2007 - The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (32 page)

Oh, they got close all right, but we have to ask the hard questions again: Did they ever kiss in her Pathfinder? Did he ever put his hands up her super-short skirt? Did she ever push up against him and say his name in a throaty whisper? Did he ever stroke that end-of-the-world tangle that was her hair while she sucked him off? Did they ever fuck?

Of course not. Miracles only go so far. He watched her for the signs, signs that would tell him she loved him. He began to suspect that it might not happen this summer, but already he had plans to come back for Thanksgiving, and then for Christmas. When he told her, she looked at him strangely and said only his name, Oscar, a little sadly.

She liked him, it was obvious, she liked it when he talked his crazy talk, when he stared at a new thing like it might have been from another planet (like the one time she had caught him in the bathroom staring at her soapstone — What the hell is
this
peculiar mineral? he said). It seemed to Oscar that he was one of her few real friends. Outside the boyfriends, foreign and domestic, outside her psychiatrist sister in San Cristóbal and her ailing mother in Sabana Iglesia, her life seemed as spare as her house.

Travel light, was all she ever said about the house when he suggested he buy her a lamp or anything, and he suspected that she would have said the same thing about having more friends. He knew, though, that he wasn’t her only visitor. One day he found three discarded condom foils on the floor around her bed, had asked, Are you having trouble with incubuses? She smiled without shame. That’s one man who doesn’t know the word
quit
.

Poor Oscar. At night he dreamed that his rocketship, the
Hijo de Sacrijicio
, was up and off but that it was heading for the Ana Obregón Barrier at the speed of light.

At the beginning of August, Ybón started mentioning her boyfriend, the capitán, a lot more. Seems he’d heard about Oscar and wanted to meet him. He’s really jealous, Ybón said rather weakly: Just have him meet me, Oscar said. I make all boyfriends feel better about themselves. I don’t know, Ybón said. Maybe we shouldn’t spend so much time together. Shouldn’t you be looking for a girlfriend?

I got one, he said. She’s the girlfriend of my mind.

A jealous Third World cop boyfriend? Maybe we shouldn’t spend so much time together? Any other nigger would have pulled a Scooby-Doo double take — Eeuoooorr? — would have thought twice about staying in Santo Domingo another day. Hearing about the capitán only served to depress him, as did the spend-less-time crack. He never stopped to consider the fact that when a Dominican cop says he wants to meet you he ain’t exactly talking about bringing you flowers.

One night not long after the condom-foil incident Oscar woke up in his overly air-conditioned room and realized with unusual clarity that he was heading down that road again. The road where he became so nuts over a girl he stopped thinking.

The road where very bad things happened. You should stop right now, he told himself. But he knew, with lapidary clarity, that he wasn’t going to stop. He loved Ybón. (And love, for this kid, was a geas, something that could not be shaken or denied.) The night before, she’d been so drunk that he had to help her into bed, and the whole time she was saying, God, we have to be careful, Oscar, but as soon as she hit the mattress she started writhing out of her clothes, didn’t care that he was there; he tried not to look until she was under her covers but what he did see burned the edges of his eyes. When he turned to leave she sat up, her chest utterly and beautifully naked. Don’t go yet. Wait till I’m asleep. He lay down next to her, on top of the sheets, didn’t walk home until it was starting to get light out. He’d seen her beautiful chest and knew now that it was far too late to pack up and go home like those little voices were telling him, far too late.

Two days later Oscar found his tío examining the front door. What’s the matter? His tío showed him the door and pointed at the concrete-block wall on the other side of the foyer. I think somebody shot at our house last night. He was enraged. Fucking Dominicans. Probably hosed the whole neighborhood down. We’re lucky we’re alive.

His mother jabbed her finger into the bullet hole. I don’t consider this being lucky.

I don’t either, La Inca said, staring straight at Oscar.

For a second Oscar felt this strange tugging in the back of his head, what someone else might have called Instinct, but instead of hunkering down and sifting through it he said, We probably didn’t hear it because of all our air conditioners, and then he walked over to Ybón’s. They were supposed to be going to the Duarte that day.

In the middle of August Oscar finally met the capitán. But he also got his first kiss ever. So you could say that day changed his life.

Ybón had passed out again (after giving him a long speech about how they had to give each other ‘space,’ which he’d listened to with his head down and wondered why she insisted on holding his hand during dinner, then). It was super late and he’d been following Clives in the Pathfinder, the usual routine, when some cops up ahead let Clives pass and then asked Oscar to please step out of the vehicle. It’s not my truck, he explained, it’s hers. He pointed to the sleeping Ybón. We understand, if you could pull over for a second. He did so, a little worried, but right then Ybón sat up and stared at him with her light eyes. Do you know what I want, Oscar?

I am, he said, too afraid to ask.

I want, she said, moving into position, un beso.

And before he could say anything she was on him.

The first feel of woman’s body pressing against yours — who among us can ever forget that? And that first real kiss — well, to be honest, I’ve forgotten both of these firsts, but Oscar never would.

For a second he was in disbelief. This is it, this is really it! Her lips plush and pliant, and her tongue pushing into his mouth. And then there were lights all around them and he thought I’m going to transcend! Transcendence is miiine! But then he realized that the two plainclothes who had pulled them over — who both looked like they’d been raised on high-G planets, and whom we’ll call Solomon Grundy and Gorilla Grod for simplicity’s sake were beaming their flashlights into the car. And who was standing behind them, looking in on the scene inside the car with an expression of sheer murder? Why, the capitán of course. Ybón’s boyfriend!

Grod and Grundy yanked him out of the car. And did Ybón fight to keep him in her arms? Did she protest the rude interruption to their making out? Of course not. Homegirl just passed right out again.

The capitán. A skinny forty-something jabao standing near his spotless red Jeep, dressed nice, in slacks and a crisply pressed white button-down, his shoes bright as scarabs. One of those tall, arrogant, acerbically handsome niggers that most of the planet feels inferior to. Also one of those very bad men that not even postmodernism can explain away. He’d been young during the Trujillato, so he never got the chance to run with some real power, wasn’t until the North American Invasion that he earned his stripes. Like my father, he supported the U.S. Invaders, and because he was methodical and showed absolutely no mercy to the leftists, he was launched — no, vaulted — into the top ranks of the military police. Was very busy under Demon Balaguer. Shooting at sindicatos from the backseats of cars. Burning down organizers’ homes. Smashing in people’s faces with crowbars.

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, a 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?