Bobby honked his horn. I ran to the bathroom to check myself out in case we saw Devon and Erica. Not bad. I was liking my haircut more and more. When I got to the street, the girls were indeed there. Devon in the passenger seat next to Bobby, and Erica in the back with NP.
It was the first summer Devon's family came out, which was why we'd never seen them before. According to my mother, Devon's father used to come out sometimes in the '60s, so the family had some bona fides, but that was way before my time. I had finally gotten a gander at the famous twosome when NP brought them by the ice-cream store to show them off. I had the usual disreputable smears on my Jonni Waffle T-shirt and was manhandling a sundae. Good timing.
The answer was obvious: Erica. I'd listened to the Devon versus Erica debate for a long time, managing ever-morphing portraits of them in my mind, each new opinion or report sliding their features around, adding and subtracting baby fat, tinting the flesh. Depending on your hardwired tastes—a little light or a little dark, plump or lean, preppy or an iota less preppy—you sided with one cousin or the other. (Am I talking about chicken? If you delete the preppy stuff, I mean. I have chicken on my mind today.) Erica was skinny, like me. We'd make a nice skinny couple, never taking up too much room and passing the days discussing our spiffy metabolisms.
I crouched so I could see everybody in the car.
“’Sup, Benji?” NP said.
“Hi, Benji,” Erica said.
“Ben,” I said.
“What?”
“What's up?” This was Bobby.
“Just hanging.”
“Your dad barbecuing?”
“Mr. Cooper makes the best barbecue,” NP informed Erica, tapping her forearm.
“He's a real pistol,” Bobby told Devon.
“He's a trip,” NP said.
Erica said, “Oh.”
“So what …?” I didn't know who to talk to. I'd made plans with Bobby, but I wanted to maintain an easygoing manner for Devon and Erica's benefit so that I looked like a regular guy that people wanted to be friends with, and part of that entailed acknowledging NP's presence, even though NP never should have been there in the first place. I was supposed to be in the back with Erica. My eyes jumped from face to face as I bobbed between the windows.
“Look,” Bobby said, “we're going to have to catch up with you later, okay?”
“We're going to the ocean,” Devon said, bored. Yeah, forget Devon. Devon was totally second-tier, especially since Erica had laughed at my joke the other day, bonding me permanently to her. See, we were at Conca D'Oro and NP pulled out his wad of Jonni Waffle pay, riffling through the bills like a big shot, so I said, “What are you, Phil Rizzuto from the Money Store?” and Erica laughed. Her smile was incredible, so incredible that my hand shot up to cover my braces. In my book, we'd been married for years. NP was sitting in my seat.
“You going to be around later?” Bobby asked.
“Yeah.”
“I'll drive by later,” he said. “Try to save me a piece of that good chicken.”
“Bye, Benji,” Erica said, her words barely escaping the window before they pulled away.
Tock, thunk, rasp, poomp
.
No, it wasn't possible to hear that all the way out in the street. I rocked my heels on the curb. I didn't have to turn around. I could've walked to town for a slice, picked up a science-fiction novel at Canio's and taken it to Mashashimuet Park. Checked out the developments to see who else was around. But I didn't. This was where I lived.
“You sticking around?” my father asked.
I nodded. The trays sat on the table next to the grill, the chicken
parts in formation on the aluminum like fighter planes waiting for takeoff. He whistled “Lady” by Kenny Rogers. Maybe the cloud had passed. He'd had a good time with Mr. Turner and Mrs. Russell, and with Mr. Baxter earlier. I decided to play the odds. I went inside, back to
The Road Warrior
, the first batch sizzling behind me.
I'd watched the movie so many times it was shameful. I saw every smashup and crash-up and spinout before it happened, but still got pumped like I was back in the East Hampton theater seeing it for the first time. An alert went off in my head, warning me that this was as bad as comic books, but I put off making a ruling on the matter. Call the movie sci-fi or fantasy or what have you. Now that I'm older, I put it up there with Beckett as pure realism. But then, most days I'm up to my neck in sand.
My father stood in the doorway. “What do you want? A breast and a wing? A bunch of wings? I'll do those first.”
“I don't care.”
“That's not an answer. What do you want?”
“Some wings.”
