Wait until your brother, your sisters, and your mother leave the apartment. You’ve already told them that you were feeling too sick to go to Union City to visit that tía who likes to squeeze your nuts. (He’s gotten big, she’ll say.) And even though your moms knew you weren’t sick you stuck to your story until finally she said, Go ahead and stay, Malcriado.

Clear the government cheese from the refrigerator. If the girl’s from the Terrace, stack the boxes in the crisper. If she’s from the Park or Society Hill, then hide the cheese in the cabinet above the oven, where she’ll never see it. Leave a reminder under your pillow to get out the cheese before morning or your moms will kick your ass. Take down any embarrassing photos of your family in the campo, especially, that one with the half-naked kids dragging a goat on a rope. Hide the picture of yourself with an Afro. Make sure the bathroom is presentable. Since your toilet can’t flush toilet paper, put the bucket with all the crapped-on toilet paper under the sink. Spray the bucket with Lysol, then close the lid.

Shower, comb, dress. Sit on the couch and watch TV. If she’s an outsider her father will bring her, maybe her mother. Her parents won’t want her seeing a boy from the Terrace—people get stabbed in the Terrace—but she’s strong-headed and this time will get her way. If she’s a white girl, you’re sure you’ll at least get a hand job.

The directions you gave her were in your best handwriting, so her parents won’t think you’re an idiot. Get up from the couch and check the parking lot. Nothing. If the girl’s local, don’t sweat. She’ll flow over when she’s good and ready. Sometimes she’ll run into her friends and a whole crowd will show up, and even though that means you ain’t getting shit it will be fun anyway and you’ll wish these people would come over more often. Sometimes the girl won’t flow over at all and the next day in school she’ll say, Sorry, and smile, and you’ll believe her and be stupid enough to ask her out again.

You wait, and after an hour you go out to your corner. The neighborhood is full of traffic—commuters now cut through the neighborhood—making it hard on the kids and the viejas, who are used to empty streets. Give one of your friends a shout and when he says, Still waiting on that bitch? say, Hell, yeah.

Get back inside. Call her house and when her father picks up ask if she’s there. If he sounds like a principal or a police chief, a dude with a big neck, someone who never has to watch his back, then hang up. Sit and wait. And wait. Until finally, just as your stomach is about to give out on you, a Honda, or maybe a Cherokee, will pull in and out she’ll come.

Hey, she’ll say.

Come on in, you’ll say.

Look, she’ll say. My mom wants to meet you. She’s got herself all worried about nothing.

Don’t panic. Say, Hey, no problem. Run a hand through your hair like the white boys do, even though the only thing that runs easily through your hair is Africa. She will look good. White girls are the ones you want most, aren’t they? But the out-of-towners are usually black—black girls who grew up with ballet and Girl Scouts, and have three cars in their driveway. If she’s a halfie don’t be surprised that her mother is the white one. Say, Hi. She’ll say, Hi, and you’ll see that you don’t scare her, not really. She will say that she needs easier directions to get out, and even though she already has the best directions on her lap, give her new ones. Make her happy.

If the girl’s from the Terrace, none of this will happen.

You have choices. If the girl’s from around the way, take her to El Cibao for dinner. Order everything in your busted-up Spanish. Amaze her if she’s black, let her correct you if she’s Latina. If she’s not from around the way, Wendy’s will do. As you walk to the restaurant, talk about school. A local girl won’t need stories about the neighborhood, but the others might. Tell her about the pendejo who stored cannisters of Army tear gas in his basement for years until one day they all cracked and the neighborhood got a dose of military-strength stuff. Don’t tell her that your moms knew right away what it was, that she recognized the smell from the year the United States invaded your island.

Hope that you don’t run into your nemesis, Howie, the Puerto Rican kid with the two killer mutts. He walks them all over the neighborhood, and every now and then the mutts corner a cat and tear it to shreds, as Howie laughs and the cat flips up in the air, its neck twisted around like an owl’s, red meat showing through the soft fur. And if his dogs haven’t cornered a cat, then he’ll be behind you, asking, Is that your new fuckbuddy?

Let him talk. Howie weighs two hundred pounds and could eat you if he wanted. But at the field he’ll turn away. He has new sneakers and doesn’t want them muddy. If the girl’s an outsider, that’s when she’ll hiss, What a fucking asshole. A homegirl would have been yelling back at him the whole time, unless she was shy. Either way, don’t feel bad that you didn’t do anything. Never lose a fight on a first date.

Dinner will be tense. You are not good at talking to people you don’t know.

A halfie will tell you that her parents met in the Movement. Back then, she’ll say, people thought it was a radical thing to do. It will sound like something her parents made her memorize. Your brother heard that one, too, and said, Sounds like a whole lot of Uncle Tomming to me. Don’t repeat this.

Put down your hamburger and say, It must have been hard.

It was, she will say.

She’ll appreciate your interest. She’ll tell you more. Black people, she will say, treat me real bad. That’s why I don’t like them. You’ll wonder how she feels about Dominicans. Don’t ask. Let her speak on it and when you’ve finished eating, walk back through the neighborhood. The skies will be magnificent. Pollutants have made Jersey sunsets one of the wonders of the world. Point it out. Touch her shoulder and say, Isn’t that nice?

Get serious. Watch TV, but stay alert. Sip some of the Bermudez your father left in the cabinet, which nobody touches. She’ll drink enough to make her brave. A local girl will have hips and a nice ass but won’t be quick about letting you touch her. She has to live in the same neighborhood as you do. She might just chill with you and then go home. She might kiss you and then leave. Or she might, if she’s reckless, give it up, but that’s rare. Kissing will suffice. A white girl might give it up right then. Don’t stop her. She’ll take her gum out of her mouth, stick it to the plastic sofa covers, and then move close to you. You have nice eyes, she might say.

Tell her that you love her hair, her skin, her lips, because, in truth, you love them more than you love your own.

She’ll say, I like Spanish guys, and even though you’ve never been to Spain, say, I like you. You’ll sound smooth.

You’ll be with her until about eight-thirty, and then she’ll want to wash up. In the bathroom, she’ll hum a song from the radio and her waist will keep the beat against the lip of the sink. Think of her old lady coming to get her, and imagine what she would say if she knew that her daughter had just lain under you and blown your name into your ear. While she’s in the bathroom, you might call one of your boys and say, Ya lo hice, cabrón. Or sit back on the couch and smile.

But usually it won’t work this way. Be prepared. She will not want to kiss you. Just cool it, she’ll say. The halfie might lean back and push you away. She will cross her arms and say, I hate my tits. Pretend to watch the TV, and then turn to her to stroke her hair, even though you know she’ll pull away again. I don’t like anybody to touch my hair, she will say. She will act like somebody you don’t know. In school, she is known for her attention-grabbing laugh, high and far-ranging like a gull’s, but here she will worry you. You will not know what to say.

You’re the only kind of guy who asks me out, she will say. Your neighbors will start their hyena calls, now that the alcohol is in them. She will say, You and the black boys.

You want to say, Who do you want to ask you out? But you already know. Let her button her shirt and comb her hair, the sound of it like a crackling fire between you. When her father pulls in and beeps, let her go without too much of a goodbye. She won’t want it. During the next hour, the phone will ring. You will be tempted to pick it up. Don’t. Watch the shows you want to watch, without a family around to argue with you. Don’t go downstairs. Don’t fall asleep. It won’t help. Put the government cheese back in its place before your moms kills you.

Reprinted from “Drown,” by Junot Díaz, by arrangement with Riverhead Books, a member of Penguin Group (USA), Inc. Copyright © 1996 by Junot Díaz.