The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

know if you could do me a favor.

Anything, bro. Just ask it.

He needed money for his security deposit, had a line on an apartment in Brooklyn. I should have thought about it—Oscar never asked anybody for money—but I didn’t, fell over myself to give it to him. My guilty conscience.

We smoked the dutch and talked about the problems me and Lola were having. You should never have had carnal relations with that Paraguayan girl, he pointed out. I know, I said, I know.

She loves you.

I know that.

Why do you cheat on her, then?

If I knew that, it wouldn’t be a problem.

Maybe you should try to find out.

He stood up.

You ain’t going to wait for Lola?

I must be away to Paterson. I have a date.

You’re shitting me?

He shook his head, the tricky fuck.

I asked: Is she beautiful?

He smiled. She is.

On Saturday he was gone.

SEVEN The Final Voyage

The last time he flew to Santo Domingo he’d been startled when the applause broke out, but this time he was prepared, and when the plane landed he clapped until his hands stung.

As soon as he hit the airport exit he called Clives and homeboy picked him up an hour later, found him surrounded by taxistas who were trying to pull him into their cabs. Cristiano, Clives said, what are you doing here?

It’s the Ancient Powers, Oscar said grimly. They won’t leave me alone.

They parked in front of her house and waited almost seven hours before she returned. Clives tried to talk him out of it but he wouldn’t listen. Then she pulled up in the Pathfinder. She looked thinner. His heart seized like a bad leg and for a moment he thought about letting the whole thing go, about returning to Bosco and getting on with his miserable life, but then she stooped over, as if the whole world was watching, and that settled it. He winched down the window. Ybon, he said. She stopped, shaded her eyes, and then recognized him. She said his name too. Oscar. He popped the door and walked over to where she was standing and embraced her.

Her first words? Mi amor, you have to leave right now.

In the middle of the street he told her how it was. He told her that he was in love with her and that he’d been hurt but now he was all right and if he could just have a week alone with her, one short week, then everything would be fine in him and he would be able to face what he had to face and she said I don’t understand and so he said it again, that he loved her more than the Universe and it wasn’t something that he could shake so please come away with me for a little while, lend me your strength and then it would be over if she wanted.

Maybe she did love him a little bit. Maybe in her heart of hearts she left the gym bag on the concrete and got in the taxi with him. But she’d known men like the capitan all her life, had been forced to work in Europe one year straight by niggers like that before she could start earning her own money. Knew also that in the DR they called a cop-divorce a bullet. The gym bag was not left on the street.

I’m going to call him, Oscar, she said, misting up a little. So please go before he gets here.

I’m not going anywhere, he said.

Go, she said.

No, he answered.

He let himself into his abuela’s house (he still had the key). The capitan showed up an hour later, honked his horn a long time, but Oscar didn’t bother to go out. He had gotten out all of La Inca’s photographs, was going through each and every one. When La Inca returned from the bakery she found him scribbling at the kitchen table.

Oscar?

Yes, Abuela, he said, not looking up. It’s me.

It’s hard to explain, he wrote his sister later. I bet it was.

CURSE OF THE CARIBBEAN

For twenty-seven days he did two things: he researched—wrote and he chased her. Sat in front of her house, called her on her beeper, went to the World Famous Riverside, where she worked, walked to the supermarket whenever he saw her truck pull out, just in case she was on her way there. Nine times out of ten she was not. The neighbors, when they saw him on the curb, shook their heads and said, Look at that loco.

At first it was pure terror for her. She didn’t want nothing to do with him; she wouldn’t speak to him, wouldn’t acknowledge him, and the first time she saw him at the club she was so frightened her legs buckled under her. He knew he was scaring her shitless, but he couldn’t help it. By day ten, though, even terror was too much effort and when he followed her down an aisle or smiled at her at work she would hiss, Please go home, Oscar.

She was miserable when she saw him, and miserable, she would tell him later, when she didn’t, convinced that he’d gotten killed. He slipped long passionate letters under her gate, written in English, and the only response he got was when the capitan and his friends called and threatened to chop him to pieces. After each threat he recorded the time and then phoned the embassy and told them that Officer had threatened to kill him, could you please help?

He had hope, because if she really wanted him gone she could have lured him out in the open and let the capitan destroy him. Because if she wanted to she could have had him banned from the Riverside. But she didn’t.

Boy, you can dance good, he wrote in a letter. In another he laid out the plans he had to marry her and take her back to the States.

She started scribbling back notes and passed them to him at the club, or had them mailed to his house. Please, Oscar, I haven’t slept in a week. I don’t want you to end up hurt or dead. Go home.

But beautiful girl, above all beautiful girls, he wrote back. This is my home.

Your real home, mi amor.

A person can’t have two?

Night nineteen, Ybon rang at the gate, and he put down his pen, knew it was her. She leaned over and unlocked the truck door and when he got in he tried to kiss her but she said, Please, stop it. They drove out toward La Romana, where the capitan didn’t have friends supposedly. Nothing new was discussed but he said, I like your new haircut, and she started laughing and crying and said, Really? You don’t think it makes me look cheap?

You and cheap do not compute, Ybon.

What could we do? Lola flew down to see him, begged him to come home, told him that he was only going to get Ybon and himself killed; he listened and then said quietly that she didn’t understand what was at stake. I understand perfectly, she yelled. No, he said sadly, you don’t. His abuela tried to exert her power, tried to use the