The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

And she shot back a Sure , all larded with sarcasm.
    I waved him over. So how’d it go, Romeo?
    He looked down at his hands. I think I may be in love.
    How can you be in love? You just met the bitch.
    Don’t call her a bitch, he said darkly.
    Yeah, Melvin imitated, don’t call her a bitch.
    You have to give it to Oscar. He didn’t let up. He just kept hitting on her with absolutely no regard for self. In the halls, in front of the bathroom door, in the dining hall, on the buses, dude became ubiquitous . Pinned comic books to her door, for Christ’s sake.
    In my universe, when a dork like Oscar pushes up on a girl like Jenni, he usually gets bounced faster than your tía Daisy’s rent checks, but Jenni must have had brain damage or been really into fat loser nerdboys, because by the end of February she was actually treating him all civil and shit. Before I could wrap my brain around that one I saw them hanging out together! In public! I couldn’t believe my fucking eyes. And then came the day when I returned from my creative-writing class and found La Jablesse and Oscar sitting in our room. They were just talking, about Alice Walker, but still. Oscar looking like he’d just been asked to join the Jedi Order; Jenni smiling beautiful. And me? I was speechless. Jenni remembered me, all right. Looked at me with her cute smirking eyes and said, You want me to get off your bed? Her Jersey accent enough to knock the guff clean out of me.
    Nah, I said. Picked up my gym bag and bolted like a bitch.
    When I got back from the weight room Oscar was at his computer—on page a billion of his new novel.
    I said, So, what’s up with you and Scarypants?
    Nothing.
    What the hell you two talk about?
    Items of little note. Something about his tone made me realize that he knew about her scorching me. The fucker. I said, Well, good luck, Wao. I just hope she doesn’t sacrifice you to Beelzebub or anything.
     
    All March they hung out. I tried not to pay attention, but we were all in the same dorm so it was hard not to. Later, Lola would tell me that the two of them even started going to movies together. They saw Ghost and this other terrible piece of ass called Hardware . Went to Franklin Diner afterward, where Oscar tried his best not to eat for three. I wasn’t around for most of this nonsense; I was out chasing the pussy and delivering pool tables and out with the boys on the weekends. Did it kill me that he was spending time with such a fly bitch? Of course it did. I always thought of myself as the Kaneda of our dyad, but here I was playing Tetsuo.
    Jenni really put it on for Oscar. Liked to walk arm in arm with him, and hug him every chance she got. Oscar’s adoration like the light of a new sun. Being the center of a Universe something that suited her. She read him all her poetry (Thou art the muse of the muses, I heard him say) and showed him her little dumb sketches (which he fucking hung on our door) and told him all about her life (which he dutifully noted in his journal). Living with an aunt because her mom moved to Puerto Rico to be with her new husband when she was seven. Spent from eleven on up making runs into the Village. Lived in a squat the year before she came to college, the Crystal Palace, it was called.
    Was I really reading my roommate’s journal behind his back? Of course I was.
    Oh, but you should have seen the O. He was like I’d never seen him, love the transformer. Started dressing up more, ironing his shirts every morning. Dug this wooden samurai sword out of his closet and in the early morning stood out on the lawn of Demarest, bare-chested, slicing down a billion imaginary foes. Even started running again! Well, jogging. Oh, now you can run, I carped, and he saluted me with a brisk upsweep of his hand as he struggled past.
    I should have been happy for the Wao. I mean, honestly, who was I to begrudge Oscar a little action? Me, who was fucking with not one, not two, but three fine-ass bitches at the same time and that wasn’t even counting the side-sluts I scooped at the parties and the clubs; me, who had pussy coming out my ears? But of course I begrudged the motherfucker. A heart like mine, which never got any kind of affection growing up, is terrible above all things. Was then, is now. Instead of encouraging him, I scowled when I saw him with La Jablesse; instead of sharing my women wisdom I told him to watch himself—in other words I was a player-hater.
    Me, the biggest player of them