The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

by Junot Díaz

  Her rage filled the house, flat stale smoke. It got into everything, into our hair and our food, like the fallout they talked to us about in school that would one day drift down soft as snow. My brother didn’t know what to do. He stayed in his room, though sometimes he would lamely try to ask me what was going on. Nothing. You can tell me, Lola, he said, and I could only laugh. You need to lose weight, I told him.

  In those final weeks I knew better than to walk near my mother. Most of the time she just looked at me with the stink eye, but sometimes without warning she would grab me by my throat and hang on until I pried her fingers from me. She didn’t bother talking to me unless it was to make death threats. When you grow up you’ll meet me in a dark alley when you least expect it and then I’ll kill you and nobody will know I did it! Literally gloating as she said this.

  You’re crazy, I told her. You don’t call me crazy, she said, and then she sat down, panting. It was bad but no one expected what came next. So obvious when you think about it. All my life I’d been swearing that one day I would just disappear. And one day I did.

  I ran off, dique, because of a boy.

  What can I really tell you about him? He was like all boys: beautiful and callow, and like an insect he couldn’t sit still. Un blanquito with long hairy legs I met one night at Limelight.

  His name was Aldo.

  He was nineteen and lived down at the Jersey Shore with his seventy-four-year-old father. In the back of his Oldsmobile on University I pulled my leather skirt up and my fishnet stockings down and the smell of me was everywhere. That was our first date. The spring of my sophomore year we wrote and called each other at least once a day. I even drove down with Karen to visit him in Wildwood (she had a license, I didn’t). He lived and worked near the boardwalk, one of three guys who operated the bumper cars, the only one without tattoos. You should stay, he told me that night while Karen walked ahead of us on the beach. Where would I live? I asked and he smiled. With me. Don’t lie, I said, but he looked out at the surf. I want you to come, he said seriously.

  He asked me three times. I counted, I know.

  That summer my brother announced that he was going to dedicate his life to designing role-playing games and my mother was trying to keep a second job, for the first time since her operation. It wasn’t working out. She was coming home exhausted, and since I wasn’t helping, nothing around the house was getting done. Some weekends my tía Rubelka would help out with the cooking and cleaning and would lecture us both but she had her own family to watch after so most of the time we were on our own. Come, he said on the phone. And then in August Karen left for Slippery Rock. She had graduated from high school a year early. If I don’t see Paterson again it will be too soon, she said before she left. That was the September I cut school six times in my first two weeks. I just couldn’t do school anymore. Something inside wouldn’t let me. It didn’t help that I was reading The Fountainhead and had decided that I was Dominique and Aldo was Roark. I’m sure I could have stayed that way forever, too scared to jump, but finally what we’d all been waiting for happened. My mother announced at dinner, quietly: I want you both to listen to me: the doctor is running more tests on me.

  Oscar looked like he was going to cry. He put his head down. And my reaction? I looked at her and said: Could you please pass the salt?

  These days I don’t blame her for smacking me across my face, but right then it was all I needed. We jumped on each other and the table fell and the sancocho spilled all over the floor and Oscar just stood in the corner bellowing, Stop it, stop it, stop it!

  Hija de tu maldita madre, she shrieked. And I said: This time I hope you die from it.

  For a couple of days the house was a war zone, and then on Friday she let me out of my room and I was allowed to sit next to her on the sofa and watch novelas with her. She was waiting for her blood work to come back but you would never have known her life was in the balance. She watched the TV like it was the only thing that mattered, and whenever one of the characters did something underhanded she would start waving her arms. Someone has to stop her! Can’t they see what that puta is up to?

  I hate you, I said very quietly, but she didn’t hear. Go get me some water, she said. Put an ice cube in it.

  That was the last thing I did for her. The next morning I was on the bus bound for the Shore. One bag, two hundred dollars in tips, tío Rudolfo’s old knife. I was so scared. I couldn’t stop shaking. The whole ride down I was expecting the sky to split open and my mother to reach down and shake me. But it didn’t happen. Nobody but the man across the aisle noticed me. You’re really beautiful, he said. Like a girl I once knew.

  I didn’t write them a note. That’s how much I hated them. Her. That night while we lay in Aldo’s sweltering kitty-litter infested room I told him: I want you to do it to me.

  He started unbuttoning my pants. Are you sure?

  Definitely, I said grimly.

