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.They have met the boy before the narrator has hithim with a rock on the shoulder but they have never seen his face.The boys catch a bus, and Rafa manages to get them on without paying.Onthe bus, a man grabs the younger brother s genitals, and he begins to cry.The boyshave to run off the bus to escape the fare collector and the driver.They find Yis-rael and ask him to bring them to a store to buy a bottle of Coca Cola.Yisrael is abraggart.He wears a mask to cover his face and says that he is an expert wrestler. Junot Díaz 97He is going to the United States, he also claims, to have an operation to restore hisface.The younger brother is intrigued by the story and by the boy.Yisrael wearsclothing that his father has sent from the United States.He also knows a great dealabout wrestling.Rafa hits Yisrael with a bottle; they then tear his mask off. His left ear wasa nub and you could see the thick veined slab of his tongue through a hole inhis cheek.He had no lips.His head was tipped back and his eyes had gone whiteand the cords were out on his neck. The boys leave him there unconscious andget on the first bus that passes.It is traveling in the wrong direction, and againthey have not paid the fare, so Rafa tells his brother to get ready to run at thenext stop.In Fiesta, 1980, Rafa and his brother, Yunior, have been living in the UnitedStates for three years.Together with their parents and younger sister, they are go-ing to a welcome party for their aunt, who has just immigrated to the Bronx, NewYork.The problem is that every time Yunior gets into the family van he gets car-sick.His father has no patience for his delicate stomach.He takes the boy on prac-tice drives, in the hope he will overcome his persistent carsickness.On one suchtrip, his father took him to a woman s house so he could get cleaned up, while sheand his father disappeared upstairs.Yunior told his brother what he had seen, andRafa said that he had met the Puerto Rican woman too.On their way to the party, Yunior s father gets upset because his mother fedYunior, and he is sure to throw up.At the party, Yunior eats more and spends timewith his cousins.At the party, custom dictates that the women stand in the kitchenand prepare the food.The children are the only ones who thank them.The adultsthen drink and dance, while the children play games and watch television.Yuniorbecomes worried that his father will be exposed as an adulterer in public.Yunior saunt asks him about his parents marriage, with Yunior asserting that nothing iswrong: Maybe I already knew how it would all end up in a few years, Mami with-out Papi. All remains calm that evening, as the family piles back into the van todrive home; but Yunior s queasiness returns. Aurora addresses the narrator s relationship with a heroin addict.Themain character lives with his friend and business partner Cut.Cut does not ap-prove of the narrator s relationship with 17-year-old Aurora, but the narratorsays, I can t help myself with her. They meet in the utility room to have sex;when he wakes up later, she is gone, after having turned his pockets inside outsearching for money.Another time, he wakes up to find her kissing his room-mate.He reveals that he has hit her, and she has attempted to stab him with apen.He excuses himself by saying that everyone indulges in harmful actions, stuff that s no good for you. The narrator takes Aurora to meet a dealer and waits in the car.When an oldman comes out, the narrator, taking his frustration out on a person he does notknow, breaks the man s ankle.Then he remembers the time Aurora had just been 98 HISPANIC-AMERICAN WRITERSreleased from a juvenile detention center.She came back to the narrator, skinnyand nervous, talking about how she had survived in jail by imagining their life to-gether: kids, a big blue house, hobbies, the whole.thing. For a brief moment,the narrator can share in that dream.In Aguantando, Yunior is again the narrator.This story takes place in theDominican Republic and describes the narrator s life before their immigration tothe United States.Yunior lives with his brother, mother, and grandfather, in sus-pended animation, his mother accepting no suitors and waiting for his father sreturn.When Yunior s mother becomes too impoverished to support the family,she sends him and his brother away.Yunior spends his time at his godmother shouse.She is more financially stable than his family and feeds him meat, whichhe rarely gets at home.Still, Yunior is always excited when his mother and brotherarrive to pick him up.One day, a man arrives and leaves again quickly on a motorcycle.Yunior smother is upset but will not tell him why.His brother informs Yunior that theirfather wrote a letter saying he was coming for them but that they should not gettheir hopes up.Their father had sent another letter two years ago, and his motherhad made a fool of herself, throwing a big party and buying the boys new clothes.When he did not show up, she was embarrassed and fell into a depression, leavingthe boys with their grandfather and retreating to the country.Now, Yunior imag-ines their reunion: His father would be hesitant, not recognizing him, but wouldthen look him and say his name, claiming him as his son.In the collection s title story, the narrator is a young adult who lives at homewith his mother, who tells him his friend Beto is home from college.So the narra-tor hal eartedly goes out to look for him.When he cannot find Beto, he goes totheir old haunt, the community pool.Although it is closed for the night, a num-ber of people have climbed over the fence to use the pool anyway.The narratorremembers how he and Beto used to steal clothing from the mall and recalls thetime they got caught.He also reminisces about how Beto caught the bus everymorning for school but goofed off all day.The narrator s present reality is not inspiring.He and his mother live togetherin loneliness, barely speaking to each other.When he catches her on the phonewith his estranged father, he hangs up.At night, he carouses with his friends.Theonly positive element in his life is his love of running, three or four miles everyday.The reason for the narrator and Beto s estrangement is eventually revealed.One night, after swimming, they went to Beto s house.His parents were out, andthe two friends watched a pornographic movie, during which Beto slid his handover and masturbated the narrator.The next night, it happens again.When a doorslams in the apartment next door, they both jump, which makes the narrator real-ize they might get caught.He pulls on his clothes and never speaks to his friendagain
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