Memory of an Unfortunate Loss

For my first year of high school I, along with several of my friends from junior high, went to the High School of Fashion Industries in Manhattan. It was a far cry from our small, former school on the tree-lined streets of tiny Jackson Heights. Perhaps it was our adventurous spirits that led in that direction; forgoing our so-called "zoned schools", for a place that was out of our immediate atmosphere. Perhaps it was the word fashion in the school's name. Whatever it was, we went there with hopes and aspirations that seemed so possible at the time, but only exist in the briefest of moments in the open field of the adolescence's mind.

Fashion was a selective school, meaning that you couldn't get in simply because you lived in the neighborhood. You had to either apply on the merchandise end of it, or on the art side of the school's requirements. I knew how to draw and I enjoyed doing it, so I applied on the art side. For weeks before my entrance exam and interview and after I learned what the requirements were for the art side, I worked diligently on a portfolio of artwork to present. Ever the perfectionist, I stayed up late into the night creating pieces I felt were going to open the doors I needed opened at that school.

To fulfill the requirements, my mother and I paid a visit to Pearl Paint, the gigantic art supply store in New York City. We were both in awe of the sheer size and inventory of this place. We walked around touching and smelling all of the tools of the trade, admiring the paints, pads, canvases and easels. We even lingered by the supplies for art we weren't students of, like sculpting and woodwork. We purchased sketch books, color pencils, pastels, India ink and other supplies, as well as a large, black portfolio to house all my stuff in. That was always my mother's way: If it was for school, then it was only the best and price was no object.

On the train ride back home, I envisioned all the wonderful creations that could come out of me now that I was properly armed with the necessary tools of an artist.

Even today, I can recall with precise detail, how I lay on my stomach in my attic bedroom, concentrating on my pieces. I spent hours perfecting them and didn't think twice to crumble up a mediocre outcome and start anew. I was my own worst critic, choosing only the cream of the crop to make it into the coveted spot in the portfolio application. I can close my eyes still and go through the pieces one by one. There was the piece I drew of Michael Jackson in white shirt and pants with a yellow vest. I remember that I couldn't get the color of his face quite right, even with all of my fancy new art instruments. I asked my mother for an opinion and she said that when she was an art student in Colombia, there wasn't a lot of money to go around, so she had to be creative, using everyday things to make the colors she needed. I then recall walking around the house trying to come up with something better - clearly the true measure of an artist was the need for perfection, was it not? Besides, I wanted my mother to know I was creative, too!!

I found my solution in a bottle of foundation from my mother's bureau and a brown eyeliner pencil that I melted to mix with the liquid foundation. I melted both onto a small plastic paint tray and applied it gently and sparingly to the paper, so as not to soak it through. I used cotton balls and a sponge to give the piece texture. The end result was perfection! Michael's face came out so well, in the shade in which it was in 1984.

My portfolio of a 9th grader's masterpieces was lost sometime between 1984 and 1990. One day I placed my precious black portfolio full of art into one of the large closets in the attic and it was never seen again. Even after my mother died, and we needed to empty out the house, I hoped to come across it, but I never did.

Of course, knowing I was applying to a fashion school, it behooved me to add some of my finer, fashionably forward art work as well. Now, I had about as much experience in fashion drawings at age 14 as I do NASCAR today - which is pretty much zilch. Still, in my 14-year-old dreamer's head, I forged ahead, skimming through magazine after fashion magazine to get the gist of how the pros did it. I began putting pencil to paper and, using my love of clothes as a muse, drew, colored and painted 15 pieces that were both artistic and fashionably appealing. To close it up and show some versatility, I threw in a few other drawings - one was of a boy eating cereal happily - a la "Hey, Mikey! He likes it!" circa 1975 Life cereal commercial. Another was of our dog at the time, Nugget, a golden retriever. Still another was a landscape piece and the last, at my mother's suggestion, was a still life of a bowl of fruits on our kitchen table.

The woman who reviewed my work liked what she saw. She said my "attention to detail" in the fashion pieces showed true passion for the "craft". I almost broke a rib holding back my laughter. If she only knew that those were my least favorite to draw. I mean how excited can you get drawing a woman who is basically a stick figure/hanger for uncomfortable looking clothing? She also told me the boy in my drawing looked troubled. I guess it wasn't Life cereal he was eating and he was showing his disappointment. God! Some people have no vision! Besides, if I had done an exact replica of dark, curly haired, freckle faced Mikey, wouldn't that have been copyright infringement?

Fast-forward a few weeks. I got in and so did my girlfriends, Jane, Monica and Cheryl. There weren't that many classes we shared because I entered on the art side and thus had a lot of art classes. Still, it was nice to have kept familiar faces around, as we stepped out of the minds and location of the junior high world into this unknown mixture of backgrounds, cultures, faces and places from all points of the city and beyond. No longer were we secluded in the tiny planet that is Jackson Heights. No longer was the walk to school a mere block or two. We were escaping our cocoon together! We felt, or at least I did, like grown-ups - suddenly thrust into adulthood, taking trains, along with the masses in the commuting frenzy of New York City mornings.

