes passed before the paramedics came through the door. Their faces turned grim as they checked Oscar’s vital signs. They hurriedly put an oxygen mask around Oscar’s swollen face and moved him to a stretcher, taking extra care to not move his neck. Ms Savage went with them in the ambulance, and the others were asked to head to the hospital by car.

“I never got the chance to introduce myself properly,” the man said once the sirens of the ambulance were but a faint sound in the distance. “My name is Jeshua.”

“Nice to meet you, Jeshua. I’m Leopoldo Viñas, and my children are Oliver and Sam”. The two men shook hands.

“Thank you for your help,” Oliver said, shaking Jeshua’s hand as well. His skin was drained of all colour and he seemed about to throw up again. “If it wasn’t for you…”

“I did what I could. There was nobody else around because of the storm. The kid would not have been able to get very far on his own.” Jeshua smiled faintly at Oliver, and then turned to Mr Viñas again. “If you don’t mind, I would like to go with you to the hospital. I don’t know you or the boy at all, but I’m worried about him. I would like to know what will become of him.”

“Of course, please come with us. We can’t thank you enough for what you did.” Mr Viñas shook hands with Jeshua once again, and they headed to their respective cars. The Viñas’ tenements had no car park, so their car was parked on the street barely a few meters away from their front door. The journey to the hospital was silent and felt much longer than it really was.

(...)

“They are still examining him,” Ms Savage updated Jeshua and her family at the A&E. “But they were saying that with so much damage done to his face, it’s very likely that he will have some brain damage as well.”

Oliver hugged his mother tightly upon hearing the news, burying his face in her clothes, and letting the tears flow freely. Ms Savage caressed his hair tenderly, though she too seemed very shaken up. Sam hugged his big brother and tried to tell him Oscar would be fine, but it only made Oliver cry more.

“Excuse me, but, if you don’t mind my asking, do you follow any religion at all?” Jeshua asked the family. Ms Savage raised an eyebrow.

“No. We are not particularly religious, but we respect other people’s faiths,” she answered rather carefully. Jeshua had not stricken her as someone particularly religious, or at least not the kind of religious fundamentalist that made their entire religion look bad. “Why are you asking that?”

“It’s just because I know people sometimes find solace in their beliefs at times of great sorrow,” Jeshua answered, smiling slightly.

“Oscar is not dead. Don’t talk like we already lost him,” Oliver mumbled through his mother’s clothes. Jeshua seemed to have heard him well, however.

“I don’t mean it that way. I apologise for the misunderstanding.” He waited to see if Oliver was going to look at him, but the boy did not move. “I asked because I was wondering if you would like to pray for his recovery, but if you are not religious I will not press this matter further. I was just trying to offer a way to help you cope with the situation.”

“That’s ok. Thank you.” Ms Savage smiled slightly. She could feel a strong sense of peace and calm coming from Jeshua, and it helped her settle her own feelings. “What is your religion, then?”

“I don’t follow a particular religion as such, in terms of specific dogmas and rituals.” Jeshua approached the Viñas’. Oliver moved his head slightly so that he could see the man from the corner of one eye. “You see, my mother is Jewish, but my father grew up in an environment that was influenced almost equally by Christianity, Judaism, and Islam, and as such I’ve learned to uphold and live by the values and lessons taught by those religions rather than worry about specific kinds of practices. At their core principle, those religions are not as different as certain kinds of people would have you believe.” Ms Savage and Mr Viñas nodded to that, and Jeshua’s smile widened. “If you had indicated a wish to pray, I would have accompanied you following your preferred religion.”

“You know, about praying…” Oliver finally took his face away from his mother’s clothes to face Jeshua. “I don’t really think I believe in anything, but in a way it also means I don’t necessarily don’t believe in things, if you know what I mean?” Jeshua nodded. Oliver felt an urge to approach him and hug him too. Jeshua’s smiling face was like an island of peace in a world of pain and worry. “Either way, it wouldn’t cause Oscar any harm, would it?”

“I don’t think so. If your prayers work and you wish your boyfriend well, then he will get better. If it turns out praying doesn’t work after all, they will not cause Oscar to get any worse than he would otherwise.”

“How do you know Oscar is Oliver’s boyfriend?” Sam asked Jeshua. He tried to show some hostility, but Jeshua’s complete lack of aggression soon frustrated his attempt.