  He had a long, thin dick that hurt like hell, but the whole time I just said, Oh yes, Aldo, yes, because that was what I imagined you were supposed to say while you were losing your ‘virginity’ to some boy you thought you loved.

  It was like the stupidest thing I ever did. I was miserable. And so bored. But of course I wouldn’t admit it. I had run away, so I was happy! Happy! Aldo had neglected to mention all those times he told me to live with him that his father hated him like I hated my mother. Aldo Sr. had been in World War II, and he’d never forgiven the ‘Japs’ for all the friends he had lost. My dad’s so full of shit, Aldo said. He never left Fort Dix. I don’t think his father said four words to me the whole time I lived with them. He was one mean viejito and even had a padlock around the refrigerator. Stay the hell out of it, he told me. We couldn’t even get ice cubes out. Aldo and his dad lived in one of the cheapest little bungalows, and me and Aldo slept in a room where his father kept the cat litter for his two cats and at night we would move it out into the hallway but he always woke up before us and put it back in the room—I told you to leave my crap alone. Which was funny when you think about it. But it wasn’t funny then. I got a job selling French fries on the boardwalk, and between the hot oil and the cat piss I couldn’t smell anything else. On my days off I would drink with Aldo, or I would sit in the sand dressed in all black and try to write in my journal, which I was sure would form the foundation for a utopian society after we blew ourselves into radioactive kibble. Sometimes other boys would walk up to me and would throw lines at me like, Who fuckin’ died? What’s with your hair? They would sit down next to me in the sand. You a good-looking girl, you should be in a bikini. Why, so you can rape me? Jesus Christ, one of them said, jumping to his feet, what the hell is wrong with you?

  To this day I don’t know how I lasted. At the beginning of October I was laid off from the french fry palace; by then most of the boardwalk was closed up and I had nothing to do except hang out at the public library, which was even smaller than my high school one. Aldo had moved on to working with his dad in his garage, which only made them more pissed at each other, and by extension more pissed off at me. When they got home they would drink Schlitz and complain about the Phillies. I guess I should count myself lucky that they didn’t just decide to bury the hatchet by gangbanging me. I stayed out as much as I could and waited for the feelings to come back to me, to tell me what I should do next, but I was bone-dry, bereft, no visions whatsoever. I started to think that maybe it was like in the books; as soon as I lost my virginity I lost my power. I got really mad at Aldo after that. You’re a drunk, I told him. And an idiot. So what, he shot back. Your pussy smells. Then stay out of it! I will! But of course I was happy! Happy! I kept waiting to run into my family posting up flyers of me on the boardwalk, my mom, the tallest blackest chestiest thing in sight, Oscar looking like the brown blob, my tía Rubelka, maybe even my tío if they could get him off the heroin long enough, but the closest I came to any of that was some flyers someone had put up for a cat they lost. That’s white people for you. They lose
a cat and it’s an all points bulletin, but we Dominicans, we lose a daughter and we might not even cancel our appointment at the salon.

  By November I was so finished. I would sit there with Aldo and his putrid father and the old shows would come on the TV, the ones me and my brother used to watch when we were kids, Three’s Company, What’s Happening, The Jeffersons, and my disappointment would grind against some organ that was very soft and tender. It was starting to get cold too, and wind just walked right into the bungalow and got under your blankets or jumped in the shower with you. It was awful. I kept having these stupid visions of my brother trying to cook for himself. Don’t ask me why. I was the one who cooked for us, the only thing Oscar knew how to make was grilled cheese. I imagined him thin as a reed, wandering around the kitchen, opening cabinets forlornly. I even started dreaming about my mother, except in my dreams she was a little girl, and I mean really little; I could hold her in the palm of my hand and she was always trying to say something. I would put her right up to my ear and I still couldn’t hear.

  I always hated obvious dreams like that. I still do.

  And then Aldo decided to be cute. I knew he was getting unhappy with us but I didn’t know exactly how bad it was until one night he had his friends over. His father had gone to Atlantic City and they were all drinking and smoking and telling dumb jokes and suddenly Aldo says: Do you know what Pontiac stands for? Poor Old Nigger Thinks It’s A Cadillac. But who was he looking at when he told his punch line? He was looking straight at me. That night he wanted me, but I pushed his hand away. Don’t touch me. Don’t get sore, he said, putting my hand on his cock. It wasn’t nothing.

  And then he laughed.

