Sag Harbor (39 page)

“Are you ready to go back to the city?” I asked him.

My brother took another sip. “Yeah, I'm pretty sick of Burger King.”

We drank. A gray Volvo came around the corner. They were playing “Ain't No Stoppin' Us Now” at loud volume. As if it could have been otherwise. We held the beers behind our backs. I couldn't see who was inside but I waved. You never know who might be at the wheel, and how close you are to them.

Late that night, when the fires were long down to ash and the
last limes were shipwrecked at the bottoms of the last drinks, and all the lights were out, I was still awake in my bed. Like I always was. The shadows from the trees trembled on the ceiling. Next year, Reggie was going to get the bed by the window. Even Stephen until the end of time. I thought, It wasn't that bad, sleeping in the other bed. I'd get used to it.

I thought about school.

I had a week to get a new plan together. I had to get some new records. I was tired of all my tapes. I needed new clothes, too. First thing Tuesday, I was going to head down to the Village and check out Bleecker Bob's and Tower to track down that Live Skull record, and then head over to Canal Jeans and get some new clothes. It came to me in a flash: combat boots. Why couldn't I wear combat boots? The dress code said we couldn't wear sneakers to school, but there was nothing about combat boots. Like leather ties—we had to wear ties, but there was no rule specifically forbidding leather ties, so people wore them all the time and the administration couldn't say anything about it. Unless they changed the
Student Handbook
over the summer. I'd cross that bridge when I got to it. First day of school, I'd walk in with a new jacket, some plaid New Wave number, and my new pants, and combat boots. Start things off right. Girls would take this as a sign I was different. That was another thing: make out with three girls a semester. September, October, November, December. Four months. That came out to one every five or six weeks. At least! Spring semester was longer, so that was like one every seven weeks. Six girls. Quite the regimen. Was that too ambitious? I could do it. People called me Benji but that didn't mean I wasn't Ben. A lot had happened over the summer. It didn't work out the way I had envisioned but you had to admit some stuff happened. I got my first job, and now if someone said, Hey, look at Benji's right arm, it's bigger than his left because he jerks off so much, I could say, No, that's from scooping ice cream. You have no idea what a relief it was to have an excuse for a question no one would ever ask. I got my braces off. I kissed Melanie Downey and touched her tit. Not under her shirt, but still. I was definitely more together than I was at the start of the
summer. It didn't seem like that much time had passed, but I had to be a bit smarter. Just a little. Look at the way I was last Labor Day. An idiot! Fifteen looks at fourteen and says, That guy was an idiot. And fifteen looks at eight and says, That guy knew so little. Why can't fifteen and three-quarters look back at fifteen and a half and say, That guy didn't know anything. Because it was true. Two a semester. But it had to be two different girls. Or not. No need to go crazy. But definitely Tuesday, hit the Village and get this year started right. I'd be sixteen in November, old enough to get into CBGB's and Irving Plaza. Finally start seeing some concerts. Go to more parties. That was the key. I had to go to more parties. Other schools' parties, where I had no rep. Crash, whatever. Lay off the Cokes. I could do it. It was going to be a great year. I was sure of it. Isn't it funny? The way the mind works?