The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

the bauxite earth, the signs that banned donkey carts from the same tunnels—after he’d gone to Boca Chica and Villa Mella and eaten so much chicharrones he had to throw up on the side of the road—now that, his tio Rudolfo said, is entertainment—after his tio Carlos Moya berated him for having stayed away so long, after his abuela berated him for having stayed away so long, after his cousins berated him for having stayed away so long, after he saw again the unforgettable beauty of the Cibao, after he heard the stories about his mother, after he stopped marveling at the amount of political propaganda plastered up on every spare wall—Iadrones, his mother announced, one and all-after the touched-in-the-head tio who’d been tortured during Balaguer’s reign came over and got into a heated political argument with Carlos Moya (after which they both got drunk), after he’d caught his first sunburn in Boca Chica, after he’d swum in the Caribbean, after tio Rudolfo had gotten him blasted on marijuana de marisco, after he’d seen his first Haitians kicked off a guagua because niggers claimed they ‘smelled,’ after he’d nearly gone nuts over all the bellezas he saw, after he helped his mother install two new air conditioners and crushed his finger so bad he had dark blood under the nail, after all the gifts they’d brought had been properly distributed, after Lola introduced him to the boyfriend she’d dated as a teenager, now a capitaleno as well, after he’d seen the pictures of Lola in her private-school uniform, a tall muchacha with heartbreak eyes, after he’d brought flowers to his abuela’s number-one servant’s grave who had taken care of him when he was little, after he had diarrhea so bad his mouth watered before each detonation, after he’d visited all the rinky-dink museums in the capital with his sister, after he stopped being dismayed that everybody called him gordo (and, worse, gringo), after he’d been overcharged for almost everything he wanted to buy, after La Inca prayed over him nearly every morning, after he caught a cold because his abuela set the air conditioner in his room so high, he decided suddenly and without warning to stay on the Island for the rest of the summer with his mother and his tio. Not to go home with Lola. It was a decision that came to him one night on the Malecon, while staring out over the ocean. What do I have waiting for me in Paterson? he wanted to know. He wasn’t teaching that summer and he had all his notebooks with him. Sounds like a good idea to me, his sister said. You need some time in the patria. Maybe you’ll even find yourself a nice campesina. It felt like the right thing to do. Help clear his head and his heart of the gloom that had filled them these months. His mother was less hot on the idea but La Inca waved her into silence. Hijo, you can stay here all your life. (Though he found it strange that she made him put on a crucifix immediately thereafter.)

So, after Lola flew back to the States (Take good care of yourself, Mister) and the terror and joy of his return had subsided, after he settled down in Abuela’s house, the house that Diaspora had built, and tried to figure out what he was going to do with the rest of his summer now that Lola was gone, after his fantasy of an Island girlfriend seemed like a distant joke—Who the fuck had he been kidding? He couldn’t dance, he didn’t have loot, he didn’t dress, he wasn’t confident, he wasn’t handsome, he wasn’t from Europe, he wasn’t fucking no Island girls—after he spent one week writing and (ironically enough) turned down his male cousins’ offer to take him to a whorehouse like fifty times, Oscar fell in love with a semi-retired puta.

Her name was Ybon Pimentel. Oscar considered her the start of his real life.

LA BEBA

She lived two houses over and, like the de Leons, was a newcomer to Mirador Norte. (Oscar’s moms had bought their house with double shifts at her two jobs. Ybon bought hers with double shifts too, but in a window in Amsterdam.) She was one of those golden mulatas that French-speaking Caribbeans call chabines, that my boys call chicas de oro; she had snarled, apocalyptic hair, copper eyes, and was one whiteskinned relative away from jaba.

