Junot Díaz - The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

So we can’t talk about everything?

He didn’t even bother answering her.

With Manny and his big cock around, Oscar was back to dreaming about nuclear annihilation, how through some miraculous accident he’d hear about the attack first and without pausing he’d steal his tío’s car, drive it to the stores, stock it full of supplies (maybe shoot a couple of looters en route), and then fetch Ana. What about Manny? she’d wail. There’s no time! he’d insist, peeling out, shoot a couple more looters (now slightly mutated), and then repair to the sweaty love den where Ana would quickly succumb to his take-charge genius and his by-then ectomorphic physique. When he was in a better mood he let Ana find Manny hanging from a light fixture in his apartment, his tongue a swollen purple bladder in his mouth, his pants around his ankles. The news of the imminent attack on the TV, a half-literate note pinned to his chest. I koona taek it . And then Oscar would comfort Ana with the terse insight, He was too weak for this Hard New World.

So she has a boyfriend? Lola asked him suddenly.

Yes, he said.

You should back off for a little while.

Did he listen? Of course he didn’t. Available any time she needed to kvetch. And he even got-joy of joys!—the opportunity to meet the famous Manny, which was about as fun as being called a fag during a school assembly (which had happened). (Twice.) Met him outside Ana’s house. He was this intense emaciated guy with marathon-runner limbs and voracious eyes; when they shook hands Oscar was sure the nigger was going to smack him, he acted so surly. Manny was muy bald and completely shaved his head to hide it, had a hoop in each ear and this leathery out-in-the-sun buzzardy look of an old cat straining for youth.

So you’re Ana’s little friend, Manny said. That’s me, Oscar said in a voice so full of cheerful innocuousness that he could have shot himself for it. Oscar is a brilliant writer, Ana offered. Even though she had never once asked to read anything he wrote.

He snorted. What would you have to write about?

I’m into the more speculative genres. He knew how absurd he sounded.

The more speculative genres. Manny looked ready to cut a steak off him. You sound mad corny, guy, you know that? Oscar smiled, hoping somehow an earthquake would demolish all of Paterson.

I just hope you ain’t trying to chisel in on my girl, guy.

Oscar said, Ha-ha. Ana flushed red, looked at the ground.

A joy.

With Manny around, he was exposed to an entirely new side of Ana. All they talked about now, the little they saw each other, was Manny and the terrible things he did to her. Manny smacked her, Manny kicked her, Manny called her a fat twat, Manny cheated on her, she was sure, with this Cuban chickie from the middle school. So that explains why I couldn’t get a date in those days; it was Manny, Oscar joked, but Ana didn’t laugh. They couldn’t talk ten minutes without Manny beeping her and her having to call him back and assure him she wasn’t with anybody else. And one day she arrived at Oscar’s house with a bruise on her face and with her blouse torn, and his mother had said: I don’t want any trouble here!

What am I going to do? she asked over and over and Oscar always found himself holding her awkwardly and telling her, Well, I think if he’s this bad to you, you should break up with him, but she shook her head and said, I know I should, but I can’t. I love him.

Love . Oscar knew he should have checked out right then. He liked to kid himself that it was only cold anthropological interest that kept him around to see how it would all end, but the truth was he couldn’t extricate himself. He was totally and irrevocably in love with Ana. What he used to feel for those girls he’d never really known was nothing compared to the amor he was carrying in his heart for Ana. It had the density of a dwarf-mother-fucking-star and at times he was a hundred percent sure it would drive him mad. The only thing that came close was how he felt about his books; only the combined love he had for everything he’d read and everything he hoped to write came even close.

Every Dominican family has stories about crazy loves, about niggers who take love too far, and Oscar’s family was no different.

His abuelo, the dead one, had been unyielding about one thing or another (no one ever exactly said) and ended up in prison, first mad, then dead; his abuela Nena Inca had lost her husband six months after they got married. He had drowned on Semana Santa and she never remarried, never touched another man. We’ll be together soon enough, Oscar had heard her say.

Your mother, his tía Rubelka had once whispered, was a loca when it came to love. It almost killed her. And now it seemed that it was Oscar’s turn. Welcome to the family , his sister said in a dream. The real family .

It was obvious what was happening, but what could he do? There was no denying what he felt. Did he lose sleep? Yes. Did he lose important hours of concentration? Yes. Did he stop reading his Andre Norton books and even lose interest in the final issues of Watchmen , which were unfolding in the illest way? Yes. Did he start borrowing his tío’s car for long rides to the Shore, parking at Sandy Hook, where his mom used to take them before she got sick, back when Oscar hadn’t been too fat, before she stopped going to the beach altogether? Yes.

Did his youthful unrequited love cause him to lose weight? Unfortunately, this alone it did not provide, and for the life of him he couldn’t understand why. When Lola had broken up with Golden Gloves she’d lost almost twenty pounds. What kind of genetic discrimination was this, handed down by what kind of scrub God?

Miraculous things started happening. Once he blacked out while crossing an intersection and woke up with a rugby team gathered around him. Another time Miggs was goofing on him, talking smack about his aspirations to write role-playing games—complicated story, the company Oscar had been hoping to write for, Fantasy Games Unlimited, and which was considering one of his modules for PsiWorld, had recently closed, scuttling all of Oscar’s hopes and dreams that he was about to turn into the next Gary Gygax. Well, Miggs said, it looks like that didn’t work out, and for the first time ever in their relationship Oscar lost his temper and without a word swung on Miggs, connected so hard that homeboy’s mouth spouted blood. Jesus Christ, AI said. Calm down! I didn’t mean to do it, he said unconvincingly. It was an accident. Mudafuffer, Miggs said. Mudafuffer! He got so bad that one desperate night, after listening to Ana sobbing to him on the phone about Manny’s latest bullshit, he said, I have to go to church now, and put down the phone, went to his tío’s room (Rudolfo was out at the titty bar), and stole his antique Virginia Dragoon, that oh-so-famous First Nation-exterminating Colt.44, heavier than bad luck and twice as ugly. Stuck its impressive snout down the front of his pants and proceeded to stand in front of Manny’s building almost the entire night. Got real friendly with the aluminum siding. Come on, motherfucker, he said calmly. I got a nice eleven-year-old girl for you. He didn’t care that he would more than likely be put away forever, or that niggers like him got ass and mouth raped in jail, or that if the cops picked him up and found the gun they’d send his tío’s ass up the river for parole violation. He didn’t care about nada that night. His head contained zero, a perfect vacuum. He saw his entire writing future flash before his eyes; he’d only written one novel worth a damn, about an Australian hunger spirit preying on a group of small-town friends, wouldn’t get a chance to write anything better—career over. Luckily for the future of American Letters, Manny did not come home that night.