“Because Oscar told me to go to his boyfriend’s house, and I figured by Oliver’s reaction that he must be the boyfriend in question.” Jeshua’s simple answer made Sam pout in his cute childish fashion. Oliver was particularly delighted, as this was the first time Jeshua had openly acknowledged him as male. With all the chaos following Oscar’s unexpected arrival, Oliver had had no time to put on his binder, though his worrying about Oscar also prevented him from caring too much about it.

“Can you show me how you pray?” Oliver asked. “I wouldn’t do it if it was some specific religious thing, but you said you do things your own way, so I could go with that. Even if it doesn’t work, at least I won’t feel like all I can do is sit and wait for news.”

“Of course, it will be an honour.” Jeshua bowed slightly to Oliver. “Hospitals usually have prayer rooms. We can ask where the one here is and head there for the time being…”

Oliver accepted the suggestion, and his family decided to go along as well. The general consensus was that it would do them good to get away from the hospital atmosphere, even if for just a short while. The trip to the prayer room was a welcoming distraction. The place was empty, and so Jeshua took his time explaining his personal beliefs.

“I believe that there’s something around us, a force of good and love that keeps this universe together and wants us all to love one another.” Jeshua told the Viñas’. “Some people call it God, but I don’t feel like I need to give it a name. All I really want to do is feel connected to this energy of love and use it to spread my love to others. My prayer is my way to wish my love upon others and also to feel loved. You may think it is cliché, but I do believe love can sometimes make ‘miracles’.”

“I don’t feel like I can argue with someone who preaches unconditional love,” Ms Savage commented, smiling serenely. “Whether this energy you speak of is really there or not, I think sometimes it’s enough to know that there are people out there who believe in those things.”

“Thank you. Shall we pray, then?” Jeshua looked at each of the Viñas’ in turn, nodding to all of them. “The prayer is silent. In your minds, say what you wish for Oscar. Try to reach out to him, send him positive wishes of recovery and love. If you feel silly doing that, then just think of what you want to happen. Let’s close our eyes… and pray.”

The room took a collective big breath and let it out slowly. Regardless of whether their prayers would have any effect in Oscar’s recovery, the fact that the Viñas’ were there together, immersed in the peaceful aura that Jeshua seemed to be unconsciously irradiating, was in itself helpful. It gave the family an opportunity to prepare their minds for whatever was to come, and to gather the necessary strength to face it.

(...)

The Viñas’ left the prayer room much calmer than when they came in, which was very fortunate, because soon after they returned to the waiting room, a doctor came to see them.

“Hi, I am Doctor Rankin and I have been taking care of Oscar.” The doctor shook Ms Savage and Mr Viñas’s hand. “I have mostly good news about Oscar. Are you his relatives?” she asked them.

“I’m his boyfriend. Oscar doesn’t keep in touch with his family anymore. He has been living with us for almost a month now,” Oliver answered. “How’s he doing?”

“Oscar was very lucky. Because of the extent of his facial injuries, we were expecting potentially severe brain injuries as well. But thankfully we only found a minor concussion that hopefully won’t have long-term consequences.”

“That’s great to hear!” Oliver almost shouted. The doctor shot him a warning glance, and Oliver’s face became the same colour as his hair.

“On the other hand, we found severe internal bleeding due to a ruptured spleen. He is now undergoing surgery to have it removed, and my team will have to discuss the aftercare for that with you later.”

“Shit,” Oliver mumbled. “I don’t know what the spleen is, but I don’t like the sound of that.”

“The spleen is an organ that always bursts when people have car crashes!” Surprisingly, Sam volunteered an enthusiastic answer to his brother’s question. “It doesn’t really do anything important, so doctors always take it out on the TV medical programmes! Oscar will be fine!”

Dr Rankin seemed amused by Sam’s explanation, but her duty to provide proper care to her patients forced her to correct the little boy. “Actually, the spleen is responsible for producing some of the body’s natural defences against infections and diseases. While it is true that people can live nearly normal lives without their spleen, they need to be extra careful when they get sick, as their bodies become less capable of fighting diseases. But as I said, we can go over these things later when everything is more settled.” The doctor turned to Ms Savage. “The blood loss also meant Oscar needed a blood transfusion.”

“I’m not surprised,” Ms Savage commented.

“There was so much blood…” Sam added. It said a lot about his worry for Oscar that he sounded scared rather than excited about it.

