The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

hijo-de-la-gran-puta, are going home.

    No, he said, through demolished lips. He wasn’t fooling, either. When he first woke up and realized that he was still alive, he asked for Ybón. I love her, he whispered, and his mother said, Shut up, you! Just shut up!
    Why are you screaming at the boy? La Inca demanded.
    Because he’s an idiot.
    The family doctora ruled out epidural hematoma but couldn’t guarantee that Oscar didn’t have brain trauma. (She was a cop’s girlfriend? Tío Rudolfo whistled. I’ll vouch for the brain damage.) Send him home right now, the doctora said, but for four days Oscar resisted any attempt to pack him up in a plane, which says a lot about this fat kid’s fortitude; he was eating morphine by the handful and his grill was in agony , he had an around-the-clock quadruple migraine and couldn’t see squat out of his right eye; motherfucker’s head was so swole he looked like John Merrick Junior and anytime he attempted to stand, the ground whisked right out from under him. Christ in a handbasket! he thought. So this is what it felt like to get your ass kicked . The pain just wouldn’t stop rolling, and no matter how hard he tried he could not command it. He swore never to write another fight scene as long as he lived. It wasn’t all bad, though; the beating granted him strange insights; he realized, rather unhelpfully, that had he and Ybón not been serious the capitán would probably never have fucked with him. Proof positive that he and Ybón had a relationship. Should I celebrate, he asked the dresser, or should I cry? Other insights? One day while watching his mother tear sheets off the beds it dawned on him that the family curse he’d heard about his whole life might actually be true .

    Fukú.
    He rolled the word experimentally in his mouth. Fuck you .
    His mother raised her fist in a fury but La Inca intercepted it, their flesh slapping. Are you mad? La Inca said, and Oscar couldn’t tell if she was talking to his mother or to him.
    As for Ybón, she didn’t answer her pager, and the few times he managed to limp to the window he saw that her Pathfinder wasn’t there. I love you, he shouted into the street. I love you! Once he made it to her door and buzzed before his tío realized that he was gone and dragged him back inside. At night all Oscar did was lie in bed and suffer, imagining all sorts of horrible Sucesos -style endings for Ybón. When his head felt like it was going to explode he tried to reach out to her with his telepathic powers.
    And on day three she came. While she sat on the edge of his bed his mother banged pots in the kitchen and said puta loud enough for them to hear.
    Forgive me if I don’t get up, Oscar whispered. I’m having slight difficulties with my cranium.
    She was dressed in white, and her hair was still wet from the shower, a tumult of brownish curls. Of course the capitán had beaten the shit out of her too, of course she had two black eyes (he’d also put his .44 Magnum in her vagina and asked her who she really loved). And yet there was nothing about her that Oscar wouldn’t have gladly kissed. She put her fingers on his hand and told him that she could never be with him again. For some reason Oscar couldn’t see her face, it was a blur, she had retreated completely into that other plane of hers. Heard only the sorrow of her breathing. Where was the girl who had noticed him checking out a flaquita the week before and said, half joking, Only a dog likes a bone, Oscar. Where was the girl who had to try on five different outfits before she left the house? He tried to focus his eyes but what he saw was only his love for her.
    He held out the pages he’d written. I have so much to talk to you about—
    Me and ——— are getting married, she said curtly.
    Ybón, he said, trying to form the words, but she was already gone.
    Se acabó. His mother and his abuela and his tío delivered the ultimatum and that was that. Oscar didn’t look at the ocean or the scenery as they drove to the airport. He was trying to decipher something he’d written the night before, mouthing the words slowly. It’s beautiful today, Clives remarked. He looked up with tears in his eyes. Yes, it is.
    On the flight over he sat between his tío and his moms. Jesus, Oscar, Rudolfo said nervously. You look like they put a shirt on a turd.
    His sister met them at JFK and when she saw his face she cried and didn’t stop even when she got back to my apartment. You should