Plot
What happens when police pull oscar and his friends off the train?
Fruitvale Station
Fruitvale Station Tadpole (film) BART Police shooting of Oscar Grant Salvador Novo The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
Fruitvale_Station-Plot Tadpole_(film)-Plot BART_Police_shooting_of_Oscar_Grant-Background Salvador_Novo-Main_characteristics The_Brief_Wondrous_Life_of_Oscar_Wao-Chapter_four:_Sentimental_Education_(1988–1992)
The film tells the story of Oscar Grant III, a 22-year-old from Hayward, California and his experiences on the last day of his life, before he was fatally shot by BART Police in the early morning hours of New Year's Day 2009. The story begins with Oscar and his girlfriend Sophina dropping off their daughter Tatiana at day care. Oscar stops by his old job at the deli counter of a grocery store from which he had been fired two weeks prior. He discards his stash of marijuana in an effort to get on a good path, and then attends his mother's birthday party. She encourages him to take BART to the festivities in San Francisco, which Oscar and his friends do. The train to the festivities is stalled temporarily, but Oscar and his friends turn the train into a party scene. On the return train, a customer from the grocery store recognizes Oscar and calls out his name, which leads him to be identified by a former fellow inmate, leading to a scuffle. The police pull Oscar and his friends off the train, and one of the officers shoots Oscar in the back while Oscar is being held down. Oscar's friends are released and they convene with Oscar's mother and girlfriend at the hospital, where they are told that he has died. Sophina picks up Tatiana from Sophina's sister's house where she spent the night, and the movie ends as Tatiana asks where her father is.
Oscar Grubman (Aaron Stanford) is a 15-year-old boy, portrayed as mature beyond his years, traveling home from school for Thanksgiving. He speaks fluent French, quotes Voltaire and finds girls of his own age to be unexperienced in life. When an attractive girl from his school, Miranda Spear (Kate Mara), who is obviously interested in him, approaches Oscar, he politely brushes her off. Oscar confides in his friend Charlie (Robert Iler) that he is in love with a mature woman and plans to win her heart during Thanksgiving break. Oscar arrives at the apartment of his father, Columbia University history professor and author, Stanley Grubman (John Ritter), and stepmother, the passionate cardiologist, Eve (Sigourney Weaver). That evening, the Grubmans hold a party where Stanley introduces him to a girl of his age, but Oscar rebuffs her as well while staring at the object of his affection: his stepmother. Oscar tries to open up to her, but the unsuspecting Eve doesn't pick up on any of his advances. Stanley tells him to walk the girl home, but he hails her a cab. Depressed from his failure with the older woman, Oscar goes to a bar and gets drunk. He bumps into Eve's best friend, chiropractor Diane Lodder (Bebe Neuwirth), who offers to take him to her own apartment seeing his current condition. Once there, Diane begins to massage him and they end up having sex. Oscar wakes the next morning and has an awkward encounter with Diane's boyfriend, Phil. Back at home, Oscar plans a surprise lunch for Eve but first Stanley inquires about where Oscar spent the night. Oscar makes up a story about meeting Miranda Spear from school. He brings lunch to Eve at her lab, where he opens up to her once more, pondering the use of the heart as a symbol for affection. Together they decide that the liver should be the new symbol for love. Their conversation is interrupted by a phone call from Stanley, who mentions that Diane will be joining them for dinner. Worried that Diane will tell Eve about their tryst, Oscar finds Diane at a tea room with several of her friends. All act as though they know about the previous evening. Oscar makes Diane promise to keep last night a secret from Stanley and especially Eve. At dinner, Diane drinks and behaves coyly. She plays footsie with Oscar and flirts with him in French. After she excuses herself from the table, Oscar follows to confront her. She kisses him while not being totally out of Stanley's view, after which Diane admits to Stanley and Eve that she and Oscar are lovers. The next day, Diane explains to Eve that she found Oscar a charming young man. Eve and Oscar play a tense round of tennis, lobbing insults at each other, ending up with Oscar getting hit in the head with a ball. Oscar explains to Eve that he only did what he did with Diane because he was drunk and she was wearing Eve's scarf. Eve immediately understands that he is in love with her. They share a passionate kiss but Eve eventually breaks away. At the end of Thanksgiving break, Eve and Stanley take Oscar to the train. Eve asks Oscar how his liver feels and he replies that it hurts, but is not broken. She also tells him how much she loves his father. On the train, Oscar meets up with Charlie, and runs into Miranda. Miranda quotes Voltaire, "If we do not find something pleasant at least we will find something new," and looks longingly at Oscar. Charlie notices this and Oscar tells Charlie that Miranda smells nice. Charlie asks about Eve and Oscar states that his obsession with Eve was not as important as it seemed. Charlie doesn't understand his friend, but Oscar smiles as the train rolls on. 
