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By Root 2123 0

and the clusters of peddlers at every traffic light (so dark, he noticed, and his mother said, dismissively, Maldito haitianos) and people walking languidly with nothing to shade them from the sun and the buses that charged past so overflowing with passengers that from the outside they looked like they were making a rush delivery of spare limbs to some far-off war and the general ruination of so many of the buildings as if Santo Domingo was the place that crumbled crippled concrete shells came to die — and the hunger on some of the kids’ faces, can’t forget that — but also it seemed in many places like a whole new country was materializing atop the ruins of the old one: there were now better roads and nicer vehicles and brand-new luxury air-conditioned buses plying the longer routes to the Cibao and beyond and U.S. fast-food restaurants (Dunkin’ Donuts and Burger King) and local ones whose names and logos he did not recognize (Pollos Victorina and El Provocón NO.4) and traffic lights everywhere that nobody seemed to heed. Biggest change of all? A few years back La Inca had moved her entire operation to La Capital — we’re getting too big for Baní — and now the family had a new house in Mirador Norte and six bakeries throughout the city’s outer zones. We’re capitalenos, his cousin, Pedro Pablo (who had picked them up at the airport), announced proudly.

La Inca too had changed since Oscar’s last visit. She had always seemed ageless, the family’s very own Galadriel, but now he could see that it wasn’t true. Nearly all her hair had turned white, and despite her severe unbent carriage, her skin was finely crosshatched with wrinkles and she had to put on glasses to read anything. She was still spry and proud and when she saw him, first time in nearly seven years, she put her hands on his shoulders and said, Mi hijo, you have finally returned to us.

Hi, Abuela. And then, awkwardly: Bendición.

(Nothing more moving, though, than La Inca and his mother. At first saying nothing and then his mother covering her face and breaking down, saying in this little-girl voice: Madre, I’m home. And then the both of them holding each other and crying and Lola joining them and Oscar not knowing what to do so he joined his cousin, Pedro Pablo, who was shuttling all the luggage from the van to the patio de atrás.)

It really was astonishing how much he’d forgotten about the DR: the little lizards that were everywhere, and the roosters in the morning, followed shortly by the cries of the plataneros and the bacalao guy and his do Carlos Moya, who smashed him up that first night with shots of Brugal and who got all misty at the memories he had of him and his sister. But what he had forgotten most of all was how incredibly beautiful Dominican women were.

Duh, Lola said.

On the rides he took those first couple of days he almost threw his neck out. I’m in Heaven, he wrote in his journal. Heaven? His cousin Pedro Pablo sucked his teeth with exaggerated disdain. Esto aquí es un maldito infierno.

EVIDENCE OF A BROTHER’S PAST

In the pictures Lola brought home there are shots of Oscar in the back of the house reading Octavia Buder, shots of Oscar on the Malecón with a bottle of Presidente in his hand, shots of Oscar at the Columbus lighthouse, where half of Villa Duarte used to stand, shots of Oscar with Pedro Pablo in Villa Juana buying spark plugs, shots of Oscar trying on a hat on the Conde, shots of Oscar standing next to a burro in Baní, shots of Oscar next to his sister (she in a string bikini that could have blown your corneas out). You can tell he’s trying too. He’s smiling a lot, despite the bafflement in his eyes.

He’s also, you might notice, not wearing his fat-guy coat.

OSCAR GOES NATIVE

After his initial homecoming week, after he’d been taken to a bunch of sights by his cousins, after he’d gotten somewhat used to the scorching weather and the surprise of waking up to the roosters and being called Huascar by everybody (that was his Dominican name, something else he’d forgotten), after he refused to succumb to that whisper that