Summary
"Drown" begins with Mami telling Yunior that his childhood friend, Beto, is back in town. Yunior reveals that they used to be friends before Beto went off to college. He says that Beto "is a pato now" (91). (Pato is a Dominican slur for a gay man, generally used in a derogatory manner.) He decides to look for Beto, going to the community pool where they used to hang out as kids. When he gets there, he realizes that he is not the oldest person there, "but it's close" (93). Two kids swim past him in the pool and recognize him as the guy who sells them marijuana. Yunior swims in the deep end for a while and then makes his way to the shallow end of the pool. He sees the pool rules sign and remembers a moment from the past when Beto asked him what the word "expectorating" means, but Yunior refused to tell him.
Yunior begins to reflect on his life at home. He and Mami are living alone in an apartment. He says that his mother has "discovered the secret to silence" and moves around their apartment so quietly that sometimes he doesn't even realize she is there (94). When he gets back from the pool, he sees that she is still awake, and he sits next to her on the couch so that they can watch TV together. They watch the Spanish news, where they learn that a baby has fallen from a seventh-story apartment but wasn't harmed. Mami asks him if he found Beto, and he tells her that he did not look for him. She informs him that Beto is thinking about going to business school. Mami tries to convince Yunior to reach out to Beto, and he gets angry with her but stays to watch TV.
The next day, a Saturday, Yunior and Mami go to the mall. Before they leave, Mami has him check the latches on every window in the apartment. She dresses up for their outing, which is why Yunior does not complain about going with her, even though he could make good money dealing drugs on a Saturday. At the mall, Yunior gives Mami fifty dollars and they split up. He wanders through the stores, making sure to stay in sight of the cashiers so they "won't have reason to follow [him]" (97). Yunior remembers the days when he and Beto would come to the mall to shoplift. It got to the point where all of his new clothes would not fit in his closet. Mami never suspected anything, but Papi quickly got suspicious. He warned Yunior that one day he was going to get caught. Yunior admits that his father's warning did one day come true. They were caught by an older woman in the bookstore and were found by the police hiding underneath a car across from a bus stop. When the cops found them, Yunior started crying, and Beto's hand was squeezing his.
Yunior moves on to describe a little bit about his social life. Most nights, he hangs out with his friends Alex and Danny at the Malibou Bar. They drink and get rowdy. When the bar gets busy, Yunior heads home, cutting through the fields that surround the apartments. In the mornings, he goes for runs. He wakes up when Mami is already up and getting ready for her housecleaning job. As he runs, Yunior keeps his eyes out for the army recruiter that prowls his neighborhood. He remembers a conversation that they had in the past. The recruiter approached him, offering him a job in the United States Army. Yunior turned him down. Now, he hides in the bushes whenever he sees that the recruiter is around. He suggests that his desire to leave his neighborhood is so great that he is worried that the recruiter will convince him.
When Yunior gets home, he finds Mami talking to Papi on the phone. He reveals that Papi is currently living in Florida with another woman. He calls Mami every once in a while to ask her for money. Yunior disapproves of their talking, and Mami opens the refrigerator door so that the whir of the appliance will muffle their conversation. Yunior surprises her by walking over and hanging up the phone. Yunior thinks back to hanging out with Beto when they were both still in high school. Beto would get on the bus for school, but Yunior would stay back because he was already failing gym and math. Instead of going to class, he would stay home, or go to the mall or the library. Whenever Yunior would make it back to his neighborhood, Beto would be waiting for him. Sometimes, however, Beto wouldn't be there, hanging out with his friends who lived in other neighborhoods and in New York City.
Yunior reveals that some nights he goes to New Brunswick with his friends. They go to the bars in town. None of the college girls dance with them. After the clubs, they head to a diner, and then head home. They speed home, and on the way, they pass a gay bar. Alex leans his head out of his window and shouts insults at them. After this incident, Yunior remembers two sexual experiences that he had with Beto. The first time happened while Beto and Yunior are watching one of his father's pornography videos. After about an hour of watching, Beto reaches his hand into Yunior's pants. Yunior is emotionally affected by the encounter, but because Beto is his best friend, he searches him out the next night. He finds Beto at the pool. They watch together as a group of boys harass a girl and steal her bikini top. Beto and Yunior leave the pool and go back to his house. They hook up for the second time. Beto keeps talking about going away to college in a few weeks. They hear a noise in the hallway, which causes Yunior to freak out. He leaves Beto's apartment.
