2007 - The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao Read Online Free PDF Page B

off with a single imperial sweep of her hand. Can’t you see the muchacho’s working? What’s he doing? his cousins asked, confused. He’s being a genius is what, La Inca replied haughtily. Now váyanse. (Later when he thought about it he realized that these very cousins could probably have gotten him laid if only he’d bothered to hang out with them. But you can’t regret the life you didn’t lead.) In the afternoons, when he couldn’t write another word, he’d sit out in front of the house with his abuela and watch the street scene, listen to the raucous exchanges between the neighbors. One evening, at the end of his trip, his abuela confided: Your mother could have been a doctor just like your grandfather was.
    What happened?
    La Inca shook her head. She was looking at her favorite picture of his mother on her first day at private school, one of those typical serious DR shots. What always happens. Un maldito hombre.
    He wrote two books that summer about a young man fighting mutants at the end of the world (neither of them survive). Took crazy amounts of field notes too, names of things he intended to later adapt for science-fictional and fantastic purposes. (Heard about the family curse for like the thousandth time but strangely enough didn’t think it worth incorporating into his fiction — I mean, shit, what Latino family doesn’t think it’s cursed?) When it was time for him and his sister to return to Paterson he was almost sad. Almost. His abuela placed her hand on his head in blessing. Cuidate mucho, mi hijo. Know that in this world there’s somebody who will always love you.
    At JFK, almost not being recognized by his uncle. Great, his tío said, looking askance at his complexion, now you look Haitian.
    After his return he hung out with Miggs and Al, saw movies with them, talked Los Brothers Hernandez, Frank Miller, and Alan Moore with them but overall they never regained the friendship they had before Santo Domingo. Oscar listened to their messages on the machine and resisted the urge to run over to their places. Didn’t see them but once, twice a week. Focused on his writing. Those were some fucking lonely weeks when all he had were his games, his books, and his words. So now I have a hermit for a son, his mother complained bitterly. At night, unable to sleep, he watched a lot of bad TV, became obsessed with two movies in particular: Zardoz (which he’d seen with his uncle before they put him away for the second time) and Virus (the Japanese end-of-the-world movie with the hot chick from Romeo and Juliet). Virus especially he could not watch to the end without crying, the Japanese hero arriving at the South Pole base, having walked from Washington, D.C., down the whole spine of the Andes, for the woman of his dreams. I’ve been working on my fifth novel, he told the boys when they asked about his absences. It’s amazing .
    See? What did I tell you? Mr. Collegeboy.
    In the old days when his so-called friends would hurt him or drag his trust through the mud he always crawled voluntarily back into the abuse, out of fear and loneliness, something he’d always hated himself for, but not this time. If there existed in his high school years anyone moment he took pride in it was clearly this one. Even told his sister about it during her next visit. She said, Way to go, O! He’d finally showed some backbone, hence some pride, and although it hurt, it also felt mother-fucking good .

OSCAR COMES CLOSE
    In October, after all his college applications were in (Fairleigh Dickinson, Montclair, Rutgers, Drew, Glassboro State, William Paterson; he also sent an app to NYU, a one-in-a-million shot, and they rejected him so fast he was amazed the shit hadn’t come back Pony Express) and winter was settling its pale miserable ass across northern New Jersey, Oscar fell in love with a girl in his SAT prep class. The class was being conducted in one of those ‘Learning Centers’ not far from where he lived, less