Drown (18 page)

He left in the morning, she explained quietly. I knew something was wrong because he was lying in bed, not doing anything but stroking my hair, which was very long back then. I was a Pentecostal. Usually he didn’t lay around in bed. As soon as he was awake he was showered and dressed and gone. He had that sort of energy. But when he got up he just stood over little Ramón. Are you OK? I asked him and he said he was just fine. I wasn’t going to fight with him about it so I went right back to sleep. The dream I had is one I still think about. I was young and it was my birthday and I was eating a plate of quail’s eggs and all of them were for me. A silly dream really. When I woke up I saw that the rest of his things were gone.

She cracked her knuckles slowly. I thought that I would never stop hurting. I knew then what it must have been like for your mother. You should tell her that.

We talked until it got dark and then I got up. Outside the local kids were gathered in squads, stalking in and out of the lucid clouds produced by the streetlamps. She suggested I go to her restaurant but when I got there and stared through my reflection in the glass at the people inside, all of them versions of people I already knew, I decided to go home.

December. He had left in December. The company had given him a two-week vacation, which Nilda knew nothing about. He drank a cup of black café in the kitchen and left it washed and drying in the caddy. I doubt if he was crying or even anxious. He lit a cigarette, tossed the match on the kitchen table and headed out into the angular winds that were blowing long and cold from the south. He ignored the convoys of empty cabs that prowled the streets and walked down Atlantic. There were less furniture and antique shops then. He smoked cigarette after cigarette and killed his pack within the hour. He bought a carton at a stand, knowing how expensive they would be abroad.

The first subway station on Bond would have taken him to the airport and I like to think that he grabbed that first train, instead of what was more likely true, that he had gone out to Chuito’s first, before flying south to get us.

Acknowledgments

A debt to the community, especially Barrio XXI. And to Those who watch over us.

My family had my back for years: Virtudes, Rafael, Maritza, Mari, Paul, Julito, Mercedes, Julio Angel, David, Miguel, Yrma, Miguel Angel, Mildred, Vanessa, Jeffrey. Y los abuelos, Osterman y Elba.

I would have found it impossible to write without the support of my peoples: Michiyuki Ohno, John Stewart, Brian O’Halloran, Roberto García, Victor La Valle, Nina Cooke, Andres Hernandez, Homero del Pino, Joe Marshall, Helena María Viramontes, Silvio Torres Saillant, Juan Garcia, Raymond Ramirez, Wendy Cortes, Jennifer Townley and my man Anthony Ramos. Pete Rock believed. So did C.A. The Welfare Poets gave me music. Paula Moya has been a sister, a mentor
and
a miracle. Bertrand Wang is my brother, coño. I owe him a life. Hector Luis Rivera is another miracle. A griot and an hermano. Give thanks, kid. Andrea Greene, the Fierce One. Mi alma y mi corazón.

Lois Rosenthal put herself behind me and changed my life. I will never forget you, Lois. A debt to Nicky Weinstock, Jamie Linville and Malcolm Jones. Cressida Leyshon was a marvel. Bill Buford, that thug, looked out for me big time. Thank you.

Super Lily Oei was a behind-the-scenes kicker of ass. Nicole Wan and the whole Riverhead crew busted their humps to make this book happen. They have my deepest gratitude. Julie Grau worked
hard
to make these stories beautiful. This book would have been less without your insight and love, Julie. Thank you.

And finally to my agent, Nicole. A sister, a friend, a Sun
and
a Moon. You believed and people listened.

¡Guasábara!

Junot Díaz was born in Santo
Domingo, Dominican Republic. He is
a graduate of Rutgers University,
and received his M.F.A. from
Cornell University. His fiction has
appeared in
Story, The New Yorker,
The Paris Review, Best American
Short Stories 1996,
and
African
Voices.
He lives in New York City
and is at work on his first novel.

More praise for DROWN…

“
Drown
is superb. Junot Díaz is a strong, fresh, authentic talent, and these stories are completely wonderful.”

—
Hanif Kureishi, author of
My Beautiful Laundrette, Sammy and Rosie Get Laid,
and
The Black Album

“Junot Díaz recalls the irreverence of a young Henry Miller but with a lot more corazón!”

—Ana Castillo

“The ten tales in this intense debut collection plunge us into the emotional lives of people redefining their American identity. Narrated by adolescent Dominican males living in the struggling communities of the Dominican Republic, New York and New Jersey, these stories chronicle their outwardly cool but inwardly anguished attempts to recreate themselves in the midst of eroding family structures and their own burgeoning sexuality. Díaz’s restrained prose reveals their hopes only by implication. It’s a style suited to these characters, who long for love but display little affection toward each other. Still, the author’s compassion glides just below the surface, occasionally emerging in poetic passages of controlled lyricism, lending these stories a lasting resonance.”

—Publishers Weekly
(starred review)
continued
…

“Until the passing of time lifts the new immigrants as it once lifted the old ones…it is the artists who offer most of us the only way across and back. It took Dickens to arouse the Victorians to an awareness of the horrors below; it may be only a Díaz and his fellow writers who can arouse our imaginations, at least.”

—Los Angeles Times Book Review

“Spare and supple…stark and startling…This is a welcome voice full of taut poetry and keen observation.”

—New York Daily News

“In his debut collection,
Drown,
the Dominican-born Díaz gives us 10 stories that ably harness the rhythms of anger and release, frustration and joy that are part of almost any life jarred by displacement and assimilation.”

—The Miami Herald

“Evoking powerful emotions, the author’s vivid language brings alive the characters and the barrios of the two worlds.”

—
Emerge
magazine

“I’m tempted to describe Diaz’s writing as a cross between the working-class simplicity of Raymond Carver and the visceral, tropical-urban mania of Piri Thomas, but in truth
Drown
lacks clearly identifiable precedents…. Several languages, accents, and attitudes makeup Junot Díaz, and their intertwining is what makes his prose so fascinating.”

—Village Voice Literary Supplement