Yunior thinks he sees Beto driving around in his father's car. He deals drugs for a little while and then goes home to find Mami cooking dinner. Mami tells him that she has bought him a shirt. Yunior takes his cash out of his pockets. They watch a movie together, and Mami falls asleep. When the movie is over, Yunior wakes her. She tells him to make sure the windows are closed and he promises her that he will.
Analysis
One of the largest questions that readers of "Drown" have after finishing the story has to do with the parallel undercurrents of queerness and homophobia that run beneath the text. Some people may wonder if Yunior, the narrator, is a gay man like Beto, particularly after Yunior reveals in the final moment of the story that he and Beto had sexual encounters in the past. Some other people may wonder whether Yunior and Beto's sexual encounters amount to sexual assault, particularly because it seems like verbal consent is never given and Yunior reacts very negatively to these encounters. Yunior's calculated silences as a narrator throughout "Drown" limit our complete understanding of these scenes. Because of Yunior's sparse way of describing his life experiences and his environment, more often than not we finish reading "Drown" with more questions than answers. However, we might be able to find some entry into these questions by analyzing two different things: the way that gay characters (including Beto) are treated by Yunior and society at large within the story, and how silence is used throughout the text.
When Yunior first introduces us to Beto, he refers to his ex-friend with a Dominican slur for gay people: "He's a pato now but two years ago we were friends and he would walk into the apartment without knocking, his heavy voice rousing my mother from the Spanish of her room and drawing me up from the basement, a voice that crackled and made you think of uncles or grandfathers" (92). This slur carries negative connotations in Dominican culture as well as within Drown itself. The first time that readers encounter it is in "Ysrael," right after Yunior is sexually assaulted by an older gentleman in the back of an autobús: "You pato, I said. The man kept smiling. You low-down pinga-sucking pato, I said" ("Ysrael," 12). In this second appearance of the term, it doesn't seem to carry as much anger or condemnation as it did when Yunior said it as a child, but it still is used as a slur. This moment contributes to a larger anti-gay atmosphere within "Drown." Later in the story, when Yunior and his friends are on their way back from New Brunswick, he reveals that his friends often harass the patrons of queer bar in town: "At the Old Bridge Turnpike we pass the fag bar, which never seems to close. Patos are all over the parking lot, drinking and talking. Sometimes Alex will stop by the side of the road and say, Excuse me. When somebody comes over from the bar he'll point his plastic pistol at them, just to see if they'll run or shit their pants. Tonight he just puts his head out the window. Fuck you! he shouts then settles back in his seat, laughing" (103). This homophobia affects Yunior himself, and even though he does not participate in the harassment of the queer bar patrons, he implicitly allows it to continue. It results in a moment of crisis for Yunior after his first sexual encounter with Beto: "Mostly I stayed in the basement, terrified that I would end up abnormal, a fucking pato, but he was my best friend and back then that mattered to me more than anything" (104). Here, it is unclear whether or not Yunior identifies as queer. In fact, it's mostly apparent that he doesn't. His encounter with Beto results in a moment of identity crisis for himself, as he views himself through the critical eyes of the society that surrounds him. This hinders his acceptance of the situation and contributes to the overwhelming blanket of silence that encases Yunior throughout the story.