  So what did I do a couple days later: a really dumb thing. I called home. The first time no one answered. The second time it was Oscar. The de León residence, how may I direct your call? That was my brother for you. This is why everybody in the world hated his guts.

  It’s me, dumb-ass.

  Lola. He was so quiet, and then I realized he was crying. Where are you?

  You don’t want to know. I switched ears, trying to keep my voice casual. How is everybody?

  Lola, Mami’s going to kill you.

  Dumb-ass, could you keep your voice down. Mami isn’t home, is she? She’s working. What a surprise, I said. Mami working. On the last minute of the last hour of the last day my mother would be at work. She would be at work when the missiles were in the air.

  I guess I must have missed him real bad, or I just wanted to see somebody who knew anything about me, or the cat piss had damaged my common sense because I gave him the address of a coffee shop on the boardwalk and told him to bring some of my clothes and some of my books.

  Bring me money too.

  He paused. I don’t know where Mami keeps it.

  You know, Mister. Just bring it.

  How much? he asked timidly.

  All of it.

  That’s a lot of money, Lola.

  Just bring me the money, Oscar.

  OK, OK. He inhaled deeply. Will you at least tell me if you’re OK or not?

  I’m OK, I said, and that was the only point in the conversation where I almost cried. I kept quiet until I could speak again, and then I asked him how: he was going to get down here without our mother finding out.

  You know me, he said weakly. I might be a dork but I’m a resourceful dork.

  I should have known not to trust anybody whose favorite books as a child were Encyclopedia Brown. But I wasn’t really thinking; I was so looking forward to seeing him.

  By then I had this plan. I was going to convince my brother to run away with me. My plan was that we would go to Dublin. I had met a bunch of Irish guys on the boardwalk and they had sold me on their country. I would become a backup singer for U2, and both Bono and the drummer would fall in love with me, and Oscar could become the Dominican James Joyce. I really believed it would happen too. That’s how deluded I was by then.

  The next day I walked into the coffee shop, looking brand-new, and he was there, with the bag. Oscar, I said, laughing, you’re so fat!

  I know, he said, ashamed. I was worried about you.

  We embraced for like an hour and then he started crying. Lola, I’m sorry. It’s OK, I said, and that’s when I looked up and saw my mother and my tía Rubelka and my tío walk into the shop.

  Oscar! I screamed but it was too late. My mother already had me in her hands. She looked so thin and worn, almost like a hag, but she was holding on to me like I was her last nickel, and underneath her red wig her green eyes were furious. I noticed, absently, that she had dressed up for the occasion. That was typical. Muchacha del diablo, she shrieked. I managed to haul her out of the coffee shop and when she pulled back her hand to smack me I broke free. I ran for it. Behind me I could feel her sprawling, hitting the curb hard with a crack, but I wasn’t looking back. No—I was running. In elementary school, whenever we had field day I was always the fastest girl in my grade, took home all the ribbons; they said it wasn’t fair because I was so big, but I didn’t care. I could even have beat the boys if I’d wanted to, so there was no way my sick mother, my messed-up tío, and my fat brother were going to catch me. I was going to run as fast as my long legs could carry me. I was going to run down the boardwalk, past Aldo’s miserable house, out of Wildwood, out of New Jersey, and I wasn’t going to stop. I was going to fly.

  Anyway, that’s how it should have worked out. But I looked back. I couldn’t help it. It’s not like I didn’t know my Bible, all that pillars-of-salt stuff, but when you’re someone’s daughter that she raised by herself with no help from nobody, habits die hard. I just wanted to make sure my mom hadn’t broken her arm or cracked open her skull. I mean, really, who the hell wants to kill her own mother by accident? That’s the only reason I glanced back. She was sprawled on the ground, her wig had fallen out of reach, her poor bald head out in the day like something private and shameful, and she was bawling like a lost calf, Hija, hija. And there I was, wanting to run off into my future. It was right then when I needed that feeling to guide me, but it wasn’t anywhere in sight. Only me. In the end I didn’t have the ovaries. She was on the ground, bald as a baby, crying, probably a month away from dying, and here I was, her one and only daughter. And there was nothing I could do about it. So I walked back, and when I reached down to help her she clamped on to me with both hands. That was when I realized she hadn’t been crying at all. She’d been faking! Her smile was like a lion’s.

  Ya te tengo, she said, jumping triumphantly to her feet.

  Te tengo.

