Excerpt of The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz
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Those were more innocent days, so their relationship amounted to standing close
to each other at the bus stop, some undercover hand-holding, and twice kissing
on the cheeks very seriously, first Maritza, then Olga, while they were hidden
from the street by some bushes. (Look at that little macho, his mother’s friends
said. Que hombre.)
The threesome only lasted a single beautiful week. One day after school Maritza
cornered Oscar behind the swing set and laid down the law, It’s either her or
me! Oscar held Maritza’s hand and talked seriously and at great length about his
love for her and reminded her that they had agreed to share, but Maritza wasn’t
having any of it. She had three older sisters, knew everything she needed to
know about the possibilities of sharing. Don’t talk to me no more unless you get
rid of her! Maritza, with her chocolate skin and narrow eyes, already expressing
the Ogún energy that she would chop at everybody with for the rest of her life.
Oscar went home morose to his pre-Korean-sweatshop-era cartoons - to the
Herculoids and Space Ghost. What’s wrong with you? his mother asked. She was
getting ready to go to her second job, the eczema on her hands looking like a
messy meal that had set. When Oscar whimpered, Girls, Moms de León nearly
exploded. Tú ta llorando por una muchacha? She hauled Oscar to his feet by his
ear.
Mami, stop it, his sister cried, stop it!
She threw him to the floor. Dale un galletazo, she panted, then see if the
little puta respects you.
If he’d been a different nigger he might have considered the galletazo. It
wasn’t just that he didn’t have no kind of father to show him the masculine
ropes, he simply lacked all aggressive and martial tendencies. (Unlike his
sister, who fought boys and packs of morena girls who hated her thin nose and
straightish hair.) Oscar had like a zero combat rating; even Olga and her
toothpick arms could have stomped him silly. Aggression and intimidation out of
the question. So he thought it over. Didn’t take him long to decide. After all,
Maritza was beautiful and Olga was not; Olga sometimes smelled like pee and
Maritza did not. Maritza was allowed over their house and Olga was not. (A
puertorican over here? his mother scoffed. Jamás!) His logic as close to the
yes/ no math of insects as a nigger could get. He broke up with Olga the
following day on the playground, Maritza at his side, and how Olga had cried!
Shaking like a rag in her hand-me-downs and in the shoes that were four sizes
too big! Snots pouring out her nose and everything!
In later years, after he and Olga had both turned into overweight freaks, Oscar
could not resist feeling the occasional flash of guilt when he saw Olga loping
across a street or staring blankly out near the New York bus stop, couldn’t
stop himself from wondering how much his cold-as-balls breakup had
contributed to her present fucked-upness. (Breaking up with her, he would
remember, hadn’t felt like anything; even when she started crying, he hadn’t
been moved. He’d said, No be a baby.)
What had hurt, however, was when Maritza dumped him. Monday after he’d fed Olga
to the dogs he arrived at the bus stop with his beloved Planet of the Apes lunch
box only to discover beautiful Maritza holding hands with butt-ugly Nelson
Pardo. Nelson Pardo who looked like Chaka from Land of the Lost! Nelson Pardo
who was so stupid he thought the moon was a stain that God had forgotten to
clean. (He’ll get to it soon, he assured his whole class.) Nelson Pardo who
would become the neighborhood B&E expert before joining the Marines and losing
eight toes in the First Gulf War. At first Oscar thought it a mistake; the sun
was in his eyes, he’d not slept enough the night before. He stood next to them
and admired his lunch box, how realistic and diabolical Dr. Zaius looked. But
Maritza wouldn’t even smile at him! Pretended he wasn’t there. We should get
married, she said to Nelson, and Nelson grinned moronically, turning up the
street to look for the bus. Oscar had been too hurt to speak; he sat down on the
curb and felt something overwhelming surge up from his chest, scared the shit
out of him, and before he knew it he was crying; when his sister, Lola, walked
over and asked him what was the matter he’d shaken his head. Look at the
mariconcito, somebody snickered. Somebody else kicked his beloved lunch box and
scratched it right across General Urko’s face. When he got on the bus, still
crying, the driver, a famously reformed PCP addict, had said, Christ, don’t be
a fucking baby.
Reprinted from The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz by arrangement with Riverhead Books, a member of Penguin Group (USA), Inc., Copyright © 2007 by Junot Díaz
