The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

by Junot Díaz

  Oscar, I said.

  People asked me, Did you see the signs? Did you? Maybe I did and just didn’t want to think about it. Maybe I didn’t. What the fuck does it really matter? All I knew was that I’d never seen him more unhappy, but there was a part of me that didn’t care. That wanted out of there the same way I had wanted out of my hometown.

  On our last night as roommates Oscar housed two bottles of orange Cisco I had bought him. You remember Cisco? Liquid crack, they used to call it. So you know Mr. Lightweight was fucked up.

  To my virginity! Oscar shouted.

  Oscar, cool it, bro. People don’t want to hear about all that.

  You’re right, they just want to stare at me.

  Come on, tranquilisate.

  He slumped. I’m copacetic.

  You ain’t pathetic.

  I said copacetic. Everybody, he shook his head, misapprehends me.

  All the posters and books were packed and it could have been the first day again if it hadn’t been for how unhappy he was. On the real first day he’d been excited, kept calling me by my full name until I told him, It’s Yunior, Oscar. Just Yunior.

  I guess I knew I should have stayed with him. Should have sat my ass in that chair and told him that shit was going to be cool, but it was our last night and I was fucking tired of him. I wanted to fuck silly this Indian girl I had on Douglass, smoke a joint, and then go to bed.

  Fare thee well, he said as I left. Fare thee well!

  What he did was this: drank a third bottle of Cisco and then walked unsteadily down to the New Brunswick train station. With its crumbling façade and a long curve of track that shoots high over the Raritan. Even in the middle of the night, doesn’t take much to get into the station or to walk out onto the tracks, which is exactly what he did. Stumbled out toward the river, toward Route 18. New Brunswick falling away beneath him until he was seventy-seven feet in the air. Seventy-seven feet precisely. From what he would later recall, he stood on that bridge for a good long time. Watching the streaking lights of the traffic below. Reviewing his miserable life. Wishing he’d been born in a different body. Regretting all the books he would never write. Maybe trying to get himself to reconsider. And then the 4:12 express to Washington blew in the distance. By then he was barely able to stand. Closed his eyes (or maybe he didn’t) and when he opened them there was something straight out of Ursula Le Guin standing by his side. Later, when he would describe it, he would call it the Golden Mongoose, but even he knew that wasn’t what it was. It was very placid, very beautiful. Gold-limned eyes that reached through you, not so much in judgment or reproach but for something far scarier. They stared at each other—it serene as a Buddhist, he in total disbelief—and then the whistle blew again and his eyes snapped open (or closed) and it was gone.

  Dude had been waiting his whole life for something just like this to happen to him, had always wanted to live in a world of magic and mystery, but instead of taking note of the vision and changing his ways the fuck just shook his swollen head. The train was nearer now, and so, before he could lose his courage, he threw himself down into the darkness.

  He had left me a note, of course. (And behind it a letter each for his sister, his mother, and Jenni.) He thanked me for everything. He told me I could have his books, his games, his movies, his special dio’s. He told me he was happy to have been friends. He signed off: Your Compañero, Oscar Wao.

  If he’d landed on Route 18, as planned, it would have been lights out forever. But in his drunken confusion he must have miscalculated, or maybe, as his mother claims, he was being watched from up on high, because the dude missed 18 proper and landed on the divider! Which should have been fine. Those dividers on 18 are like concrete guillotines. Would have done him lovely. Burst him into intestinal confetti. Except that this one was one of those garden dividers that they plant shrubs on and he hit the freshly tilled loam and not the concrete. Instead of finding himself in nerd heaven—where every nerd gets fifty-eight virgins to role-play with—he woke up in Robert Wood Johnson with two broken legs and a separated shoulder, feeling like, well, he’d jumped off the New Brunswick train bridge.

  I was there, of course, with his mother and his thuggish uncle, who took regular bathroom breaks to snort up. He saw us and what did the idiot do? He turned his head and cried. His mother tapped him on his good shoulder. You’ll be doing a lot more than crying when I get through with you.

