Adios to a good friend

I put on my shirt, tie, and my 1970’s blue Tony Montana suit and headed out the door. I was on my way to my 4th class of the day, my 4:00 in Pudahuel when I got a call from Anita, a woman who I teach on Wednesdays and Fridays.
“?Anita, Como estas?”
“Muy mal, Daniel. Muy, muy mal”
“?que paso, Anita?
“Cesar…el acaba de fallecer…murió, Daniel…murió”

This woman I teach works at Molymet in Santiago centro and she told me that Cesar (the loan shark) had a heart attack and passed away and was lying on the floor in the middle of the office. I work with this man three days a week, and on Fridays he works in el centro. I suddenly got sick to my stomach…it’s a very strange feeling to be dressed in a man’s suit at the time of his death. Two weeks ago I was over Cesar’s house for his wife’s birthday party and I wasn’t wearing a coat. He gave me an old suit-coat to wear and the pants to match. It’s a blue suit that looks like something out of “Miami Vice,” but I hadn’t brought a suit down to Chile and was grateful.
“Here, take these homeboy, they don’t fit me anymore…we can’t have you dying of cold here in Santiago.”

I really haven’t been fair in my portrayal of Cesar in this blog. I refer to him as the “loan shark”, which I confirmed he was, but that paints him in a very negative light. He may not have been the most morally upright or law-abiding citizen in some situations, but he was very good to me. He took me in to his home and made me feel like I was part of his family. His wife (girlfriend of 6 years), her daughter, and Cesar have all been so nice to me. In my three months here, I’d been over to his house about 10 times to watch soccer, to have lunch or to have dinner. I was invited to Pillar’s (his girlfriend) birthday party and got to meet all of her family, too. They were always sending me off with doggy-bags of the meal we had just eaten and dessert, making sure that I was eating well.

“Homeboy, call your moms, you know I’ve got that international plan…let your moms know how you’re doing.”

Every time I’d go over there he was making sure that I had spoken to my family recently and he was always having me call home from his house. He was my “padrino”, my godfather, here in Chile.

I mentioned Connie before in this blog, too…the Medical School student who had been living in China last year. She is Cesar’s niece. I got the phone call from Anita and she wanted me to call the family of Cesar to let them know what happened. That was not something I was excited to do, nor did I feel my place to do, but she asked me to do it so I called. I got in touch with Connie and told her that I had some very bad news. She told me not to worry; the paramedics had called Pillar and told her that Cesar had passed out. With this I was confused, but decidedly relieved.

“Anita overreacted,” I thought to myself, “he just passed out.” I continued on my route to work and was about to transfer buses when I got a call from Elba, the boss of Manhattan Institute.
“Daniel, did you hear?”
“I’ve heard that Cesar’s dead and I’ve heard that he just passed out. I don’t know what’s going on.”
“Yes, that’s correct, he passed out and he’s dead. He had a heart attack.”

With that I turned right around and headed back to the apartment. I’m really not in the mood to teach today with this news looming. Connie called me about five minutes ago, crying, telling me that he’s dead and that she’s there in Molymet and they haven’t moved his body anywhere yet. I had nothing to say other than “I’m so sorry” over and over. I want to go visit them all tonight after the dust settles. I feel like I’d be more distracting than comforting at this point in time. Cesar was only 46 and looked healthy. He had a gut, but I wouldn’t call him fat. A steady diet of cigarettes, coffee and pork and cheese sandwiches did him in.

He was having chest-pain yesterday and had to leave work early to go to the hospital to go through some tests. I thought he might have some heart problems, but figured the doctors would take care of him and that he caught the problem before it was too late.

I ask you all to keep Cesar and his family in your thoughts and prayers as they go through this difficult time. He was my padrino here and there are a lot of us who are going to miss him.