An important factor to consider when thinking about the theme of queer identity in "Drown" is Yunior's silence. This silence defines his sexual encounters with Beto, but it is also visible in their relationship before these encounters happen. For example, when Beto and Yunior are swimming in the pool, Yunior knows what the word "expectorating" (to spit or cough up phlegm) means even though Beto doesn't. Beto asks Yunior where he learned the word and responds in frustration when Yunior won't tell him: "Beto hadn't known what expectorating meant even though he was the one leaving for college. I told him, spitting a greener by the side of the pool. Shit, he said. Where did you learn that? I shrugged. Tell me. He hated when I knew something he didn't. He was wearing a cross and cutoff jeans. He was stronger than me and held me down until water flooded my nose and throat. Even then I didn't tell him," (94). Here, Beto is operating off of a misconception about Yunior—that Yunior does not read anything, even dictionaries—that Yunior does not bother to correct. It seems that even though Beto and Yunior are best friends, Yunior keeps parts of himself secret from Beto, preferring silence over truth. This silence extends into their first sexual encounter, when Beto makes advances on Yunior that Yunior does not vocally speak out against: "We were an hour into the new movie, some vaina that looked like it had been filmed in the apartment next door, when he reached into my shorts. What the fuck are you doing? I asked, but he didn't stop. His hand was dry. I kept my eyes on the television, too scared to watch... My legs started shaking and suddenly I wanted out. He didn't say anything to me as I left, just sat there watching the screen" (104). This encounter, which leaves Yunior feeling incredibly uncomfortable, is defined by a silence that comes from both Yunior and Beto. Instead of talking about this new threshold that Beto crosses, they react to it with silence, despite their closeness as friends. Additionally, the second time that they hook up with each other, Yunior stays silent again: "I'll stop if you want, he said and I didn't respond" (105). This, clearly, has a negative effect on multiple levels. Yunior is left feeling afraid, confused, and frustrated. Additionally, the issue of consent—in the real world, any sexual encounter in which verbal consent is not given is generally considered sexual assault—becomes muddled. As a result, Yunior keeps these encounters to himself, despite the fact that it ruins his relationship with Beto and he does not deal with the emotions that came up as a result of the event.
Interestingly, Yunior is not the only silent character in "Drown." Mami, who used to be a vocal character throughout the previous stories, particularly in "Aguantando," has become more and more silent over the years, as well. Yunior describes this silence early in the story: "She's so quiet that most of the time I'm startled to find her in the apartment. I'll enter a room and she'll stir, detaching herself from the cracking plaster walls, from the stained cabinets, and fright will pass through me like a wire. She has discovered the secret to silence: pouring café without a splash, walking between rooms as if gliding on a cushion of felt, crying without a sound" (94). In these lines, Yunior reflects on Mami's discovery of "the secret to silence," which sets silence up as a practice rather than a character trait. It is a way of living that is sought out, constructed, and maintained through the conscious effort of the character. When Yunior wakes up in the mornings, Mami does not speak to him, and instead wordlessly points to his breakfast that she prepared: "In the mornings I run. My mother is already up, dressing for her housecleaning job. She says nothing to me, would rather point to the mangú she has prepared than speak" (99). It is clear that Yunior shares this trait with his mother, as he operates on a need-to-know basis with everyone around him. When it comes to his relationship with Beto, he never tells his mother the truth of what occurred between them, even though she can clearly see that something is wrong. As a result, his silence turns harmful, as he never gives himself the opportunity to reflect upon the experience, talk about it with someone else, and eventually heal. Instead, he and Mami exist in similar states of silence. Their parallel states are evoked most clearly when they are sitting next to each other on the bus, on the way to the mall: "I recognize like half the kids on the bus. I keep my head buried in my cap, praying that nobody tries to score. She watches the traffic, her hands somewhere inside her purse, doesn't say a word" (96).
In "Passing and the State in Junot Díaz's 'Drown,'" Dorothy Stringer describes "Drown" as "an important discussion of passing that not only spans racial and sexual strategies but also tracks state strategies for managing racial and sexual difference." In her understanding of the text, Yunior's behavior in the story operates as a direct opposition to the oppressive power of the state: "the narrator's calculated silences preserve ethical possibilities that the state cannot enact, predict, or regulate." In other words, Stringer believes that Yunior stays silent about his criminal activity and his relationship with Beto when talking to others in an attempt to negotiate his queerness and racial identity while living in a state and society where it is only permissible to be white and straight. Because of this, Stringer understands Yunior's silences as part of a larger project of "passing," which she notes "originally meant successfully performing, as an African American of ambiguous phenotype, the role of a white person in a one-drop, Jim-Crow, lynch-law policy." In other words, despite whether or not Yunior identifies as queer, his silences allow him to pass for straight and "normative" in a society where being different will most likely lead to violence or discrimination.