  And that is how I ended up in Santo Domingo. I guess my mother thought it would be harder for me to run away from an island where I knew no one, and in a way she was right. I’m into my sixth month here and these days I’m just trying to be philosophical about the whole thing. I wasn’t like that at first, but in the end I had to let it go. It was like the fight between the egg and the rock, my abuela said. No winning. I’m actually going to school, not that it’s going to count when I return to Paterson, but it keeps me busy and out of mischief and around people my own age. You don’t need to be around us viejos all day, Abuela says. I have mixed feelings about the school. For one thing, it’s improved my Spanish a lot. The—Academy is a private school, a Carol Morgan wannabe filled with people my do Carlos Moya calls los hijos de mami y papi. And then there’s me. If you think it was tough being a goth in Paterson, try being a Dominican York in one of those private schools back in DR. You will never meet bitchier girls in your whole life. They whisper about me to death. Someone else would have a nervous breakdown, but after Wildwood I’m not so brittle. I don’t let it get to me. And the irony of all ironies? I’m on our school’s track team. I joined because my friend Rosio, the scholarship girl from Los Mina, told me I could win a spot on the team on the length of my legs alone. Those are the pins of a winner, she prophesied. Well, she must have known something I didn’t because I’m now our school’s top runner in the 400 meters and unde
r. That I have talent at this simple thing never ceases to amaze me. Karen would pass out if she could see me running sprints out behind my school while Coach Cortes screams at us, first in Spanish and then in Catalan. Breathe, breathe, breathe! I’ve got like no fat left on me, and the musculature of my legs impresses everyone, even me. I can’t wear shorts anymore without causing traffic jams and the other day when my abuela locked us out of the house she turned to me in frustration and said, Hija, just kick the door open. That pushed a laugh out of both of us.

  So much has changed these last months, in my head, my heart. Rosio has me dressing up like a ‘real Dominican girl’. She’s the one who fixed my hair and who helps me with my makeup, and sometimes when I see myself in mirrors I don’t even know who I am anymore. Not that I’m unhappy or anything. Even if I found a hot-air balloon that would whisk me straight to Uz’s house, I’m not sure I would take it. (I’m still not talking to my traitor brother, though.) The truth is I’m even thinking of staying one more year. Abuela doesn’t want me to ever leave—I’ll miss you, she says so simply it can’t be anything but true, and my mom has told me I can stay if I want to but that I would be welcome at home too. Tía Rubelka tells me she’s hanging tough, my mother, that she’s back to two jobs. They send me a picture of the whole family and Abuela frames it and I can’t look at them without misting up. My mother’s not wearing her fakies in it; she looks so thin I don’t even recognize her.

  Just know that I would die for you, she told me the last time we talked. And before I could say anything she hung up.

  But that’s not what I wanted to tell you. It’s about that crazy feeling that started this whole mess, the bruja feeling that comes singing out of my bones, that takes hold of me the way blood seizes cotton. The feeling that tells me that everything in my life is about to change. It’s come back. Just the other day I woke up from all these dreams and it was there, pulsing inside of me. I imagine this is what it feels like to have a child in you. At first I was scared because I thought it was telling me to run away again, but every time I looked around our house, every time I saw my abuela, the feeling got stronger so I knew this was something different. I was dating a boy by then, a sweet morenito by the name of Max Sanchez, whom I had met in Los Mina while visiting Rosio. He’s short but his smile and his snappy dressing make up for a lot. Because I’m from Nueba Yol he talks about how rich he’s going to become and I try to explain to him that I don’t care about that but he looks at me like I’m crazy. I’m going to get a white Mercedes-Benz, he says. Tü veras. But it’s the job he has that I love best, that got me and him started. In Santo Domingo two or three theaters often share the same set of reels for a movie, so when the first theater finishes with the first reel they put it in Max’s hands and he rides his motorcycle like crazy to make it to the second theater and then he drives back, waits, picks up the second reel, and so on. If he’s held up or gets into an accident the first reel will end and there will be no second reel and the people in the audience will throw bottles. So far he’s been blessed, he tells me and kisses his San Miguel medal. Because of me, he brags, one movie becomes three. I’m the man who puts together the pictures. Max’s not from ‘la clase alta,’ as my abuela would describe it, and if any of the stuck-up bitches in school saw us they would just about die, but I’m fond of him. He holds open doors, he calls me his morena; when he’s feeling brave he touches my arm gently and then pulls back.