The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

was living in Edison with some of her girlfriends, working at some office or another, saving money for her next big adventure. That day I’d seen her I’d wanted to say hi but I didn’t have the balls, figured she would ig me.
    I watched Commercial Ave. slide past and there, in the distance, were the lights of Route 18. That was one of those moments that would always be Rutgers for me. The girls in front giggling about some guy. Her hands on those pages, nails all painted up in cranberry. My own hands like monster crabs. In a couple of months I’d be back in London Terrace if I wasn’t careful and she’d be off to Tokyo or Kyoto or wherever she was going. Of all the chicks I’d run up on at Rutgers, of all the chicks I’d run up on ever, Lola was the one I’d never gotten a handle on. So why did it feel like she was the one who knew me best? I thought about Suriyan and how she would never talk to me again. I thought about my own fears of actually being good, because Lola wasn’t Suriyan; with her I’d have to be someone I’d never tried to be. We were reaching College Ave. Last chance, so I made like Oscar and said, Have dinner with me, Lola. I promise, I won’t try to take your panties off.
    Yeah right, she said, almost ripping her page in the turning.
    I covered her hand in mine and she gave me this frustrated heart-wrenching look like she was already on her way down with me and didn’t, for the life of her, understand why.
    It’s OK, I said.
    No, it’s fucking not OK. You’re too short . But she didn’t take her hand away.
     
    We went to her place on Handy and before I could really put a hurt on her she stopped everything, dragged me up from her toto by my ears. Why is this the face I can’t seem to forget, even now, after all these years? Tired from working, swollen from lack of sleep, a crazy mixture of ferocity and vulnerability that was and shall ever be Lola.
    She looked at me until I couldn’t stand it anymore and then she said: Just don’t lie to me, Yunior.
    I won’t, I promised.
    Don’t laugh. My intentions were pure.
     
    Not much more to tell. Except this:
    That spring I moved back in with him. Thought about it all winter. Even at the very end I almost changed my mind. Was waiting by his door in Demarest and despite the fact that I’d been waiting all morning, at the very end I still almost ran off, but then I heard their voices on the stairwell, bringing up his things.
    I don’t know who was more surprised: Oscar, Lola, or me.
     
    ——
     

    In Oscar’s version, I raised my hand and said, Mellon . Took him a second to recognize the word.
    Mellon, he said finally.
     
    That fall after the Fall was dark (I read in his journal): dark. He was still thinking about doing it but he was afraid. Of his sister mainly, but also of himself. Of the possibility of a miracle, of an invincible summer. Reading and writing and watching TV with his mother. If you try anything stupid, his mother swore, I’ll haunt you my whole life. You better believe it.
    I do, señora, he reported saying. I do.
    Those months he couldn’t sleep, and that’s how he ended up taking his mother’s car out for midnight spins. Every time he pulled out of the house he thought it would be his last. Drove everywhere. Got lost in Camden. Found the neighborhood where I grew up. Drove through New Brunswick just when the clubs were getting out, looking at everybody, his stomach killing him. Even made it down to Wildwood. Looked for the coffee shop where he had saved Lola, but it had closed. Nothing had opened to replace it. One night he picked up a hitchhiker. An immensely pregnant girl. She barely spoke any English. Was a wetback Guatemalan with pits in her cheek. Needed to go to Perth Amboy, and Oscar, our hero, said: No te preócupas. Te traigo.
    Que Dios te bendiga, she said. Still looking ready to jump out of a window if need be.
    Gave her his number, Just in case, but she never called. He wasn’t surprised.

    Drove so long and so far on some nights that he would actually fall asleep at the wheel. One second he was thinking about his characters and the next he’d be drifting, a beautiful intoxicating richness, about to go all the way under and then some last alarm would sound.
    Lola.
    Nothing more exhilarating (he wrote) than saving yourself by the simple act of waking.

 
     

    Men are not indispensable. But Trujillo is irreplaceable. For Trujillo is not a man. He is … a cosmic force …. Those who try to