Despite the details of my admission to the school, there is little else I recall from Fashion. I know there was a store within the school where I purchased blue and white gym shorts with the words Fashion H.S. on one of the legs. Always the addicted shopper, I couldn't resist and bought the cute socks with the HSFI trim on the ankle to match.

A down side to Fashion was that the ratio of girls to boys was so unbalanced, that the few straight boys there had their pick of the litter when it came to girlfriends, but us girls certainly had slim pickins' when it came to boyfriends...as I now recall the very popular, often dated Michael Fernandez. I wish VH1 did a Where Are They Now? for old high school friends...Wait, that's what Facebook is for! Still, the rest of my experience is somewhat of a blur. Except for the day we found out that Alex Hernandez was dead.

Alex Hernandez was a cute boy at the school. Boys being in such high demand at Fashion, Alex was forever the flirt, flashing his million-dollar smile and twinkling eyes to the pitter-patter of little girls' hearts all over that building. He wasn't the most devoted student, his family probably hearing the words: "Alex is smart, but he doesn't apply himself" more than once, but he was quick and funny. It wasn't uncommon for Alex to skip a class, or two, so when we came into class that morning - social studies I believe it was - we weren't at all aware of the desk that sat empty that day.

At some point someone came in and spoke to the teacher. I don't remember the teacher's name, but I remember she looked like a nut with her crazy, silver and gray hair, her frumpy outfits and her complete disregard for fashion - ironically enough. I remember her face went slack, her lips deadening in a flatline across her face. When the messenger left, she sat down a moment. I always wonder what went through her head at that moment. How best to spread this awful news to my students? She decided to take the ripping-the-band-aid-off approach. "Class, I have some very bad news. Our student, classmate and friend, Alex Hernandez, has died. I don't know any of the details."

My head was reeling. He was the first young person ever that I knew personally who had died. Girls in the classroom began to cry, some stood up to hug one another. The teacher erased whatever she had previously written on the board and began to play counselor to some of the more distraught students. I just sat there, numb as a rock, staring at his empty seat, unable to believe her.

In the hours following her announcement, we received more news - the details - and it was all ugly. Alex was killed in the subways. It was the (6) train - heading into school from the Bronx, where he lived. He fell between subway cars and was crushed. Some people said he secretly suffered from epilepsy and had a seizure just as he was crossing the cars. No one every confirmed that to me, so I can only call it a rumor, even today. There wasn't much more to do that day than to feel bad and feel sad and feel somewhat vulnerable. Remember, teenagers always think they're immortal and then someone dies and you're left facing the truth of our existence.

We received the details of his wake. It was to be held in the Bronx at the Rivera Funeral Home on Bathgate Avenue. I knew asking one of my parents to go with me wasn't going to work, so instead I asked my cousin, Mirna. She agreed to take me and we went. I remember that we had to take the (6) and it all felt so eerie and surreal to me. I think that for the rest of my days I will never forget the image of Alex Hernandez in his coffin. Since I had mentioned to Mirna how Alex had died, she had been telling me that his viewing would most likely be a closed casket. It was a lot easier to calm my nerves, after she told me that.

However, it turned out Alex had an open casket. I remember the impression when I saw him was so powerful, I felt like my heart actually stopped for several beats. I couldn't believe, nor understand how they could do that. Alex was covered right up to his neck, under his chin. There was a noticeable cut just above his lip, despite how heavily made up he was from the funeral parlor. The white, thick blanket that covered his body seemed oddly bulky and misshapen around the chest area. His head seemed to be askew from the rest of him. Unlike the common open-casket positioning of folded hands, Alex's hands were nowhere to be seen.

On the subway back home, Mirna rubbed my back, as I sat slumped over crying - more from the terror of all I had seen, than from the news of his death, which I had already grown accustomed to. Alex Hernandez's death took something away from that Freshman class. To a degree, we felt suddenly less invincible and more flesh and blood than ever.

I was never a sophomore at Fashion. I left after the first year. It was too much of a trek from our new home in Queens Village. Honestly, I had to leave because my health was suffering. Unlike most of my classmates, I knew I was mortal, long before I ever met Alex Hernandez. If you try to do a Google search for Alex, using 'death of' or 'Fashion High School student dies', or even 'NYC Subway deaths of the 1980s', you won't come across his name. You won't find the details, now so deeply buried in news archives, that no one can find them. You won't find Alex Hernandez, age 14, the boy who died on the tracks of the NYC subway system, anywhere at all. The reality of it is quite somber. Alex had no rank in any hierarchy or of any place of importance, except to those who loved him. He is nowhere to be found, as if he never existed. And so as a favor to a brief friendship in its beginning stages, I leave his mark here for all to see and for all to know that Alex Hernandez was a real boy. He was a boy with a life to live and a future to enjoy. He was a real boy whose life was cut short tragically and like a drop of rain on a windshield, he simply vanished.