At first Oscar thought she was only a visitor, this tiny; slightly paunchy babe who was always high-heeling it out to her Pathfinder. (She didn’t have the Nuevo Mundo wannabe American look of the majority of his neighbors.) The two times Oscar bumped into her—during breaks in his writing he would go for walks along the hot, bland cul- de-sacs, or sit at the local cafe—she smiled at him. And the third time they saw each other—here, folks, is where the miracles begin—she sat at his table and said: What are you reading? At first he didn’t know what was happening, and then he realized: Holy Shit! A female was talking to him. (It was an unprecedented change in fortune, as though his threadbare Skein of Destiny had accidentally gotten tangled with that of a doper, more fortunate brother.) Turned out Ybon knew his abuela, gave her rides whenever Carlos Moya was out making deliveries. You’re the boy in her pictures, she said with a sly smile. I was little, he said defensively. And besides, that was before the war changed me. She didn’t laugh. That’s probably what it is. Well, I have to go. On went the shades, up went the ass, out went the belleza. Oscar’s erection following her like a dowser’s wand.

Ybon had attended the UASD a long time ago but she was no college girl, she had lines around her eyes and seemed, to Oscar at least, mad open, mad worldly, had the sort of intense zipper-gravity that hot middle-aged women exude effortlessly. The next time he ran into her in front of her house (he had watched for her), she said, Good morning, Mr. de Leon, in English. How are you? I am well, he said. And you? She beamed. I am well, thank you. He didn’t know what to do with his hands so he laced them behind his back like a gloomy parson. And for a minute there was nothing and she was unlocking her gate and he said, desperately, It is very hot. Ay si, she said. And I thought it was just my menopause. And then looking over her shoulder at him, curious perhaps at this strange character who was trying not to look at her at all, or recognizing how in crush he was with her and feeling charitable, she said, Come inside. I’ll give you a drink.

The casa near empty—his abuela’s crib was spare but this was on some next shit—Haven’t had the time to move in yet, she said offhandedly—and because there wasn’t any furniture besides a kitchen table, a chair, a bureau, a bed, and a TV, they had to sit on the bed. (Oscar peeped the astrology books under the bed and a collection of Paulo Coelho’s novels. She followed his gaze and said with a smile, Paulo Coelho saved my life.) She gave him a beer, had a double scotch, then for the next six hours regaled him with tales from her life. You could tell she hadn’t had anyone to talk to in a long time. Oscar reduced to nodding and trying to laugh when she laughed. The whole time he was sweating bullets. Wondering if this is when he should try something. It wasn’t until midway through their chat that it hit Oscar that the job Ybon talked so volubly about was prostitution. It was Holy Shit! the Sequel. Even though putas were one of Santo Domingo’s premier exports, Oscar had never been in a prostitute’s house in his entire life.

Staring out her bedroom window, he saw his abuela on her front lawn, looking for him. He wanted to raise the window and call to her but Ybon didn’t allow for any interruptions.

Ybon was an odd odd bird. She might have been talkative, the sort of easygoing woman a brother can relax around, but there was something slightly detached about her too; as though (Oscar’s words now) she were some marooned alien princess who existed partially in another dimension; the sort of woman who, cool as she was, slips out of your head a little too quickly, a quality she recognized and was thankful for, as though she relished the short bursts of attention she provoked from men, but not anything sustained. She didn’t seem to mind being the girl you called every couple of months at eleven at night, just to see what she was ‘up to’. As much relationship as she could handle. Reminds me of the morir-vivir plants we played with as kids, except in reverse.

Her Jedi mind-tricks did not, however, work on Oscar. When it came to girls, the brother had a mind like a yogi. He latched on and stayed latched. By the time he left her house that night and walked home through the Island’s million attack mosquitoes he was lost.

(Did it matter that Ybon started mixing Italian in with her Spanish after her fourth drink or that she almost fell flat on her face when she showed him out? Of course not!)

He was in love.

His mother and his abuela met him at the door; excuse the stereotype, but both had their hair in rolos and couldn’t believe his sinverguenceria. Do you know that woman’s a PUTA? Do you know she bought that house CULEANDO?

For a moment he was overwhelmed by their rage, and then he found his footing and shot back, Do you know her aunt was a JUDGE? Do you know her father worked for the PHONE COMPANY?

You want a woman, I’ll get you a good woman, his mother said, peering angrily out the window. But that puta’s only going to take your money.

I don’t need your help. And she ain’t a puta.