the pura principle

Junot Diaz has a new short story out in The New Yorker. It's called "The Pura Principle." The narrator is the familiar Yunior, a character whose voice Junot has used before in his fiction. Yunior is one of my favorite voices in fiction, as well as one of the characters whose beliefs and choices tend to break my heart/make me flinch most often (see: Yunior's relationship with the character Lola in The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao).

"The Pura Principle" is about Yunior's relationship with his older brother, Rafa, who is dying from leukemia, but still won't repent of his tigueraje, mistreatment of his mother, and general selfishness. Although Junot's depictions of a weakening Rafa are moving, Yunior is the one we love. His Dominican York vernacular rings true and his funny-as-hell observations cut right to the soul of Dominican family life. Read it for yourself and decide what you think of Yunior. One thing is for sure: you won't easily forget the world(s) he narrates or the people who move through his narrative --- from Pura, who is briefly married to Rafa, to the old church ladies Yunior christens "The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse."

There is also the character Tammy Franco, a female figure I wanted to know more about. The misogynist gazes of Junot's protagonists sometimes render women characters in flat terms (this is deliberate --- I'm not saying Junot is a misogynist, merely that he sometimes writes from the perspective of male characters who are). And although women are certainly important in Junot's stories, they are not usually at the center. Tammy is an ex-girlfriend of Rafa's who into and out of the story. Her friendship with Rafa is enigmatic and she acts as somewhat of a hero, briefly, in the piece. At every apparition, I found myself thinking, "She's the one. She's the one I want to know more about." We never quite get what Tammy is all about, and the story is just fine that way, but I do secretly wish that Tammy will show up again in another piece by Junot. 

I'm endlessly fascinated by gender politics in Junot's work and "The Pura Principle" is not different. In this story, Junot depicts a world with complicated, problematic gender dynamics, language, and characters that in all their messiness evoke real life. 

 If anyone wants to talk gender in "The Pura Principle," please send me an e-mail or hit me up on Twitter. 

That's all for now. Enjoy the story. Keep reading!

seen

These vignettes are based on people and scenes I have encountered on New York City subways. Big up to the Q, the A, and all my other trains. Also, please don't take any of these vignettes and say that you wrote them because that's just not true!

Seen

A little girl boards the train. She is two, maybe three years old. Her mother is with her, peddling. I search my pockets, but I have no singles left, no change. At the bottom of my bag, I find a couple of crayons. They are left over from a weekend trip to a diner with my nephew and niece. We ate burgers with mustard and onions, French fries, and heavy sweet shakes. They colored pictures of hot air balloons and sailboats, while I took photographs of them with a digital SLR, the kind with dials that click and whirl each time I focus, adjust, and snap.

As the woman and her daughter make their way across the car, I retrieve a handful of crayons. I extend them to the woman. I say, "I don't have any money, but I have crayons."

She smiles at me and runs her fingers along my palm, picking up the crayons. She nods thank you and begins to move away. I reach back into the bottom of my bag and see that there is one crayon left.

“Oh, here. I forgot one,” I say. I hand the orange crayon to the girl.

The child’s face breaks into a smile. Her eyes brighten and I see for the first time, their color. Her eyes are light blue with little orange spheres in them, like burning worlds suspended in sky.

“Orange!” she says. “Orange!”

She squeezes the orange crayon in her fist and moves away from me, smiling, trailing behind her mother, chanting.

Orange! Orange!

* * *

Coming out of the Union Square station, I see an old woman and a child – her nephew? Her son? Her grandson? The woman coughs into her shoulder. She is hunched over – to reprimand the child? Because she is ill? Because she cannot stand? She clutches a cane and boxes the child into a brick wall. He is stuck between the low, menacing curve of her, her cane, her limbs. In one hand, she balances a cigarette between two fingers. She presses her face close to the child and smoke floats above their heads in the night. “It’s a dangerous world,” she says, and coughs.

* * *

This woman is over six feet tall. Her skin is a deep brown and her hair is like honey, uneven at the edges, and drab against the richness of her skin. She leans far away from the pole, dangling her self. I do not know whom she is speaking to when she shouts.

“I’M A FUCKING PRINCESS!”

* * *

There are three boys. You can tell they’re brothers. They look mixed, all café con leche skin and soft gold fros. They have ashy hands and ankles and wear plain plaid shirts and pants that are only just too small.

They sit down right on the floor in the middle of the car and begin to play their instruments. The oldest has a guitar with long, unclipped strings. The middle brother has a tambourine covered in rainbow stickers. The youngest brother has only two drumsticks with him, to beat on the floor of the train.

Without much of an introduction, they begin singing, shaking the tambourine, strumming the guitar, and beating the floor. They play the Beatles.

I once had a girl, or you could say 

She once had me.

The guitar is perfectly tuned. Each string twangs when it should, drops, chimes with the next. The oldest brother plucks and strums. His brown hand is beautiful.

They half-sing, half-shout, with voices too young to startle. Their harmonies are sweet; their call and response is a game.

Marco?

Polo!

I love this song.

The bells on the tambourine ring and the boys look so alike. I look up and down the car. Folks are smiling, rummaging for change, or swaying with eyes closed as the train charges ahead. I wonder what they are remembering.

We talked until two,

And then she said it’s time for bed

They don’t look at anyone or at each other as they play. In my mind, I see a motel room without chairs. And a thin woman, maybe with gold curls like theirs, laughing. A small fire blazing from damp logs, maybe driftwood, the kind that sparks blue and green, and smells like the sea. A box of wine on a cheap rug.

I get out a dollar. The boys finish up the last few bars.

And when I awoke, I was alone

This bird has flown

They do not say much. They collect their coins and move to the next car.