Yunior's attempts to pass are most evident in the conversation between himself and the Army recruiter. In this scene, the recruiter approaches Yunior in plain clothes and offers Yunior a job in the Army: "He was out of uniform and called me over, jovial, and I thought i was helping some white dude with directions" (100). The recruiter moves on to ask Yunior a set of probing questions: "Do you have a job?... Would you like one? A real career, more than you could get around here?" (100). The recruiter's insistence that a job with the Army is preferable to anything that Yunior can find "around here" understands Yunior as inseparable from his lower-class surroundings and contains the implicit suggestion that the only way that he will be able to achieve success is if he eventually leaves. When Yunior tells the Army recruiter that he doesn't think that he is "Army material," the recruiter responds: "That's exactly what I used to think... But now I have a house, a car, a gun, and a wife" (100). Stringer emphasizes the implicit message contained in these words, naming them as a "pleasurable fantasy of twentieth-century US citizenship" that "replaces circling with rest, dispossession with ownership, anxiety with weapons, and distrust with belonging." In other words, it is a fantasy that "takes place anywhere but here, in an abstract American dreamscape." As a person of color who deals drugs to make ends meet, Yunior does not generally fit into the Army mold. This is particularly true when one considers his possible queerness. At the time that "Drown" was written, the United States Army still operated off of the "Don't Ask Don't Tell" policy, which barred openly LGBT+ people from working in the military. Finally, Yunior is Dominican, and we learn in "Aguantando" that his family has a recent negative relationship with the American army: his father worked for the Guardia (the Dominican national police) when the United States invaded the Dominican Republic in 1965, and his mother was injured during a rocket attack by the Americans that left her with thick scars all along her torso. Yunior does not disclose any of this to the Army recruiter, and instead he stays silent and remains non-comital, preferring to hide in bushes whenever he sees the Army recruiter is around.
That the Army recruiter prowls around Yunior's neighborhood speaks volumes about the way that his neighborhood is viewed by American society at large. He lives in a poor neighborhood that is occupied mostly by immigrants and people of color. The Army recruiter hangs out there because he believes that the life he can offer the people living in that neighborhood is preferable to their current existence. Throughout the story, it is assumed that true opportunity can only be found by leaving the neighborhood. Beto hates their neighborhood because he believes that it hinders his life opportunities and freedom: "Beto was leaving for college at the end of the summer and he was delirious from the thought of it—he hated everything about the neighborhood, the break-apart buildings, the little strips of grass, the piles of garbage around the cans, and the dump, especially the dump" (91). Beto's dissatisfaction with his surroundings is shared by many of the characters in the story, including Yunior himself. Unlike Beto, however, Yunior feels like he has "no promises" outside of high school, and he is stuck in a cycle of dealing drugs and hanging out with his friends that does little to widen his horizons (92). Yunior's lack of self-confidence is reinforced by one of his teachers in high school: "One teacher, whose family had two grammar schools named after it, compared us to the shuttles. A few of you are going to make it. Those are the orbiters. But the majority of you are just going to burn out. Going nowhere. He dropped his hand onto his desk. I could already see myself losing altitude, fading, the earth spread out beneath me, hard and bright" (106). This statement from Yunior's teacher affects Yunior directly, who believes that he can do little better than the life he is currently leading, and, as a result, does nothing to change the trajectory of his life himself. In an interview, Junot Díaz comments on the significance of this scene, stating that the teacher's discouraging remarks are part of a greater project on the part of upper-class American society to push lower-class Americans down: "There's no state in the world that can facilitate all the ambitions of its underclass. So it throws up obstacles—plenty of intoxications, bad schools, aggressive cops, no jobs—and depends on us to do the rest. You don't know how many times I've seen a person escape institutional discrimination only to knock themselves down with self-hate and self-doubt. Together these pressures are a lethal combination."
