Have You Seen Luis Velez?

by Catherine Ryan Hyde

Raymond froze. Set his foot back down. Focused on the feeling her words created as they settled in him. It was very much the same feeling as in that brief moment when the cat chose him over food. Other than that, it felt strangely foreign. Welcome, but mostly unfamiliar.

“Thank you for the answer to my prayers,” she said. Then she turned her face back down to the approximate location of Raymond’s. “And thank you for being the answer to my prayers, Raymond from the fourth floor. I will go get a few things, and we will be on our way.”

She sighed as she stepped down. It was a sound like air flowing out of a punctured tire, deflating it. It was her tension leaving her.

“I think you’re the first person I’ve ever known . . . I might not say it right. We’ll see . . . who really sees me. And I mean the whole thing of me, not just the part that fits with how they want to see me. And it seems weird to me, because the first person I met who really sees me for all of who I am . . . you know . . . can’t see.” “When it comes to seeing what is important about a person,” she said, “I think it’s possible that what our eyes tell us is only a distraction. Not that I wouldn’t take them back if I could. Oh, I would. I miss seeing. But I also like the things I’ve learned to see without them.”

“Okay. Here’s what I think, but don’t quote me on it. If you agree with it, make it your own observation. Tribalism.”

It goes like this, but purely subconsciously: Is this person I’m supposed to be judging our tribe, or another tribe? If she’s us, mistakes can be forgiven. Hell, everybody makes mistakes. The mistake becomes an anomaly, because it’s us, and we’re good people. If she’s them, mistakes need to be punished, because that’s just how they are. The mistake only proves the point that that’s always how they are.

“Back when I first met you. I stopped to talk to you. You said most people don’t stop, because you’re a ‘them’ and not an ‘us.’ I don’t think you were talking about race, though. Just the way people stick with those they know.” “There are many kinds of tribes, Raymond.

You have done so much. Do for others, but don’t do only for others. Take care of yourself as well.

“You have a right. You always have a right to feel.”

Quantum mechanics—that sort of science. Luis brought me a couple of audiobooks about it. It’s very fascinating, but then it stretches your mind until you think you might be a little bit crazy. The core idea is that a thing is not a thing until it has an observer. And the observer seems to play a role in what kind of thing it will snap into being.

Let’s say I witness an accident, and I have one view, and you witness it, and you have a wholly differing opinion. And let’s say we argue and argue and argue, but in the end the truth is simply that we were standing in two different places. And that from my angle I saw things that from your angle could not be seen. Well . . . not all angles are physical or logistical.

“I wonder if you can imagine it, Raymond. If you can possibly think of everyone you know, all your friends, the teachers and students in your school, all your cousins and grandparents and aunts and uncles, and then imagine that they are all gone, leaving you and your immediate family alone standing.”

Money bought us our lives. And that is called privilege. We bought our lives, while those who couldn’t afford to were slaughtered like animals. Does that make our lives worth more? Of course not. No life is worth more, except by virtue of one’s character.

“It’s nice to see you caring about the world,” his father said, “and having people you care about. But you have to let people go through whatever it is they have to go through. Just be there for your friends. That’s all we can really do for each other sometimes.”

But here’s the thing about despair. We fall into despair when the terrible gangs up on us and we forget the world can also be wonderful. We just see terrible everywhere we look. So what you do for your friend is you bring up the wonderful, so both are side by side.

It was a slow, heartfelt classical piece. The more he listened, the more impossible it felt to hold back his tears. The notes just seemed to find Raymond’s sorrow in its hiding places and pull it out into the light.

“But you already had this sadness in you before you heard my cello.” “How do you know that?” “The cello is an amazing instrument. It can slice right through a person’s walls and pull things to the surface. Why do you think I play it? But it can’t pull out something that wasn’t in there to begin with.”

“If it slices through walls and pulls stuff out of me, stuff that hurts, why am I sitting here listening to it? Why didn’t I walk the other way?” “Because it’s better to feel it.” “Not if it hurts.” “Especially if it hurts. Remember, it was in there to begin with. And as an old friend of mine used to say, better out than in.”

“Yes,” the cellist said. “That’s what I love about the instrument. It imitates life perfectly. Just the right amount of beautiful. Just the right amount of sad.”

“After all, the only thing that hurts more than tears shed is tears unshed.”