  A day later Lola arrived from Madrid. Didn’t have a chance even to say a word before her mother launched into the standard Dominican welcome. So now you come, now that your brother’s dying. If I’d known that’s what it would take I would have killed myself a long time ago.

  Ignored her, ignored me. Sat next to her brother, took his hand.

  Mister, she said, are you OK?

  Shook his head: No.

  It’s been a long long time, but when I think of her I still see her at the hospital on that first day, straight from Newark airport, dark rings around her eyes, her hair as tangled as a maenad, and yet she still had taken the time, before appearing, to put on some lipstick and makeup.

  I was hoping for some good energy—even at the hospital, trying to get ass—but she blew me up instead. Why didn’t you take care of Oscar? she demanded. Why didn’t you do it?

  Four days later they took him home. And I went back to my life too. Headed home to my lonely mother and to tore-up London Terrace. I guess if I’d been a real pal I would have visited him up in Paterson like every week, but I didn’t. What can I tell you? It was fucking summer and I was chasing down a couple of new girls, and besides I had the job. Wasn’t enough time, but what there really wasn’t enough of was ganas. I did manage to call him a couple of times to check up on him. Even that was a lot because I kept expecting his mother or sister to tell me that he was gone. But no, he claimed he was ‘regenerated’. No more suicide attempts for him. He was writing a lot, which was always a good sign. I’m going to be the Dominican Tolkien, he said.

  Only once did I drop in, and that was because I was in P-town visiting one of my sucias. Not part of the plan, but then I just spun the wheel, pulled up to a gas station, made the call, and the next thing I knew I was at the house where he had grown up. His mother too sick to come out of her room, and him looking as thin as I’d ever seen him. Suicide suits me, he joked. His room nerdier than him, if that was possible. X-wings and TIE-fighters hanging from the ceilings. Mine and his sister’s signatures the only real ones on his last cast (the right leg broken worse than the left); the rest were thoughtful consolations from Robert Heinlein, Isaac Asimov, Frank Herbert, and Samuel Delany. His sister not acknowledging my presence, so I laughed when she walked by the open door, asked loudly: How’s la muda doing?

  She hates being here, Oscar said.

  What’s wrong with Paterson? I asked loudly. Hey, muda, what’s wrong with Paterson?

  Everything, she yelled from down the hall. She was wearing these little running shorts—the sight of her leg muscles jiggling alone made the trip worth making.

  Me and Oscar sat in his room for a little bit, not saying much. I stared at all his books and his games. Waited for him to say something; must have known I wasn’t going to let it slide.

  It was foolish, he said finally. Ill advised.

  You could say that twice. What the fuck were you thinking, O? He shrugged miserably. I didn’t know what else to do. Dude, you don’t want to be dead. Take it from me. No-pussy is bad. But dead is like no-pussy times ten.

  It went like that for about half an hour. Only one thing sticks out. Right before I headed out, he said: It was the curse that made me do it, you know. I don’t believe in that shit, Oscar. That’s our parents’ shit. It’s ours too, he said.

  Is he going to be OK? I asked Lola on the way out. I think so, she said. Filling ice-cube trays with faucet water.

  He says he’s going back to Demarest in the spring. Is that a good idea? She thought about it a second. That was Lola for you. I do, she said. You know
best. I fished my keys out. So how’s the fiancé? He’s fine, she said blandly. Are you and Suriyan still together? Killed to even hear her name. Not for a long time. And then we stood there and stared at each other. In a better world I would have kissed her over the ice trays and that would have been the end of all our troubles. But you know exactly what kind of world we live in. It ain’t no fucking Middle-earth. I just nodded my head, said, See you around, Lola, and drove home.

  That should have been the end of it, right? Just a memory of some nerd I once knew who tried to kill himself: nothing more, nothing more. But the de Leóns, it turned out, weren’t a clan you could just shake of.

