The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

suffering from four hundred hit points of damage, a mortally wounded Rafael Leónidas Trujillo Molina is said to have taken two steps toward his birthplace, San Cristóbal, for, as we know, all children, whether good or bad, eventually find their way home, but thinking better of it he turned back toward La Capital, to his beloved city, and fell for the last time. Zacarías, who’d had his mid-parietal region creased by a round from a .357, got blown into the grass by the side of the road; miracle of miracles, he would survive to tell the tale of the ajustamiento. De la Maza, perhaps thinking of his poor, dead, set-up brother, then took Trujillo’s.38 out of his dead hand and shot Trujillo in the face and uttered his now famous words: Éste guaraguao ya no comerá mas pollito. And then the assassins stashed El Jefe’s body—where? In the trunk, of course.
And thus passed old Fuckface. And thus passed the Era of Trujillo (sort of).
I’ve been to the neck of road where he was gunned down many many times. Nothing to report except that the guagua from Haina almost always runs my ass over every time I cross the highway. For a while, I hear, that stretch was the haunt of what El Jefe worried about the most: los maricones.
    20 . “And as the Captains gazed south to the Land of Mordor, it seemed to them that, black against the pall of cloud, there rose a huge shape of shadow, impenetrable, lightning-crowned, filling all the sky. Enormous it reared above the world, and stretched out towards them a vast threatening hand, terrible but impotent; for even as it leaned over them, a great wind took it, and it was all blown away, and passed; and then a hush fell.”
     
    21 . And where were the Mirabal Sisters murdered? In a canefield, of course. And then their bodies were put in a car and a crash was simulated! Talk about two for one!
     

FOUR
     

Sentimental Education 1988–1992
     
     
    I t started with me. The year before Oscar fell, I suffered some nuttiness of my own; I got jumped as I was walking home from the Roxy. By this mess of New Brunswick townies. A bunch of fucking morenos. Two a. m., and I was on Joyce Kilmer for no good reason. Alone and on foot. Why? Because I was hard, thought I’d have no problem walking through the thicket of young guns I saw on the corner. Big mistake. Remember the smile on this one dude’s face the rest of my fucking life. Only second to his high school ring, which plowed a nice furrow into my cheek (still got the scar). Wish I could say I went down swinging but these cats just laid me out. If it hadn’t been for some Samaritan driving by the motherfuckers probably would have killed me. The old guy wanted to take me to Robert Wood Johnson, but I didn’t have no medical, and besides, ever since my brother had died of leukemia I hadn’t been hot on doctors, so of course I was like: No no no. For having just gotten my ass kicked I actually felt pretty good. Until the next day, when I felt like I had died. So dizzy couldn’t stand up without puking. My guts feeling like they’d been taken out of me, beaten with mallets, and then reattached with paper clips. It was pretty bad, and of all the friends I had—all my great wonderful friends—only Lola came fucking through. Heard about the beatdown from my boy Melvin and shot over ASAP. Never so happy to see someone my whole life. Lola, with her big innocent teeth. Lola, who actually cried when she saw the state I was in.
    She was the one who took care of my sorry ass. Cooked, cleaned, picked up my classwork, got me medicine, even made sure that I showered. In other words, sewed my balls back on, and not any woman can do that for a guy. Believe you me. I could barely stand, my head hurt so bad, but she would wash my back and that was what I remember most about that mess. Her hand on that sponge and that sponge on me. Even though I had a girlfriend, it was Lola who spent those nights with me. Combing her hair out—once, twice, thrice—before folding her long self into bed. No more night-walking, OK, Kung Fu?
    At college you’re not supposed to care about anything—you’re just supposed to fuck around—but believe it or not, I cared about Lola. She was a girl it was easy to care about. Lola like the fucking opposite of the girls I usually macked on: bitch was almost six feet tall and no tetas at all and darker than your darkest grandma. Like two girls in one: the skinniest upperbody married to a pair of Cadillac hips and an ill