"When we were getting off the bus Rafa pulled me aside and held his hand in front of my nose. Smell this, he said. This is what's wrong with women."
"You are overwhelmed by a pelagic sadness. Sadness at being caught, at the incontrovertible knowledge that she will never forgive you. You stare at her incredible legs and between them, to that even more incredible pópola you've loved so inconstantly these past eight months."
"Only two of the housemates I know; the rest have moved on or gone home. There are new girls from the Island. They shuffle in and out, barely look at me, exhausted by the promises they've made. I want to advise them: no promises can survive the sea."
When I saw you, first in our Joyce class and then at the gym, I knew I'd call you Flaca. If you'd been Dominican my family would have worried about you, brought plates of food to my door. Heaps of plátanos and yuca, smothered in liver or queso frito. Flaca.
Lady still managed to scrounge a couple of hours here and there to hang with her new main man, Jehovah. I had my yerba, she had hers. She'd never been big on church before, but as soon as we landed on cancer planet she went so over-the-top Jesucristo that I think she would have nailed herself to a cross if she'd had one handy.
I didn't move. On the TV the newscasters were making small, flat noises at each other. They were repeating one word over and over. Later when I went to school I would learn the word they were saying was Vietnam.
Photo of Junot Díaz from Atlantic Magazine article:
Playlist:
Junot Díaz at the Googleplex
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