“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” (1248).
This comparison by one of Yunior’s teachers captures the never-ending repetition of the depressing routine Yunior in willingly drowning in.
We being the short story by diving straight into the reason why Yunior is recalling the said experiences – Beto coming back to the neighborhood. Immediately following the account of his conversation with his mother about Beto’s arrival, Yunior begins his recount of the past with Beto and his descriptions of experiences without Beto.
I differentiate between “recounts” and “descriptions” because “Drown” is a mixture of both. In this story, Diaz breaks the narrative into pieces that, like an undated diary, do not have transitions. However, there is a distinction between the entries that involve Beto and those that don’t.
When Yunior recounts his experiences with Beto, he goes into details about non-repetitive events. For example, when Yunior recounts his homosexual experience with Beto, he starts the entry with “Twice. That’s it” (1247). The details he gives are directly related to those two unique experiences, such as the details of the event and his reactions following the event. Even when Yunior recalls his numerous shoplifting experiences with Beto, he cites specific examples that let readers know are single occurrences: “He even talked to mall security… and me, standing ten feet away, shitting my pants” (1244). Despite Yunior stating that his and Beto’s shoplifting was a common occurrence, he goes into specific details surrounding each event.
In contrast to these recounts including Beto, Yunior describes his experiences without Beto as repetitive ones. We are able to see this difference through the opening sentences of the entries without Beto. For example, when Yunior describes his outings to the mall with his mom, he says, “Saturdays she asks me to take her to the mall” (1244), implying that this is a common occurrence. Further into the entry, when Yunior is locking the windows, he says, “With the air conditioner on we never open windows but I go through the routine anyway” (1244). By using the word “routine” (1244), we see that what Yunior described is a repetitive event that always occurs when he and his mom go to the mall on Saturdays. When Yunior describes his bar experiences, he begins by saying “Nights I drink with Alex and Danny” (1245); when he talks about his morning exercises, he says, “In the mornings I run” (1245); whenever he is out running, he “[keeps] an eye out for the recruiter who prowls around our neighborhood” (1245).
Through his differentiation, we can see that Yunior’s life is not going anywhere. Now that Beto, the source of Yunior’s non-repetitive experiences, has moved away, Yunior is left with repetitive routines that leave him static. Just like the teacher said, Yunior is “going nowhere” (1248). Even Yunior, himself, recognizes this, when he says “I could already see myself losing altitude, fading, the earth spread out beneath me, hard and bright” (1248). However, we do not see any indications of Yunior struggling as he continues to drown and burn out.