I knew white kids in school whose parents didn't let them watch TV, these urchins with scabbed knees who always had their hands out for crumbs when you mentioned Potsie or Chachi. Still meet white people who crow, “We don't let our kids watch television.” Can't say I've ever heard a black person say that. Maybe I should travel in different circles. Perhaps one day, as the forces of racial progress transform every corner of our nation—can you hear it, the inspirational “overcome” music?—we will cross the color line in TV prohibitions. What black person didn't like laughing at the shenanigans white people got up to on TV? White people were black camp, our native kitsch; white sitcoms magnified the campiness to grotesque proportions. Hug. Talk it out. I'm here for you. What kind of shit was that?
You could only laugh. Sitcom white folk, movie-of-the-week white folk were our coon show. Judge's Daughter Hooked on Pot, Teenage Runaway Sent to Reform School—these earnest cautionary tales played like pure vaudeville, especially the opening minutes,
with the montage sequences establishing the Perfect Home, the Perfect Family. Like, they ate meals together. Come on, now. And then the puzzled reactions once the crisis boiled over. “I found this in your room. Where did you get it?” “I got a call from school today. They say you haven't been in weeks. What's going on?” Things went down differently in our house. These were transmissions from a distant star.
My father stuck his head inside. “Do you want barbecue sauce or no barbecue sauce?”
“I don't care.”
“It's a simple question. An idiot could answer it. Do you or do you not want barbecue sauce on your chicken?”
“No.”
“I'm going to put a little on some pieces, because I know people like that.”
The Cosby Show
cornered us, forcing us to reconsider our position. That was some version of ourselves on the screen there. After so long. My mother told us that when she was growing up, whenever a black face appeared on television, you ran through the house to tell everyone, and they dropped what they were doing and gathered around the RCA. If you had time, you hit the phone to spread the word. You could plan your day around it—
Jet
kept a list of upcoming appearances of black people on television, no matter how small. Nat King Cole, Diahann Carroll in
Julia
. Make some room on the couch to verify that you actually existed. My generation had
Good Times
(six seasons) and
Baby, I'm Back
(one-fourth of a season), shows that honestly depicted how the black community lived in this country. Like, what to do when the heat goes off in the projects in the middle of winter. How to sort things out when your deadbeat husband returns after seven years with a jaunty “Baby, I'm back!” Hence the title. The practical matters of the black day-to-day, don'cha know. Me and Reggie and Elena tuned in, making room on the couch to verify that we didn't exist, while my father restrained himself from kicking in the set: That's not how we live.
Cosby
presented a problem. What did it mean when millionaires
said, “I'm going for a little bit of that Cosby thang”? Standing there in some fucked-up sweater. Hungering for validation after all they'd accomplished. If a sitcom had this much influence, then there was nothing to make fun of. Such things were possible. The box contained things of value. Where did that leave us when we looked around our own houses? The reception was terrible.
In the end what happened was, my father put some macaroni salad on a paper plate and as he walked back out to the fire, the plate flipped over and the macaroni salad fell on the deck. I saw him standing there looking at it when he called out, “Benji!”
I jumped up so fast I got a head rush.
“Go tell your mother I need her,” he said. He turned to the grill and stuck the tongs into the smoke.
I walked slowly. I breathed loudly through my nose. My heart was pumping fast, thanks to the adrenaline, but when the blood reached my head it turned to lead so that everything above my shoulders was unbearably heavy. At the bottom of the stairs, my mother and her friends sat in their familiar circle, with magazines in their laps and plastic cups by their ankles. Wide wet circles bloomed on the backs of their beach chairs, their afternoon swim drying in the sun. Mrs. Burnett was telling a story when they looked up and saw me. My mother shooed a horsefly from her foot.
I gave a general hello to the ladies in the beach chairs and said, “Mom, Dad has a question for you.”
She looked at her legs to reaffirm that she was good and settled, and sighed. She stood. “Probably wants to know where the other bag of charcoal is,” she said.
Her friends nodded and looked at one another.
We walked up, me ahead walking faster. I wanted to get inside before she got there.
“What happened?” she asked, seeing the macaroni salad.
“I thought I didn't want you buying these cheap paper plates anymore,” my father said. “Look at this. Why didn't you listen to me? What do you think I am? You treat me like I'm some kind of goddamned pussy.”
“I went to King Kullen—they were out of them.”