  Not two weeks into senior year he showed up at my dorm room! To bring over his writings and to ask me about mine! I couldn’t believe it. Last I heard he was planning on subbing at his old high school, taking classes over at BCC, but there he was, standing at my door, sheepishly holding a blue folder. Hail and well met, Yunior, he said. Oscar, I said, in disbelief. He had lost even more weight and was trying his best to keep his hair trim and his face shaved. He looked, if you can believe it, good. Still talking Space Opera, though—had just finished with the first of his projected quartet of novels, totally obsessed with it now. May be the death of me, he sighed, and then he caught himself. Sorry. Of course nobody at Demarest wanted to room with him—what a surprise (we all know how tolerant the tolerant are)—so when he returned in the spring he’d have a double to himself, not that it did him any good, he joked.

  Demarest won’t be the same without your mesomorphic grimness, he said matter-of-factly.

  Ha, I said.

  You should definitely visit me in Paterson when you have a reprieve. I have a plethora of new Japanimation for your viewing pleasure.

  Definitely, bro, I said. Definitely.

  I never did go by. I was busy, God’s Truth: delivering pool tables, bringing the grades up, getting ready to graduate. And besides, that fall a miracle happened: Suriyan showed up at my door. Looking more beautiful than I ever saw her. I want us to try again. Of course I said yes, and went out and put a cuerno in her that very night. Dios mío! Some niggers couldn’t have got ten ass on Judgment Day; me I couldn’t not get ass, even when I tried.

  My negligence didn’t stop O from visiting me every now and then with some new chapter and some new story of a girl he’d spotted on the bus, on the street, or in a class.

  Same ole Oscar, I said.

  Yes, he said weakly. Same ole me.

  Rutgers was always a crazy place, but that last fall it seemed to be especially bugging. In October a bunch of freshman girls I knew on Livingston got busted for dealing coke, four of the quietest gorditas around. Like they say: los que menos corren, vuelan. On Bush, the Lambdas started a fight with the Alphas over some idiocy and for weeks there was talk of a black-Latino war but nothing ever happened, everybody too busy throwing parties and fucking each other to scrap.

  That winter I even managed to sit in my dorm room long enough to write a story that wasn’t too bad, about the woman who used to live in the patio behind my house in the DR, a woman everybody said was a prostitute but who used to watch me and my brother while my mom and my abuelo were at work. My professor couldn’t believe it. I’m impressed. Not a single shooting or stabbing in the whole story. Not that it helped any. I didn’t win any of the creative-writing prizes that year. I kinda had been hoping.

  And then it was finals, and who of all people do I end up running into? Lola! I almost didn’t recognize her because her hair was ill long and because she was wearing these cheap blocky glasses, the kind an alternative whitegirl would wear. Enough silver on her wrists to ransom the royal family and so much leg coming out of her denim skirt it just didn’t seem fair. As soon as she saw me she tugged down the skirt, not like it did much good. This was on the E bus; I was on my way back from seeing a girl of zero note and she was heading out to some stupid-ass farewell party for one of her friends. I slopped down next to her and she said, What’s up? Her eyes so incredibly big and empty of any guile. Or expectation, for that matter.

  How have you been? I asked.

  Good. How about you?

  Just getting ready for break.

  Merry Christmas. And then, just like a de León, she went back to reading her book!

  I poked at the book. Introduction to Japanese. What the hell are you studying now? Didn’t they throw you out of here already?

  I’m teaching English in Japan next year, she said matter-of-factly. It’s going to be amazing.

  Not I’m thinking about or I’ve applied but I am. Japan? I laughed, a little mean. What the hell is a Dominican going out to Japan for?

  You’re right, she said, turning the page irritably. Why would anyone want to go anywhere when they have New Jersey?

  We let that sit for a sec.

  That was a little harsh, I said.

  My apologies.

  Like I said: it was December. My Indian girl, Lily, was waiting for me back on College Ave., and so was Suriyan. But I wasn’t thinking about either of them. I was thinking about the one time I’d seen Lola that year; she’d been reading a book in front of the Henderson Chapel with such concentration I thought she might hurt herself. I’d heard from Oscar that she was living in Edison with some of her girlfriends, working at some office or another, saving money for her next big adventure. That day I’d seen her I’d wanted to say hi but I didn’t have the balls, figured she would ig me.

