Junot Diaz: Boyfriend

I finally broke down and purchased Junot Diaz’ short story collection Drown – after months and months in which my post on the audio version of How to date a browngirl (blackgirl, whitegirl or halfie) was consistently the top post on this blog, I felt I owed a debt to Mr Diaz. Even if I don’t really like short stories.

But now that I have embarked on my Short Story Appreciation Quest, in which I set out to discover the secret of short stories and finally begin to love them now that I am growing old and grey, a small investment like this seemed reasonable enough. Besides, I’d be willing to bet that one of Junot Diaz’ stories shows up in next year’s Abitur (like the Jhumpa Lahiri story today) – in fact, “How to date…” would make for a perfect, perfect test question.

Back to “Boyfriend”, though. This story, while very unlikely to turn into an Abitur question (the language is fairly strong*), was the first one I read in the collection and I am pleased to announce that my quest has begun very well indeed: this is a gem of a story! It is really, really good!

A brief summary: in a shabby apartment house, the narrator overhears the couple living below him breaking up (again and again) very noisily. At first his eavesdropping is accidental, but he becomes addicted to listening in on them – mostly because he is getting over a break-up with his ex-girlfriend Loretta. When he finally works up the courage to invite her up for coffee, the outcome of this meeting is rather different from what he planned.

If this sounds simple – well, it is and it isn’t. The story is extremely short (5 1/2 pages), so there’s not much room for plot. The language is incredibly punchy and colloquial, really as if the guy is talking to himself. What is really fascinating about the story is that the break-up of Boyfriend and Girlfriend downstairs, so transparent to the listener above them, becomes a vehicle for him to work through his own heartbreak.

Boyfried came around a couple of times that week for his things and, I guess, to finish the job. He was a confident prick. He listened to what she had to say, arguments that had taken her hours to put together and then he would sigh, and say it didn’t matter, he needed his space, punto. She let him fuck her every time, maybe hoping that it would make him stay but you know, once somebody gets a little escape velocity going, ain’t no play in the world that will keep them from leaving. I would listen to them going at it and I would be like, Damn, ain’t nothing more shabby than those farewell fucks. I know. Me and Loretta had enough of those to go around. Difference was, we never talked the way these two would. About our days. Not even when we were cool together. We’d lay there and listen to the world outside, to the loud boys, the cars, the pigeons. Back then I didn’t have a clue what she was thinking but now I know what to pencil into all those empty thought bubbles. Escape. Escape.

Even in this one paragraph, there are so many things to talk about that I hardly know where to begin.

• narrative technique: while the narrator tells his story in a sort of stream-of-consciousness mode, he is at the same time, thanks to his eavesdropping, an almost omniscient narrator of Boyfriend’s and Girlfriend’s story. He knows things about them that they keep hidden from each other. So really, there are two different stories being told here that are quite distinct from another, yet at the same time help to illuminate each other.
• One of the themes running through the story is the inferiority complex of the narrator: B/G are perceived to be much more beautiful and successful than he is – they are larger than life, almost like the celebrities people like to read about to give meaning to their own lives: “People like these were Untouchables to me, raised on some other planet and then transplanted into my general vicinity to remind me how bad I was living. ” Their break-up may be just as awful as his own, but he still envies them their ability to really talk to each other.
• The narrator never really seems to leave his apartment until the very end – nor does he need to, because the story makes it seem as if the walls of the building are completely permeable. Sounds drift in and out; he follows the sounds below him, lives through the sounds. It’s brilliant.
• Listening to the break-up below him really does help the narrator understand his own story better – and finally, his attempt to reach out to Girlfriend is a real step towards healing. For one of them at least

I’ve got to stop now. It’s embarrassing to write more words about a story than the story itself contains. You get the drift, though, don’t you?

 

*though nowhere near as strong as in this other Diaz short short story, Alma. Ho-hum.

---

Possibly related posts: (automatically generated)

• Junot Diaz is a Real Writer
• America’s Beautiful Neglected
• Daddy Can You Give Me 10$?