“‘Out of them.’ You should have gone earlier. You were sitting around here all morning on the phone, talking horseshit with your friends. You should have had your ass in the car on the way to King Kullen. True or not true?”
“I had a lot to do today.”
“True or not true?”
“True.”
She backed away, toward the living room. To keep her friends from hearing. As if they had not heard. He advanced. She was in the living room. Then he was, too.
My mother had been playing the odds. Earlier in the summer, he'd thrown a fit over the poor quality of Dixie brand paper plates and banned their use. In his extensive battery of tests, they couldn't support the weight of chicken and a side of macaroni salad or Ore-Ida Tater Tots. They buckled. Moisture quickly crippled them. You required three, possibly four to achieve adequate firmness. My mother had played the odds that a month later he'd forgotten about his ban and it was safe to buy the most available brand of paper plate. It was one order among many, after all. So she gambled. I saw how it went—my mother nervous while buying the Dixie plates a few weeks after the first incident and holding her breath when he started up the grill. Nothing happened and she relaxed. We'd been using the Dixie paper plates again for a while. Maybe she felt a twinge the first few times, but now it was almost August. Surely it was safe. We all played the odds in our little ways. Sometimes just walking into a room was playing the odds. Eventually the odds caught up to you.
They were inside the house with me. After the quick flash of relief that it was someone else's turn today, I had to face practical matters. Other times, I could close the windows and try to contain it, but it was an Azurest Afternoon. Everyone was out. People coming up from the beach or the street, walking along the side of the house—there were too many, too close. I couldn't leave the house because I had to act like nothing was going on. I turned into a rock. I focused
on the TV. I turned up the volume. The more I concentrated, the less I could see. The movie spoke of mayhem. There were hunters. There were pursued. They killed each other in the winding-down world.
“We talked about this. These plates are cheap. I need the plastic ones. That's all I ask. I'm trying to cook for my son. Did you go to Schiavoni's?”
“Schiavoni's doesn't carry that kind. All they have is those.”
“If Schiavoni's doesn't have them then you should keep looking until you find them. I'm trying to grill here. What am I supposed to put the food on? This flimsy shit? I spend all this time—why can't you do what you're supposed to do? Are you telling me that there's nowhere on this island that has plastic plates? What about South Hampton?”
“I don't have time for that.”
“You have time to sit on your fat ass and talk to your friends. ‘Yeah, yeah, uh-huh, uh-huh.’ You were sitting on your ass just now.”
“James,” my mother said.
This was how my mother disappeared, word by word. She got older by the second, that magical Sag Harbor effect fading. Something happened to my mother in her life that she never defended or protected herself. That she never defended or protected us, when it was our turn. I don't know what it was. I suppose it was the same thing that prevented me from defending or protecting her, once I was old enough. I kept my mouth shut and watched TV.
8 Most Common Silences in Benji's House
Just Poutin'
Really Wounded
Apprehension of One's Weakness
To Avoid Further Provocations
Indexing of Grudges
Preamble to Explosion/Eruption
Stunned in the Aftermath & Reeling from the Ferocity of the Attack, Especially When You Hadn't Really Done Anything
To Accompany a Furtive There-There Glance of Sympathy
“You think you'd be sitting down there talking all that horseshit if I wasn't doing what I'm supposed to? All week long slaving for this family. I'm not like all these other pussies out here. I work my ass off. I don't ask for anything except I don't want cheap shit in my house.” I saw a head appear above the beach stairs, a torso in a cherry-colored polo, and then whoever it was backed away.
I burrowed, I burrowed deep into
The Road Warrior
. No words. Just cars smashing, metal crunching into metal, bullets and arrows piercing flesh. Grease and blood. We had reached the saddest part of the movie in my book, the death of the Road Warrior's dog. He was named Dog. A mutt, the Road Warrior's only friend. They shared expired dog food out of rusted cans. Nothing else to eat in the wasteland. The Road Warrior gobbled down the gray paste with a smile, as if it was the best thing he'd ever tasted, and Dog nosed after the stuff at the bottom. Together they eliminated their enemies, Dog jumping out to startle the punk holding the crossbow at the right moment so that the Road Warrior gained the advantage. He was a cool dog to have, Dog. He had your back. I wouldn't mind having a dog like that.