Oscar Grant had been celebrating New Year's Eve with his friends at the Embarcadero in San Francisco, and was returning to the East Bay in the lead car of a BART train bound for Fruitvale, in a group of about eight friends. BART offered extended service and a special "Flash Pass" for the New Year's Eve holiday. At approximately 2:00 a.m. PST, BART Police responded to reports that up to 12 people were involved in a fight on an incoming train from the West Oakland BART Station and the participants were "hammered and stoned. "BART Officer Marysol Domenici was first officer on the scene with her partner, Tony Pirone. Officers removed Grant and several other men suspected of fighting from the train and detained them on the platform. Pirone handcuffed Grant's friend, angering other riders. Pirone then lined up Grant and two other men against the wall. According to Mehserle's motion for bail, Pirone confirmed with the train operator that the men detained were involved in the fight. When five other officers, including Johannes Mehserle, arrived at the Fruitvale station, they claimed that they found the situation chaotic. Mehserle's partner on duty, Officer Jon Woffinden, said the "incident was one of the most frightening he had experienced in his 12 years as a police officer." Mehserle's motion for bail, citing the police investigation, stated:"Officer Pirone directed Officer Mehserle to arrest two of the individuals who had not been handcuffed. One of the individuals to be arrested was Oscar Grant, and Officer Pirone’s direction to Mehserle was overheard by Grant. Grant, upon hearing that he was under arrest, attempted to stand up, but was forced to the ground face first. Both Officer Mehserle and Officer Pirone attempted to restrain Mr. Grant and to seek his compliance by ordering him to put his hands behind his back to be handcuffed, but Mr. Grant resisted and refused to submit to handcuffing. Officer Mehserle was pulling at Mr. Grant’s right hand and arm, which remained under his torso near his waistband. Mr. Grant had not been searched by any officer for weapons, either prior to his initial detention or after being seated near the wall. "A cell-phone video broadcast on local television station KTVU on January 23 showed what appeared to be Pirone rushing towards one of the detained men and punching him in the face several times two minutes before the shooting. Grant's family alleges in their civil claim against BART that an officer threw Grant against a wall and kneed him in the face. The subsequent autopsy showed that Grant's body had no injuries other than that from the bullet wound. Pirone's attorney stated that Grant provoked Pirone by trying to knee the officer in the groin and by hitting Officer Marysol Domenici's arm when she attempted to handcuff one of Grant's friends. Witnesses testified that Pirone was the aggressor during the incident. Burris also disputes Pirone's account and claims that Grant and his friends were "peaceful" when the train stopped. Grant then raised his hands while seated against the platform wall. Additional footage from a cell phone was presented in court showing Pirone standing over the prone Grant before the shooting and yelling: "Bitch-ass nigger, right?" Pirone and his attorney say he was merely parroting an insulting epithet that Grant had yelled at him. It has been speculated that BART police were "on edge" before the shooting because two guns had been recovered in separate incidents along the rail line over the previous hour. Immediately before he arrived at Fruitvale, Mehserle was involved in an incident at the West Oakland station where a teenage boy with a semi-automatic pistol had fled from police and jumped off the station platform, breaking several bones. 
Novo defied the machismo and conservative Catholicism prevalent in 20th century Mexican culture by making almost no efforts to conceal his sexuality. He was, however, accepted by the Mexican government. He held official posts related to culture, was elected to the Mexican Language Academy, and had a television program on Mexico City's history. Towards the end of his life, he dyed his hair a bright carrot color and wore many ostentatious rings and colored suits. He has been compared to Oscar Wilde, but unlike Wilde, Novo never suffered the setback of scandal or persecution and remained an accepted and respected member of society and governmental circles until his death. In fact, some sectors resented the fact that a gay writer would align himself so closely with the government and media after the repression of social movements in the 1960s and 1970s. He was well known for his wit. When a party, where young soldiers had been invited by gay scholar friends of his, had degenerated into a fight and a scandal, Salvador Novo brushed off the whole matter with a factual: ""This is what happens when" members "of the intellectual elite try to enter military "circles"". "In accordance with tradition, the street on which he lived was renamed after him when he assumed the role of Mexico City's official chronicler, a post held for life. 
