Junot Díaz - The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

Did I try to help him with his girl situation? Share some of my playerly wisdom?

Of course I did. Problem was, when it came to the mujeres my roommate was like no one on the planet. On the one hand, he had the worst case of no-toto-itis I’d ever seen. The last person to even come close was this poor Salvadoran kid I knew in high school who was burned all over his face, couldn’t get no girls ever because he looked like the Phantom of the Opera. Well: Oscar had it worse than him. At least Jeffrey could claim an honest medical condition. What could Oscar claim? That it was Sauron’s fault? Dude weighed 307 pounds, for fuck’s sake! Talked like a Star Trek computer! The real irony was that you never met a kid who wanted a girl so fucking bad. I mean, shit, I thought I was into females, but no one, and I mean no one , was into them the way Oscar was. To him they were the beginning and end, the Alpha and the Omega, the DC and the Marvel. Homes had it bad; couldn’t so much as see a cute girl without breaking into shakes. Developed crushes out of nothing—must have had at least two dozen high-level ones that first semester alone. Not that any of these shits ever came to anything. How could they? Oscar’s idea of G was to talk about role-playing games! How fucking crazy is that? (My favorite was the day on the E bus when he informed some hot morena, If you were in my game I would give you an eighteen Charisma!)

I tried to give advice, I really did. Nothing too complicated. Like, Stop hollering at strange girls on the street, and don’t bring up the Beyonder any more than necessary. Did he listen? Of course not! Trying to talk sense to Oscar about girls was like trying to throw rocks at Unus the Untouchable. Dude was impenetrable. He’d hear me out and then shrug. Nothing else has any efficacy, I might as well be myself.

But your yourself sucks!

It is, lamentably, all I have.

But my favorite conversation:

Yunior?

What?

Are you awake?

If it’s about Star Trek

It’s not about Star Trek …He coughed. I have heard from a reliable source that no Dominican male has ever died a virgin. You who have experience in these matters—do you think this is true?

I sat up. Dude was peering at me in the dark, dead serious.

0, it’s against the laws of nature for a dominicano to die without fucking at least once.

That, he sighed, is what worries me.

So what happens at the beginning of October? What always happens to playboys like me.

I got bopped.

No surprise, given how balls-out I was living. Wasn’t just any bop either. My girl Suriyan found out I was messing with one of hermanas. Players: never never never fuck with a bitch named Awilda. Because when she awildas out on your ass you’ll know pain for real. The Awilda in question dimed me for fuck knows what reason, actually taped one of my calls to her and before you could say Oh shit everybody knew. Homegirl must have played that thing like five hundred times. Second time I’d been caught in two years, a record even for me. Suriyan went absolutely nuts . Attacked me on the E bus. The boys laughing and running, and me pretending like I hadn’t done anything. Suddenly I was in the dorm a lot. Taking a stab at a story or two. Watching some movies with Oscar. This Island Earth. Appleseed. Project A . Casting around for a lifeline.

What I should have done was check myself into Bootie Rehab. But if you thought I was going to do that, then you don’t know Dominican men. Instead of focusing on something hard and useful like, say, my own shit, I focused on something easy and redemptive.

Out of nowhere, and not in the least influenced by my own shitty state—of course not!—I decided that I was going to fix Oscar’s life. One night while he was moaning on about his sorry existence I said: Do you really want to change it?

Of course I do, he said, but nothing I’ve tried has been ameliorative. I’ll change your life.

Really? The look he gave me—still breaks my heart, even after all these years.

Really. You have to listen to me, though.

Oscar scrambled to his feet. Placed his hand over his heart.

I swear an oath of obedience, my lord. When do we start?

You’ll see.

The next morning, six a.m., I kicked Oscar’s bed.

What is it? he cried out.

Nothing much, I said, throwing his sneakers on his stomach. Just the first day of your life.

I really must have been in a dangle over Suriyan—which is why I threw myself something serious into Project Oscar. Those first weeks, while I waited for Suriyan to forgive me, I had fatboy like Master Killer in Shaolin Temple. Was on his ass 24⁄7 . Got him to swear off the walking up to strange girls with his I-loveyou craziness. (You’re only scaring the poor girls, O.) Got him to start watching his diet and to stop talking crazy negative— I am ill fated, I am going to perish a virgin, I’m lacking in pulchritude —at least while I was around, I did. (Positive thoughts, I stressed, positive thoughts, motherfucker!) Even brought him out with me and the boys. Not anything serious—just out for a drink when it was a crowd of us and his monstro-ness wouldn’t show so much. (The boys hating—What’s next? We start inviting out the homeless?)

But my biggest coup of all? I got dude to exercise with me. To fucking run .

Goes to show you: O really did look up to me. No one else could have gotten him to do that. The last time he’d tried running had been freshman year, when he’d been fifty pounds lighter. I can’t lie: first couple of times I almost laughed, seeing him huffing down George Street, those ashy black knees of his a-shaking. Keeping his head down so he wouldn’t have to hear or see all the reactions. Usually just some cackles and a stray Hey, fit-ass . The best one I heard? Look, Mom, that guy’s taking his planet out for a run.

Don’t worry about them jokers, I told him.

No worry, he heaved, dying .

Dude was not into it at all . As soon as we were through he’d be back at his desk in no time flat. Almost clinging to it. Tried everything he could to weasel out of our runs. Started getting up at five so when I got up he’d already be at his computer, could claim he was in the middle of this amazingly important chapter. Write it later, bitch. After about our fourth run he actually got down on his knees. Please, Yunior, he said, I can’t. I snorted. Just go get your fucking shoes.

I knew shit wasn’t easy for him. I was callous, but not that callous. I saw how it was. You think people hate a fat person? Try a fat person who’s trying to get thin. Brought out the mother-fucking balrog in niggers. Sweetest girls you’d ever see would say the vilest shit to him on the street, old ladies would jabber, You’re disgusting, disgusting , and even Harold, who’d never shown much in the way of anti-Oscar tendencies, started calling him Jabba the Butt, just because. It was straight-up nuts.

OK, people suck, but what were his options? O had to do something . Twenty-four⁄seven at a computer, writing sci-fi monsterpieces, darting out to the Student Center every now and then to play video games, talking about girls but never actually touching one—what kind of life was that? For fuck’s sake, we were at Rutgers—Rutgers was just girls everywhere, and there was Oscar, keeping me up at night talking about the Green Lantern. Wondering aloud, If we were orcs, wouldn’t we, at a racial level, imagine ourselves to look like elves?

Dude had to do something .

He did, too.

He quit.

It was a nutty thing really. Four days a week we were running. I put in five miles myself but with him it was just a little every day. Thought he was doing OK, all things considered. Building, you know? And then right in the middle of one of our jogs. Out on George Street, and I looked back over my shoulder, saw that he had stopped. Sweat running down everywhere. Are you having a heart attack? I am not, he said. Then why ain’t you running? I’ve decided to run no more. Why the fuck not? It’s not going to work, Yunior. It ain’t going to work if you don’t want it to work. I know it’s not going to work. Come on, Oscar, pick up your goddamn feet. But he shook his head. He tried to squeeze my hand and then walked to the Livingston Ave. stop, took the Double E home. The next morning I prodded him with my foot but he didn’t stir.