The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

what it would take I would have killed myself a long time ago.

    Ignored her, ignored me. Sat next to her brother, took his hand.
    Mister, she said, are you OK?
    Shook his head: No .
     
    It’s been a long long time, but when I think of her I still see her at the hospital on that first day, straight from Newark airport, dark rings around her eyes, her hair as tangled as a maenad, and yet she still had taken the time, before appearing, to put on some lipstick and makeup.
    I was hoping for some good energy—even at the hospital, trying to get ass—but she blew me up instead. Why didn’t you take care of Oscar? she demanded. Why didn’t you do it?
     
    Four days later they took him home. And I went back to my life too. Headed home to my lonely mother and to tore-up London Terrace. I guess if I’d been a real pal I would have visited him up in Paterson like every week, but I didn’t. What can I tell you? It was fucking summer and I was chasing down a couple of new girls, and besides I had the job. Wasn’t enough time, but what there really wasn’t enough of was ganas . I did manage to call him a couple of times to check up on him. Even that was a lot because I kept expecting his mother or sister to tell me that he was gone. But no, he claimed he was “regenerated.” No more suicide attempts for him. He was writing a lot, which was always a good sign. I’m going to be the Dominican Tolkien, he said.
    Only once did I drop in, and that was because I was in P-town visiting one of my sucias. Not part of the plan, but then I just spun the wheel, pulled up to a gas station, made the call, and the next thing I knew I was at the house where he had grown up. His mother too sick to come out of her room, and him looking as thin as I’d ever seen him. Suicide suits me, he joked. His room nerdier than him, if that was possible. X-wings and TIE-fighters hanging from the ceilings. Mine and his sister’s signatures the only real ones on his last cast (the right leg broken worse than the left); the rest were thoughtful consolations from Robert Heinlein, Isaac Asimov, Frank Herbert, and Samuel Delany. His sister not acknowledging my presence, so I laughed when she walked by the open door, asked loudly: How’s la muda doing?
    She hates being here, Oscar said.
    What’s wrong with Paterson? I asked loudly. Hey, muda, what’s wrong with Paterson?
    Everything, she yelled from down the hall. She was wearing these little running shorts—the sight of her leg muscles jiggling alone made the trip worth making.
    Me and Oscar sat in his room for a little bit, not saying much. I stared at all his books and his games. Waited for him to say something; must have known I wasn’t going to let it slide.
    It was foolish, he said finally. Ill advised.
    You could say that twice. What the fuck were you thinking, O?
    He shrugged miserably. I didn’t know what else to do.
    Dude, you don’t want to be dead. Take it from me. No-pussy is bad. But dead is like no-pussy times ten.
    It went like that for about half an hour. Only one thing sticks out. Right before I headed out, he said: It was the curse that made me do it, you know.
    I don’t believe in that shit, Oscar. That’s our parents’ shit.
    It’s ours too, he said.
     
    Is he going to be OK? I asked Lola on the way out.
    I think so, she said. Filling ice-cube trays with faucet water. He says he’s going back to Demarest in the spring.
    Is that a good idea?
    She thought about it a second. That was Lola for you. I do, she said.
    You know best. I fished my keys out. So how’s the fiancé?
    He’s fine, she said blandly. Are you and Suriyan still together?
    Killed to even hear her name. Not for a long time.
    And then we stood there and stared at each other.
    In a better world I would have kissed her over the ice trays and that would have been the end of all our troubles. But you know exactly what kind of world we live in. It ain’t no fucking Middle-earth. I just nodded my head, said, See you around, Lola, and drove home.
     
    That should have been the end of it, right? Just a memory of some nerd I once knew who tried to kill himself, nothing more, nothing more. But the de Leóns, it turned out, weren’t a clan you could just shake off.
    Not two weeks into senior year he showed up at my dorm room! To bring over his writings and to ask me about mine! I couldn’t believe it. Last I heard he was planning on subbing at his old high school, taking classes over at BCC, but there he was,