The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

would not be an overstatement, if it wasn’t for the fact that Abelard was going to spend the next nine years receiving one greatest shock of his life after another. Please, Abelard begged, when he regained his tongue, I must leave my wife a note. Manuel will attend to it, SIMian Número Uno explained, motioning to the largest of the SIMians, who was already glancing about the house. Abelard’s last glimpse of his home was of Manuel rifling through his desk with a practiced carelessness.
    Abelard had always imagined the SIM to be filled with lowlifes and no-reading reprobates but the two officers who locked him in their car were in fact polite, less like sadistic torturers than vacuum-cleaner salesmen. SIMian Número Uno assured him en route that his “difficulties” were certain to be cleared up. We’ve seen these cases before, Número Uno explained. Someone has spoken badly of you but they will quickly be revealed for the liars they are. I should hope so, Abelard said, half indignant, half in terror. No te preocupes, said SIMian Número Uno. The Jefe is not in the business of imprisoning the innocent. Número Dos remained silent. His suit was very shabby, and both men, Abelard noticed, reeked of whiskey. He tried to remain calm—fear, as Dune teaches us, is the mindkiller—but he could not help himself. He saw his daughters and his wife raped over and over again. He saw his house on fire. If he hadn’t emptied his bladder right before the pigs showed up, he would have peed himself right there.
    Abelard was driven very quickly to Santiago (everyone he passed on the road made sure to look away at the sight of the VW bug) and taken to the Fortaleza San Luis. The sharp edge of his fear turned knife once they pulled inside that notorious place. Are you sure this is correct? Abelard was so frightened his voice quaked. Don’t worry, Doctor, Número Dos said, you are where you belong. He’d been silent so long Abelard had almost forgotten that he could speak. Now it was Número Dos who was smiling and Número Uno who focused his attention out the window.
    Once inside those stone walls the polite SIM officers handed him over to a pair of not-so-polite guards who stripped him of his shoes, his wallet, his belt, his wedding band, and then sat him down in a cramped, hot office to fill out some forms. There was a pervasive smell of ripe ass in the air. No officer appeared to explain his case, no one listened to his requests, and when he began to raise his voice about his treatment the guard typing the forms leaned forward and punched him in the face. As easily as you might reach over for a cigarette. The man was wearing a ring and it tore open Abelard’s lip something awful. The pain was so sudden, his disbelief so enormous, that Abelard actually asked, through clutched fingers, Why? The guard rocked him again hard, carved a furrow in his forehead. This is how we answer questions around here, the guard said matter-of-factly, bending down to be sure his form was properly aligned in the typewriter. Abelard began to sob, the blood spilling out between his fingers. Which the typing guard just loved; he called in his friends from the other offices. Look at this one! Look at how much he likes to cry!
    Before Abelard knew what was happening he was being shoved into a general holding cell that stank of malaria sweat and diarrhea and was crammed with unseemly representatives of what Broca might have called the “criminal class.” The guards then proceeded to inform the other prisoners that Abelard was a homosexual and a Communist—That is untrue ! Abelard protested—but who is going to listen to a gay comunista? Over the next couple of hours Abelard was harassed lovely and most of his clothes were stripped from him. One heavyset cibaeño even demanded his underwear, and when Abelard coughed them up the man pulled them on over his pants. Son muy cómodos, he announced to his friends. Abelard was forced to hunker naked near the shit pots; if he tried to crawl near the dry areas the other prisoners would scream at him—Quédate ahí con la mierda, maricón—and this was how he had to sleep, amidst urine, feces, and flies, and more than once he was awakened by someone tickling his lips with a dried turd. Pre-occupation with sanitation was not high among the Fortalezanos. The deviants didn’t allow him to eat, either, stealing his meager allotted portions three days straight. On the fourth day a one-armed pickpocket took