The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

standing at my door, sheepishly holding a blue folder. Hail and well met, Yunior, he said. Oscar, I said, in disbelief. He had lost even more weight and was trying his best to keep his hair trim and his face shaved. He looked, if you can believe it, good. Still talking Space Opera, though—had just finished with the first of his projected quartet of novels, totally obsessed with it now. May be the death of me, he sighed, and then he caught himself. Sorry. Of course nobody at Demarest wanted to room with him—what a surprise (we all know how tolerant the tolerant are)—so when he returned in the spring he’d have a double to himself, not that it did him any good, he joked.
    Demarest won’t be the same without your mesomorphic grimness, he said matter-of-factly.
    Ha, I said.
    You should definitely visit me in Paterson when you have a reprieve. I have a plethora of new Japanimation for your viewing pleasure.
    Definitely, bro, I said. Definitely.
    I never did go by. I was busy, God’s Truth: delivering pool tables, bringing the grades up, getting ready to graduate. And besides, that fall a miracle happened: Suriyan showed up at my door. Looking more beautiful than I ever saw her. I want us to try again. Of course I said yes, and went out and put a cuerno in her that very night. Dios mío! Some niggers couldn’t have gotten ass on Judgment Day; me I couldn’t not get ass, even when I tried.
    My negligence didn’t stop O from visiting me every now and then with some new chapter and some new story of a girl he’d spotted on the bus, on the street, or in a class.
    Same ole Oscar, I said.
    Yes, he said weakly. Same ole me.
     
    Rutgers was always a crazy place, but that last fall it seemed to be especially bugging. In October a bunch of freshman girls I knew on Livingston got busted for dealing coke, four of the quietest gorditas around. Like they say: los que menos corren, vuelan. On Bush, the Lambdas started a fight with the Alphas over some idiocy and for weeks there was talk of a black-Latino war but nothing ever happened, everybody too busy throwing parties and fucking each other to scrap.
    That winter I even managed to sit in my dorm room long enough to write a story that wasn’t too bad, about the woman who used to live in the patio behind my house in the DR, a woman everybody said was a prostitute but who used to watch me and my brother while my mom and my abuelo were at work. My professor couldn’t believe it. I’m impressed. Not a single shooting or stabbing in the whole story. Not that it helped any. I didn’t win any of the creative-writing prizes that year. I kinda had been hoping.
    And then it was finals, and who of all people do I end up running into? Lola! I almost didn’t recognize her because her hair was ill long and because she was wearing these cheap blocky glasses, the kind an alternative whitegirl would wear. Enough silver on her wrists to ransom the royal family and so much leg coming out of her denim skirt it just didn’t seem fair. As soon as she saw me she tugged down the skirt, not like it did much good. This was on the E bus; I was on my way back from seeing a girl of zero note and she was heading out to some stupid-ass farewell party for one of her friends. I slopped down next to her and she said, What’s up? Her eyes so incredibly big and empty of any guile. Or expectation, for that matter.
    How have you been? I asked.
    Good. How about you?
    Just getting ready for break.
    Merry Christmas. And then, just like a de León, she went back to reading her book!
    I poked at the book. Introduction to Japanese. What the hell are you studying now? Didn’t they throw you out of here already?
    I’m teaching English in Japan next year, she said matter-of-factly. It’s going to be amazing .
    Not I’m thinking about or I’ve applied but I am . Japan? I laughed, a little mean. What the hell is a Dominican going out to Japan for?
    You’re right, she said, turning the page irritably. Why would anyone want to go anywhere when they have New Jersey ?
    We let that sit for a sec.
    That was a little harsh, I said.
    My apologies.

    Like I said: it was December. My Indian girl, Lily, was waiting for me back on College Ave., and so was Suriyan. But I wasn’t thinking about either of them. I was thinking about the one time I’d seen Lola that year; she’d been reading a book in front of the Henderson Chapel with such concentration I thought she might hurt herself. I’d heard from Oscar that she