“We will also treat his broken jaw and nose. They will both require surgery to fix, so it will be a couple of hours before Oscar is out of the operating room. I advise you to get some fresh air, something to eat, and come back later in the evening.”

“Thank you, doctor,” Mr Viñas said.

“One more thing, though, before you leave…” the doctor called after them.

“What is it?” Ms Savage asked. The doctor motioned for two police officers standing nearby to approach the group.

“The types and severity of injures we found on Oscar are consistent with fights and domestic abuse, so it is our policy to try finding out as much as possible what caused those injuries, in case the police need to be involved. Do you know how Oscar got hurt?”

“No, I wasn’t there,” Ms Savage answered.

“I found him trying to walk down the street in the middle of a storm, but I don’t know where he came from or whom he was with,” Jeshua answered. Oliver hesitated a little, but he ultimately decided he should share what he knew too.

“Oscar was going to see his parents today. He wanted to talk to them to let them know he was cutting ties with them. He was supposed to come home straight after that.”

“Do you know if his parents are prone to violence?” one of the police officers asked Oliver. His parents turned to him surprised, and in the case of Ms Savage, also very angry. She spoke to the officers first.

“I don’t know about violence, but Oscar’s parents are some of the worst bigots I’ve ever met. They don’t accept their son’s sexuality and his involvement with my son, which is why he came to live with us in the first place.” She turned to Oliver. “I can’t believe you didn’t tell us Oscar was planning to see his parents again! You shouldn’t have let him go alone!”

“But he didn’t let me…” Oliver tried to defend himself, but his mother’s outburst had made him close to tears. Thankfully, Jeshua intervened before the situation could escalate.

“Please, Ms Savage, now is not the time to get angry with your son. What is done is done, so let’s concentrate in helping Oscar and catching the people who did this to him, ok?” Jeshua placed a hand on her shoulder, and she became visibly calmer.

“Ok. I’m sorry I yelled at you, Oliver.”

“That’s ok, Mum.” Oliver hugged his mother. “Oscar said he didn’t think his parents would do anything bad to him. He said they would listen to rational arguments or some such.”

“Do you know where Oscar’s parents live?” one of the officers asked Oliver.

“Yes, we were there once. It’s on Anniesland Road…” Ms Savage began to answer, but she was interrupted by Jeshua.

“That’s the street I found him on. He was walking past a grey house built on top of a small hill. He was holding onto the fence to help him stand and walking very slowly. I don’t think he could have walked very far in his condition.”

“That sounds like his parents’ house.” Ms Savage was getting angry again, but since this time it was not with one of her children, Jeshua made no attempt to calm her down. “I think it’s very possible Oscar’s parents were responsible for this. For what I know about them, I think they might even be celebrating what they just did.” She turned to the police officers. “Please make sure they have what is coming to them.”

“We will certainly investigate matters, madam. Your combined statements might be enough to allow us to search the house. Would you mind coming with us to give official statements so we can open an investigation on the case?”

“It’ll be my pleasure!” Ms Savage promptly answered. She marched to the family car even ahead of the police officers. Mr Viñas stayed behind long enough to give his phone number to the hospital’s secretary so they could be informed of any news about Oscar, and the whole group left for the police station including Jeshua, who agreed to give his statement too.

(...)

The Viñas’ and Jeshua spent the next couple of hours in the police station going over their statements. Even Sam wanted to collaborate with the investigation, so it took the police some time to process all the necessary paperwork. During this time, the two officers who took the family to the station were sent to interview Oscar’s parents and search their house.

“Now we just have to hope they find what they need to send those horrible people to rot in prison!” Ms Savage said. She was the most keen to see Oscar’s parents persecuted. “They tried to kill Oscar. There’s no other explanation for this. They wanted their own son dead, and they wanted to kill him with their own hands. I’m putting all of us in therapy after this.”

“Why do parents want to hurt their kids like this?” Sam asked. Neither Ms Savage nor Mr Viñas seemed very comfortable answering him, so Jeshua stepped in.

“Because those parents haven’t learned to love their children enough. Some people never really learn, and not just with their children. For some, one life is not enough to learn the basics about love and compassion. I feel sorry for them.”

“Do these people get a second chance, then?” Sam asked again. Jeshua glanced at the boy’s parents, silently asking for permission to explain his beliefs to the child. Ms Savage and Mr Viñas nodded to him.

