Who is Beto? You never “see” him directly through the story but only through the narrator’s memories, although we know that he has returned home from somewhere else. What role does Beto play in the narrator’s life, both in the past and in the present,

Beto is Yunior's childhood friend. He appears in "Drown." He is currently a student in college and a gay man. The narrator remembers his intense desire to leave their town: "Beto was leaving for college at the end of the summer and delirious at the thought of it—he hated everything about the neighborhood" (91).