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goes by, I keep forgetting Italian names," he says. "But there's still so much of the world I want to see. I'll get a wheelchair with big tires if I have to.") Eight-and-a-half hours of surgery at Uni- versity Hospital removed the tumor, which Hertz says was as big as a "calf 's liver." He was disappointed nobody took a picture of it. "I was proud of how big it was!" he says. Says Schnepf: "Turns out, Billy does not have sinus problems." An induced two-week coma followed, and eventually radiation treatments killed the residue that remained. About a month passed before he saw him- self in the mirror. "Te scar was real red, and I was surprised at its size," Hertz says. show there displayed landscapes from both before and after the surgery. Tere were also some self-portraits, tubes blooming from his body. "I was showing that I had control of the composition just so the ladies out in the East End wouldn't look at one of my new abstracts and say, 'Oh, he just stands there and drools,'" Hertz says. He gave up alcohol after the seizure. He doesn't smoke. At the YMCA, he did water aerobics for a year. "I was looking around at all the people saying, 'Tey're so old and fat.' Ten I realized they were my age and younger. It was like, 'Oh, I look like them, too,'" Hertz says. Aerobics led to swimming, T oday, he will paint for the first time since Feb. 21. It is May 16, exactly six years since the surgery, and Hertz is at the ea- sel, a half-dozen small gessoed canvases before him. Depending on his energy level and the amount of space available for drying, he can work on 10 to 20 at once. Tis will be a con- tinuation of the Jewish Community Center show, which displayed his abstract urban land- scapes, some of which were inspired by traffic islands. "Tat's what the idea is, anyway," he says. "Once the paper is taped up, anything can happen." Each plastic container, which Hertz gets from a Chinese restaurant downtown, holds a different color: blue, pink, red, black. Te "I was aware that there had been a hole in my head when they pulled out the drainage tube." Te right side of his face was droopy, so Schnepf kept telling him to smile. One of his first tasks during months of rehabilitation was trying to write his name. He could barely form an X. "Tat took me, the first time, I bet you 15 minutes. It was almost an abstract X," he says. With the help of a therapist supporting him with a canvas belt, it took him 30 minutes to walk 10 feet. Relearning to tie his shoes was two days of focus. "I've gone back a few steps, but my best time for getting my shoes, socks, underwear, shorts and a T-shirt on was 20 minutes," he says. Early on, "I told an idiot psychologist — the same one who said they'd scooped out my brain! — I said, 'We're gonna work on stretching my right arm all the way up and walking backwards.' Because if I could do that, I could paint." By that time, he and Schnepf were at the Weissinger (both of their fathers would live there and at the Preston Street location be- fore they died). Hertz wore a waiter's apron with sketchpads in its pockets. A year passed before his hand was as steady as it needed to be to use a paintbrush. He had to re-teach himself line work and everything. "His ges- tures are limited now, so this has changed the scale of his work," Schnepf says. Tey rented space on the ground floor of the Weissinger for a gallery, and Hertz's first and two months passed before he'd built up the strength to complete one lap. Soon he was swimming half a mile every other day. Te tumor-damaged nerves mainly affected the right side of his body. "Tis arm has a good muscle," Hertz says, flexing his left biceps. "Te right arm is like Jell-O, has no idea that it's ever gone to the gym." He didn't need a walker again until January 2009, when another seizure set him back. He hasn't been in the pool since. "One night I was sitting at an ACLU dinner. I saw the other artists working the crowd, and I real- ized I couldn't do it. It had never dawned on me up to that point," Hertz says. "I was three years into it and didn't realize what my limitations were." He still plays bridge and FreeCell to keep his mind sharp. And the hyperbaric oxygen therapy ("When they told me there was the possibility I could burst into flames I said, 'Let's do it!'") is helping with nerve regen- eration. "I'm getting pain in areas that have been totally numb for six years," he says. Now, holding onto his partner, he can walk 15 to 20 feet. "Tis has made me realize that I'm not invincible," Hertz says. "But I still have a 30- or 40-year plan. Tis is Medical Center, U.S.A. Parts are coming. I'm going to live to 117." same palette from February. Tere's a tube of yellow on the cluttered cart to his right and jars of brushes, some of which he's had for more than 20 years. "When I'm painting, I'm in another place, another time. Tat's when I'm happiest. I'm not aware of anything," Hertz says. "It's like being totally normal. "I cherish it more now because it's some- thing I could have lost. It's my voice. I can be loud. But this is my real voice, my passion. It's how I express myself." If he had lost the ability to paint? His fingers form a pistol that he jams into his temple. He pulls the trigger. He asks for a paintbrush. Te Pointer Sis- ters' "Freedom" is blaring from computer speakers. Te first stroke is an angled bright- red band. He adds layer after layer of color, tracing the shapes in pencil, rubbing the sur- face with a crusty rag for texture. He's working three canvases at once, and he looks at each one from every angle to make sure the com- position is balanced. With his feet, right then left, he rolls backwards slowly over the smooth concrete. He removes his eyeglasses, and his intense gaze surveys the progress. He grips un- der the easel, pulls himself close, grabs another paintbrush. "Billy," Schnepf calls from the kitchen. "Billy!" It's plenty loud, but Hertz doesn't hear him. Reach managing editor Josh Moss at jmoss@ loumag.com. 7.12 LOUISVILLE MAGAZINE [73]