“I believe they do. You see, I believe that this being of love I spoke about earlier is so powerful it can’t hate anyone or hold grudges. It forgives every one of its creations. It wants to see them grow into people capable of loving each other just as it loves everyone. So it will give them as many chances as they need to become as good as they can be.”

“Ok. Cool.” Sam blinked a couple of times, then dug his smartphone out of his pocket and found a shooting mini-game to pass the time. It was never clear whether he really understood, learned, or believed anything regarding Jeshua’s answer, at least not for the next few years.

It was already dark outside by the time the Viñas’ left the police station. They decided to go to a fast-food restaurant to grab some fat-coated calories before returning to the hospital (not because they had an appetite, but because they knew if they did not eat they would end up admitted in the hospital too). When they finally arrived, they were greeted by Dr Rankin, the same doctor who had spoken to them earlier.

“Oscar is in the recovery room. His surgeries went well, but we need to watch him closely because of the risk of infection. If there are no complications, he should be out in about a week.”

“That’s great to hear. Thank you so much,” Ms Savage said.

“When can we see him?” Oliver asked.

“Not yet. We are being particularly careful about infections, so we will not transfer him to a room until tomorrow morning. However, tomorrow you should be able to see him. He will be kept in a private room, so visitation hours will be less strict.”

“Ok.” Oliver was obviously disappointed, but he saw no reason to argue with the doctor. “Can I spend the night here, though? I feel like I shouldn’t leave him…”

“I’m sorry, but we don’t allow non-patients to sleep in the hospital rooms. You are welcomed to stay in the waiting area, though.”

“Mum, can I stay?” Oliver asked with his best puppy eyes. Ms Savage and Mr Viñas looked at each other, back to their son, and let out synchronised sighs.

“If you think you can cope… And if you think you can skip one day of school…”

“I don’t think I would be much use at school even if I went,” Oliver argued. “Please, Mum!”

“I don’t know…” Ms Savage was not convinced.

“I could stay with him if you don’t want to leave Oliver alone.” Jeshua offered. “Though I do realise how suspicious it sounds when a stranger asks to take care of your child, so I understand if you don’t want me to.”

“Would you stay here all night long for someone you don’t even know?” Oliver asked Jeshua.

“As I told you before, I would like to see that Oscar is recovering well. I may not know him, but I believe our lives crossed paths today for a reason. If it is because of my interference that he made it out alive, then I feel it’s almost my responsibility to know what he will do with this life I granted him.”

“That sounds really creepy,” Oliver noted. Sam, on the other hand, became considerably more enthusiastic.

“No, that sounds really cool! It’s like you’re one of those high-tech scientists with cool labs and you turned Oscar into a cyborg and you want to make him into a hero that’ll save the world!” The child turned to his mother. “Mum, can I stay with the cyborg-maker too?”

“Sam, you have school tomorrow.”

“But I won’t be able to concentrate because I’ll keep thinking about cool cyborg-Oscar and all the blood and the trauma and I’ll have nightmares!”

Ms Savage raised an eyebrow at her son. She did not believe Sam really thought he would be traumatised and have nightmares about the afternoon events, but she also knew traumas were not controlled by people’s wishes. In fact, she was beginning to think she would have nightmares.

“You know what, I think we all deserve a day off tomorrow.”

“Then we can all stay here?” Sam asked, hopeful and with the same puppy eyes as his brother.

“Let’s stay for as long as we can handle it. I will call your schools tomorrow to let them know you are not going.”

“Yay!” Sam and Oliver celebrated their mother’s decision with a mini-happy dance that put a smile on all of the adult’s faces, though it did not last long because the doctor reminded them they were still inside a hospital and needed to be quiet and behave themselves.

And so the Viñas’ settled in the waiting room among other worried families and took turns sleeping on each other’s laps. Sam was easily entertained by his smartphone, but Oliver and the adults were not so easily distracted.

That is, until there was a big car accident at four in the morning. Badly injured people flooded in, and the whole family plus Jeshua had to work together to keep Sam from sneaking into the A&E to spy on the chaos and the gory blood. By the time things had calmed down, it was almost time for breakfast. It was ten in the morning when Dr Ranking finally came back

“Oscar is awake. I can allow visitors one at a time if you follow certain precautions.”

Oliver was chosen to go first. He was instructed by a nurse about how to wash and disinfect his hands, and then handed a mask and special covers for his shoes before entering Oscar’s room. He was not allowed to touch his boyfriend and should not stay in the room for more than ten minutes.

“Hi, Oscar…”