This chapter explores Oscar's time at Rutgers, and introduces the narrator, Yunior, who was Oscar's roommate and Lola's boyfriend. Yunior is a big guy, with an even bigger heart. The narrator begins to tell his own story, saying “it” (his involvement with the de Leons) started when he was jumped in New Brunswick on the way home from a club. Lola was the only one who came and took care of him when he was recovering. He admits he cared about Lola even though he thinks he is not supposed to care about anything, and despite the fact that she is not the kind of girl he usually goes for because she is tall with no breasts and huge hips and a butt. Yunior (the name of the narrator is first revealed on p. 169) describes his first kiss with Lola when she asks him to drive her home. When Oscar tries to kill himself over a girl at the end of sophomore year, Yunior steps up and rooms with him the next year in the dorm called Demarest. Lola is as surprised as Yunior is. Yunior has always hated Demarest because it is full of artists, freaks, and losers. Oscar and Yunior get a room specified in the “writing” section. Yunior rooms with Oscar partially because of Lola but also because he would have had to room off campus otherwise and he could not afford it. When Yunior moves in, Oscar tells him he is cursed, but Yunior is not fazed by it. In retrospect, he thinks he probably should have run the other way. Yunior states he has never met a Dominican like Oscar. Oscar is a nerd who writes fifteen to twenty pages a day, and puts signs on their door in fantasy languages from his books. When Yunior comes home at night, he often finds Oscar watching Akira, a Japanese post-apocalyptic film, or role-playing. Yunior admits that Oscar is a considerate roommate, and Yunior does his part to return the favor by cooking dinner and reading some of Oscar’s writing. Yunior tries to give advice to Oscar on how to get girls, but he also believes that Oscar is too nerdy and too fat to get a girl. In addition, Oscar does not want to change. When Yunior’s girlfriend Suriyan dumps him for sleeping with a girl named Awilda, Yunior makes Oscar his project. He takes him running every day. After a while, Oscar quits. Yunior gets angry—Oscar resists, and Yunior pushes him. Lola calls from abroad (in Spain) and they fight—she tells him never to speak to her again. Oscar tried to apologize to Yunior but Yunior did not apologize back and remained cool towards Oscar. Yunior describes how his friends taunt Oscar “Tú no eres nada de dominicano” (You are not one bit Dominican) to which Oscar would protest that he is. On Halloween, Oscar dresses up as Doctor Who, from the TV show; Yunior thought he looked like “that fat homo” Oscar Wilde, their friend Melvin heard “Oscar Wao” and that’s how Oscar got his nickname. Oscar falls in love with a beautiful crazy Puerto Rican goth girl named Jenni Muñoz, also known as La Jablesse. She once turned Yunior down, and he is still a little put off by it. Oscar and Jenni become friends and started to hang out, much to Yunior’s surprise. Yunior admits he reads Oscar’s journal to find out what they talk about, which is mostly poetry and literature. Oscar starts jogging again and making more of an effort to look good. Then Jenni gets a boyfriend and stops hanging out with Oscar. Oscar is depressed and stops writing. Yunior calls Lola because he is worried. Two weeks later Oscar walks in on her and her new boyfriend naked. Oscar freaks out, insults her, and rips posters off her walls. Yunior stops him, but from then on Oscar is thought of as a psycho, and that is how that school year ends. The last night rooming together, they get drunk, and Yunior leaves. Oscar continues to drink and walks onto a train bridge in New Brunswick. When the train is coming, Oscar sees the Golden Mongoose, they look into each other’s eyes, and then it is gone. Oscar has left a suicide note for Yunior, Lola, Beli and Jenni. He jumps off the bridge and lands on the median and lives. Yunior refers to this period as the Fall. Beli, Yunior, and Lola visit Oscar at the hospital. Lola and her mother are fighting. Oscar tells Yunior he believes the curse made him do it, and Yunior does not believe him. Lola and Yunior have a brief conversation about whether or not Oscar should live in Demarest again, and Yunior leaves without fulfilling his desire to kiss Lola. The next year at school Oscar showed up at Yunior’s dorm and they have a short conversation updating each other on their lives. Oscar visits Yunior occasionally but Yunior never visits him. During winter finals, Yunior runs into Lola on the bus and asks her on a date. She accepts reluctantly. They start a relationship and Yunior promises never to lie to Lola. In the spring, Yunior moves back into Demarest with Oscar. Yunior again admits to reading Oscar’s journal, reporting that the fall after the Fall was dark for Oscar. He would take midnight drives in his mother’s car, sometimes almost falling asleep at the wheel, and then at the last minute waking up. 