  I watched Commercial Ave. slide past and there, in the distance, were the lights of Route 18. That was one of those moments that would always be Rutgers for me. The girls in front giggling about some guy. Her hands on those pages, nails all painted up in cranberry. My own hands like monster crabs. In a couple of months I’d be back in London Terrace if I wasn’t careful and she’d be off to Tokyo or Kyoto or wherever she was going. Of all the chicks I’d run up on at Rutgers, of all the chicks I’d run up on ever, Lola was the one I’d never gotten a handle on. So why did it feel like she was the one who knew me best? I thought about Suriyan and how she would never talk to me again. I thought about my own fears of actually being good, because Lola wasn’t Suriyan; with her I’d have to be someone I’d never tried to be. We were reaching College Ave. Last chance, so I made like Oscar and said, Have dinner with me, Lola. I promise, I won’t try to take your panties off.

  Yeah right, she said, almost ripping her page in the turning.

  I covered her hand in mine and she gave me this frustrated heart-wrenching look like she was already on her way down with me and didn’t, for the life of her, understand why.

  It’s OK, I said.

  No, it’s fucking not OK. You’re too short. But she didn’t take her hand away.

  We went to her place on Handy and before I could really put a hurt on her she stopped everything, dragged me up from her toto by my ears. Why is this the face I can’t seem to forget, even now, after all these years? Tired from working, swollen from lack of sleep, a crazy mixture of ferocity and vulnerability that was and shall ever be Lola.

  She looked at me until I couldn’t stand it anymore and then she said: Just don’t lie to me, Yunior.

  I won’t, I promised.

  Don’t laugh. My intentions were pure.

  Not much more to tell. Except this:

  That spring I moved back in with him. Thought about it all winter. Even at the very end I almost changed my mind. Was waiting by his door in Demarest and despite the fact that I’d been waiting all morning, at the very end I still almost ran off, but then I heard their voices on the stairwell, bringing up his things.

  I don’t know who was more surprised: Oscar, Lola, or me.

  In Oscar’s version, I raised my hand and said, Mellon. Took him a second to recognize the word. Mellon, he said finally.

  That fall after the Fall was dark (I read in his journal): dark. He was still thinking about doing it but he was afraid. Of his sister mainly, but also of himself. Of the possibility of a miracle, of an invincible summer. Re
ading and writing and watching TV with his mother. If you try anything stupid, his mother swore, I’ll haunt you my whole life. You better believe it.

  I do, señora, he reported saying. I do.

  Those months he couldn’t sleep, and that’s how he ended up taking his mother’s car out for midnight spins. Every time he pulled out of the house he thought it would be his last. Drove everywhere. Got lost in Camden. Found the neighborhood where I grew up. Drove through New Brunswick just when the clubs were getting out, looking at everybody, his stomach killing him. Even made it down to Wildwood. Looked for the coffee shop where he had saved Lola, but it had closed. Nothing had opened to replace it. One night he picked up a hitchhiker. An immensely pregnant girl. She barely spoke any English. Was a wetback Guatemalan with pits in her cheek. Needed to go to Perth Amboy, and Oscar, our hero, said: No te preócupas. Te traigo.

  Qye Dios te bendiga, she said. Still looking ready to jump out of a window if need be. Gave her his number, Just in case, but she never called. He wasn’t surprised.

  Drove so long and so far on some nights that he would actually fall asleep at the wheel. One second he was thinking about his characters and the next he’d be drifting, a beautiful intoxicating richness, about to go all the way under and then some last alarm would sound.

  Lola. Nothing more exhilarating (he wrote) than saving yourself by the simple act of waking.

  PART II

  Men are not indispensable. But Trujillo is irreplaceable. For Trujillo is not a man. He is…a cosmic force…Those who try to compare him to his ordinary contemporaries are mistaken. He belongs to…the category of those born to a special destiny.

  La Nación

  Of course I tried once more. It was even stupider than the first time. Fourteen months and Abuela announced that it was time for me to return to Paterson, to my mother, I couldn’t believe what she was saying. It felt like the deepest of treacheries to me. I wouldn’t feel that again until I broke with you.