The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

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    I shouldn’t have wasted the energy. Jenni always had boys after her. Oscar only a lull in the action, and one day I saw her out on the Demarest lawn talking to the tall punk kid who used to hang around Demarest, wasn’t a resident, crashed with whatever girl would let him. Thin as Lou Reed, and as arrogant. He was showing her a yoga thing and she was laughing. Not two days later I found Oscar in his bed crying. Yo, homes, I said, fingering my weight belt. What the hell is the matter with you?
    Leave me alone, he lowed.
    Did she diss you? She dissed you, didn’t she?
    Leave me alone, he yelled. LEAVE. ME. ALONE.
    Figured it would be like always. A week of mooning and then back to the writing. The thing that carried him. But it wasn’t like always. I knew something was wrong when he stopped writing—Oscar never stopped writing—loved writing the way I loved cheating—just lay in bed and stared at the SDF–1. Ten days of him all fucked up, of him saying shit like, I dream about oblivion like other people dream of good sex, got me a little worried. So I copied his sister’s number in Madrid and called her on the sly. Took me like a half-dozen tries and two million vales before I got through.
    What do you want?
    Don’t hang up, Lola. It’s about Oscar.
    She called him that night, asked him what was going on, and of course he told her. Even though I was sitting right there.

    Mister, she commanded, you need to let it go .
    I can’t, he whimpered. My heart is overthrown.
    You have to, and so on, until at the end of two hours he promised her that he would try.
    Come on, Oscar, I said after giving him twenty minutes to stew. Let’s go play some video games.
    He shook his head, unmoved. I will play Street Fighter no more.
    Well? I said to Lola later on the phone.
    I don’t know, she said. He gets like this sometimes.
    What do you want me to do?
    Just watch him for me, OK?
    Never got the chance. Two weeks later, La Jablesse gave Oscar the coup de friendship: he walked in on her while she was “entertaining” the punk, caught them both naked, probably covered with blood or something, and before she could even say, Get out, he went berserk. Called her a whore and attacked her walls, tearing down her posters and throwing her books everywhere. I found out because some whitegirl ran up and said, Excuse me, but your stupid roommate is going insane, and I had to bolt upstairs and put him in a headlock. Oscar, I hollered, calm down, calm down . Leave me the fuck alone , he shrieked, trying to stomp down on my feet.
    It was pretty horrible. As for punkboy, apparently dude jumped right out the window and ran all the way to George Street. Buttnaked.
    That was Demarest for you. Never a dull fucking moment. To make a long story short, he had to attend counseling to keep from losing his housing, couldn’t go to the second floor for nothing; but now everybody in the dorm thought he was some kind of major psycho. The girls especially stayed away from him. As for La Jablesse, she was graduating that year, so a month later they relocated her to the river dorms and called it even. I didn’t really see her again except once while I was on the bus and she was out on the street, walking into Scott Hall with these dominatrix boots.
    And that’s how our year ended. Him vacated of hope and tapping at the computer, me being asked in the hall how I liked dorming with Mr. Crazyman, and me asking back how their ass would like dorming with my foot? A lame couple of weeks. When it came time to re-up at the dorm, me and O didn’t even talk about it. My boys were still stuck in their moms’ cribs so I had to take my chances with the lottery again and this time I hit the fucking jackpot, ended up with a single in Frelinghuysen. When I told Oscar that I was leaving Demarest he pulled himself out of his depression long enough to look astounded, like he was expecting something else. I figured—I stammered, but before I could say another word, he said, It’s OK, and then, as I was turning away he grabbed my hand and shook it very formally: Sir, it’s been an honor.
    Oscar, I said.
     
    People asked me, Did you see the signs? Did you? Maybe I did and just didn’t want to think about it. Maybe I didn’t. What the fuck does it really matter? All I knew was that I’d never seen him more unhappy, but there was a part of me that didn’t care. That wanted out of there the same way I had wanted out of my hometown.
    On our last night as