my 'read' shelf:
By Carlos J. Queirós
Framed in my bedroom door, Diogo was the epitome of sixteen-year-old cool: black mane slicked back with gel, baggy white jeans with matching hightops, left earlobe with a diamond stud. He and his older brother João shared bunk beds in the room above mine, creating a stack of Portuguese boys in our four-story apartment building in New Jersey.
“Can’t you even play with GI Joes like a normal kid? They’re supposed to kick the shit out of each other,” he said, ramming together my usually mild-mannered soldiers.
It was February, 1989. The previous night’s blizzard had shuttered the schools, and Mãe decided Diogo would be my impromptu babysitter. With a day off from third grade, I was eager to cocoon myself in blankets, watching Thundercats for endless hours on the color TV my parents had given me two weeks earlier for my ninth birthday.
“Come on, let’s go,” Diogo peeled my covers off. “Aww, how cute—Superman tighty whities.”
I’d been lying on my stomach and raised my butt. I screeched in a teakettle pitch—the hope was that he’d just call me a retard and leave. Head buried in a pillow, still the scent of his Old Spice.
“Okay, enough. I told your mom I’d check up on your sorry ass and if I’m bouncing so are you.” A fingernail scraped through my crack as he yanked my briefs down.
“I told you, that’s not funny,” I bolted out of bed, and charged at him. He pushed me away with a clammy palm, and laughed while I flailed at the air.
“I knew that’d get you up,” he said. “Stop being a baby. I’ll get you back before your mommy gets home.”
“You know I’m not supposed to leave.”
“You have two minutes,” Diogo announced.
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Junot Díaz’s first published work, the bestselling short story collection Drown (1996), earned Díaz critical praise. His second publication and first novel, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, garnered Díaz the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. In an exclusive interview, the Dominican American writer speaks of the challenges of his craft and of the unexpected consequences of his writing. | Web
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