Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, The - Junot Diaz [118]
He held out the pages he’d written. I have so much to talk to you about—
Me and — are getting married, she said curtly.
Ybón, he said, trying to form the words, but she was already gone.
Se acabó. His mother and his abuela and his tío delivered the ultimatum and that was that. Oscar didn’t look at the ocean or the scenery as they drove to the airport. He was trying to decipher something he’d written the night before, mouthing the words slowly. It’s beautiful today, Clives remarked. He looked up with tears in his eyes. Yes, it is.
On the flight over he sat between his tío and his moms. Jesus, Oscar, Rudolfo said nervously. You look like they put a shirt on a turd.
His sister met them at JFK and when she saw his face she cried and didn’t stop even when she got back to my apartment. You should see Mister, she sobbed. They tried to kill him.
What the fuck, Oscar, I said on the phone. I leave you alone for a couple days and you almost get yourself slabbed? His voice sounded muffled. I kissed a girl, Yunior. I finally kissed a girl.
But, O, you almost got yourself killed.
It wasn’t completely egregious, he said. I still had a few hit points left.
But then, two days later, I saw his face and was like: Holy shit, Oscar. Holy fucking shit.
He shook his head. Bigger game afoot than my appearances.
He wrote out the word for me:fukú.
SOME ADVICE
Travel light. She extended her arms to embrace her house, maybe the whole world.
PATERSON, AGAIN
He returned home. He lay in bed, he healed. His mother so infuriated she wouldn’t look at him.
He was a complete and utter wreck. Knew he loved her like he’d never loved anyone. Knew what he should be doing making like a Lola and flying back. Fuck the capitán. Fuck Grundy and Grod. Fuck everybody. Easy to say in the rational day but at night his balls turned to ice water and ran down his fucking legs like piss. Dreamed again and again of the cane, the terrible cane, except now it wasn’t him at the receiving end of the beating, but his sister, his mother, heard them shrieking, begging for them to stop, please God stop, but instead of racing toward the voices, he ran away! Woke up screaming. Not me. Not me.
He watched Virus for the thousandth time and for the thousandth time teared up when the Japanese scientist finally reached Tierra del Fuego and the love of his life. He read The Lord of the Rings for what I’m estimating the millionth time, one of his greatest loves and greatest comforts since he’d first discovered it, back when he was nine and lost and lonely and his favorite librarian had said, Here, try this, and with one suggestion changed his life. Got through almost the whole trilogy, but then the line ‘and out of Far Harad black men like half-trolls’ and he had to stop, his head and heart hurting too much.
Six weeks after the Colossal Beat down he dreamed about the cane again. But instead of bolting when the cries began, when the bones started breaking, he summoned all the courage he ever had, would ever have, and forced himself to do the one thing he did not want to do, that he could not bear to do.
He listened.
PART III
This happened in January. Me and Lola were living up in the Heights, separate apartments — this was before the whitekids started their invasion, when you could walk the entire length of Upper Manhattan and see not a single yoga mat. Me and Lola weren’t doing that great. Plenty I could tell you, but that’s neither here nor there. All you need