Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, The - Junot Diaz [123]
AS FOR ME
These days I live in Perth Amboy, New Jersey, teach composition and creative writing at Middlesex Community College, and even own a house at the top of Elm Street, not far from the steel mill. Not one of the big ones that the bodega owners buy with their earnings, but not too shabby, either. Most of my colleagues think Perth Amboy is a dump, but I beg to differ.
It’s not exactly what I dreamed about when I was a kid, the teaching, the living in New Jersey, but I make it work as best as I can. I have a wife I adore and who adores me, a negrita from Salcedo whom I do not deserve, and sometimes we even make vague noises about having children. Every now and then I’m OK with the possibility. I don’t run around after girls anymore. Not much, anyway. When I’m not teaching or coaching baseball or going to the gym or hanging out with the wifey I’m at home, writing. These days I write a lot. From can’t see in the morning to can’t see at night. Learned that from Oscar. I’m a new man, you see, a new man, a new man.
AS FOR US
Believe it or not, we still see each other. She, Cuban Ruben, and their daughter moved back to Paterson a couple of years back, sold the old house, bought a new one, travel everywhere together (at least that’s what my mother tells me — Lola, being Lola, still visits her). Every now and then when the stars are aligned I run into her, at rallies, at bookstores we used to chill at, on the streets of NYC. Sometimes Cuban Ruben is with her, sometimes not. Her daughter, though, is always there. Eyes of Oscar. Hair of Hypatia. Her gaze watches everything. A little reader too, if Lola is to be believed. Say hi to Yunior, Lola commands. He was your tío’s best friend.
Hi, tío, she says reluctantly.
Tío’s friend, she corrects.
Hi, tío’s friend.
Lola’s hair is long now and never straightened; she’s heavier and less guileless, but she’s still the ciguapa of my dreams. Always happy to see me, no bad feelings, entiendes. None at all.
Yunior, how are you?
I’m fine. How are you?
Before all hope died I used to have this stupid dream that shit could be saved, that we would be in bed together like the old times, with the fan on, the smoke from our weed drifting above us, and I’d finally try to say words that could have saved us.
§
But before I can shape the vowels I wake up. My face is wet, and that’s how you know it’s never going to come true.
Never, ever.
It ain’t too bad, though. During our run-ins we smile, we laugh, we take turns saying her daughter’s name. I never ask if her daughter has started to dream. I never mention our past. All we ever talk about is Oscar.
§
It’s almost done. Almost over. Only some final things to show you before your Watcher fulfills his cosmic duty and retires at last to the Blue Area of the Moon, not to be heard again until the Last Days.
Behold the girl: the beautiful muchachita: Lola’s daughter. Dark and blindingly fast: in her great-grandmother La Inca’s words: una jurona. Could have been my daughter if I’d been smart, if I’d been. Makes her no less precious. She climbs trees, she rubs her butt against doorjambs, she practices malapalabras when she thinks nobody is listening. Speaks Spanish and English.
Neither Captain Marvel nor Billy Batson, but the lightning.
A happy kid, as far as these things go. Happy!
But on a string around her neck: three azabaches: the one that Oscar wore as a baby, the one that Lola wore as a baby, and the one that Beli was given by La Inca upon reaching Sanctuary. Powerful elder magic. Three barrier shields against the Eye. Backed by a six-mile plinth of prayer. (Lola’s not stupid; she made both my mother and La Inca the girl’s madrinas.) Powerful wards indeed.
One day, though, the Circle will fail.
As Circles always do.
And for the first time she will hear the word Fukú.
And she will have a dream of the No Face Man.
Not now, but soon.
If she’s her family’s daughter — as I suspect she is — one day she will stop being afraid and she will come looking for answers. Not now, but soon. One day when I’m least expecting, there