Junot Díaz: The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

The Twelve Years were good times for men like him. In 1974 he held an old woman’s head underwater until she died (she’d tried to organize some peasants for land rights in San Juan); in 1977 he played mazel-tov on a fifteen-year-old boy’s throat with the heel of his Florsheim (another Communist troublemaker, good fucking riddance). I know this guy well. He has family in Queens and every Christmas he brings his cousins bottles of Johnnie Walker Black. His friends call him Fito, and when he was young he wanted to be a lawyer, but then the calie scene about all that lawyering business.

So you’re the New Yorker. When Oscar saw the capitán’s eyes he knew he was in deep shit. The capitán, you see, also had close-set eyes; these, though, were blue and terrible. (The eyes of Lee Van Cleef!) If it hadn’t been for the courage of his sphincter, Oscar’s lunch and his dinner and his breakfast would have whooshed straight out of him.

I didn’t do anything, Oscar quailed. Then he blurted out, I’m an American citizen.

The capitán waved away a mosquito. I’m an American citizen too. I was naturalized in the city of Buffalo, in the state of New York.

I bought mine in Miami, Gorilla Grod said. Not me, Solomon Grundy lamented. I only have my residency.

Please, you have to believe me, I didn’t do anything .

The capitán smiled. Motherfucker even had First World teeth. Do you know who I am? Oscar nodded. He was inexperienced but he wasn’t dumb. You’re Ybón’s ex-boyfriend. I’m not her ex-novio, you maldito parigüayo! the capitán screamed, the cords in his neck standing out like a Krikfalusi drawing.

She said you were her ex, Oscar insisted.

The capitán grabbed him by the throat.

That’s what she said, he whimpered.

Oscar was lucky; if he had looked like my pana, Pedro, the Dominican Superman, or like my boy Benny, who was a model, he probably would have gotten shot right there. But because he was a homely slob, because he really looked like un maldito parigüayo who had never had no luck in his life, the capitán took Gollum-pity on him and only punched him a couple of times. Oscar, who had never been ‘punched a couple of times’ by a military-trained adult, felt like he had just been run over by the entire Steelers backfield circa 1977. Breath knocked out of him so bad he honestly thought he was going to die of asphyxiation. The captain’s face appeared over his: If you ever touch my mujer again I’m going to kill you, parigüayo, and Oscar managed to whisper, You’re the ex, before Messrs. Grundy and Grod picked him up (with some difficulty), squeezed him back into their Camry, and drove off. Oscar’s last sight of Ybón? The capitán dragging her out of the Pathfinder cabin by her hair.

He tried to jump out of the car but Gorilla Grod elbowed him so hard that all the fight jumped clean out of him. Nighttime in Santo Domingo. A blackout, of course. Even the Lighthouse out for the night.

Where did they take him? Where else. The cane-fields.

How’s that for eternal return? Oscar so bewildered and frightened he pissed himself.

Didn’t you grow up around here? Grundy asked his darker-skinned pal.

You stupid dick-sucker, I grew up in Puerto Plata.

Are you sure? You look like you speak a little French to me.

On the ride there Oscar tried to find his voice but couldn’t. He was too shook. (In situations like these he had always assumed his secret hero would emerge and snap necks, à la Jim Kelly, but clearly his secret hero was out having some pie.) Everything seemed to be moving so fast. How had this happened? What wrong turn had he taken? He couldn’t believe it. He was going to die. He tried to imagine Ybón at the funeral in her nearly see-through black sheath, but couldn’t. Saw his mother and La Inca at the grave site. Didn’t we tell you? Didn’t we tell you? Watched Santo Domingo glide past and felt impossibly alone. How could this be happening? To him? He was boring, he was fat, and he was so very afraid. Thought about his mother, his sister, all the miniatures he hadn’t painted yet, and started crying. You need to keep it down, Grundy said, but Oscar couldn’t stop, even when he put his hands in his mouth.

They drove for a long time, and then finally, abruptly, they stopped. At the cane-fields Messrs. Grod and Grundy pulled Oscar out of the car. They opened the trunk but the batteries were dead in the flashlight so they had to drive back to a colmado, buy the batteries, and then drive back. While they argued with the colmado owner about prices, Oscar thought about escaping, thought about jumping out of the car and running down the street, screaming, but he couldn’t do it. Fear is the mind killer, he chanted in his head, but he couldn’t force himself to act. They had guns! He stared out into the night, hoping that maybe there would be some U.S. Marines out for a stroll, but there was only a lone man sitting in his rocking chair out in front of his ruined house and for a moment Oscar could have sworn the dude had no face, but then the killers got back into the car and drove. Their flashlight newly activated, they walked him into the cane-never had he heard anything so loud and alien, the susurration, the crackling, the flashes of motion underfoot (snake? mongoose?), overhead even the stars, all of them gathered in vainglorious congress. And yet this world seemed strangely familiar to him; he had the overwhelming feeling that he’d been in this very place, a long time ago. It was worse than déjà vu, but before he could focus on it the moment slipped away, drowned by his fear, and then the two men told him to stop and turn around. We have something to give you, they said amiably. Which brought Oscar back to the Real. Please, he shrieked, don’t! But instead of the muzzle-flash and the eternal dark, Grod struck him once hard in the head with the butt of his pistol. For a second the pain broke the yoke of his fear and he found the strength to move his legs and was about to turn and run but then they both started whaling on him with their pistols.

It’s not clear whether they intended to scare him or kill him. Maybe the capitán had ordered one thing and they did another. Perhaps they did exactly what he asked, or perhaps Oscar just got lucky. Can’t say. All I know is, it was the beating to end all beatings. It was the Gotterdammerung of beat-downs, a beat down so cruel and relentless that even Camden, the City of the Ultimate Beat down, would have been proud. (Yes sir, nothing like getting smashed in the face with those patented Pachmayr Presentation Grips.) He shrieked , but it didn’t stop the beating; he begged, and that didn’t stop it, either; he blacked out, but that was no relief; the niggers kicked him in the nuts and perked him right up! He tried to drag himself into the cane, but they pulled him back! It was like one of those nightmare eight-AM. MLA panels: endless . Man, Gorilla Grod said, this kid is making me sweat . Most of the time they took turns striking him, but sometimes they got into it together and there were moments Oscar was sure that he was being beaten by three men, not two, that the faceless man from in front of the colmado was joining them. Toward the end, as all life began to slip away, Oscar found himself facing his abuela; she was sitting in her rocking chair, and when she saw him she snarled, What did I tell you about those putas? Didn’t I tell you you were going to die?

And then finally Grod jumped down on his head with both his boots and right before it happened Oscar could have sworn that there was a third man with them and he was standing back behind some of the cane but before Oscar could see his face it was Good Night, Sweet Prince, and he felt like he was falling again, falling straight for Route 18, and there was nothing he could do, nothing at all, to stop it.