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.
Then I remembered that I hated dogs. Because dogs hated me. My whole life they chased me like I was made out of kibble. They bared their teeth and slick pink gums, excavating harrowing sounds from deep in their bellies. Big dogs, small dogs. They smelled it on me. Fear, some kind of weakness. They sensed the part of me that relished being crushed and destroyed. It was always in there, the goblin mind, salivating and rubbing its claws together, waiting for the dinner bell announcing it was time to feast on my humiliations. They barked and snarled at me with the brute understanding that this was all that I wanted and deserved.
“Now clean that up and get me some goddamned plastic plates.”
A few years ago, me and Reggie went exploring on our bikes. We'd run out of places to make ours, so we struck out where it had never occurred to us to go. We went down Division Street, in the white part of town. We didn't know where it went. We just knew we were sick of our old places and tired circuits around Sag Harbor.
It's a small town. Once you're off the highway, you can go for a long time without a car driving by or someone coming out of their house to get the mail. We only went a few blocks, but even one avenue off our map felt like miles. Reggie and me smiled at each other. Pedaling off into adventure.
The Doberman galloped out into the street and we were paralyzed. It stopped two feet away, muscles vivid under the skin, bright yellow teeth snapping. Time stopped. Its paws scraped on the asphalt in its furious half steps. I thought it was going to rip us to shreds. Doberman pinschers had replaced the German shepherd as the most fearsome dog around, in those quaint days before the pit bull hit the big time. We'd heard the stories. It was ready to leap up and tear out our throats, first me and then my brother. There was no one around. No one called him off. No one cared.
We didn't say anything. We backed up a slow inch at a time. For the first few feet the Doberman stayed with us, continuing his threats. Eventually he reached the end of his territory and stopped. We left him there in the middle of the street, us going backward on our bikes, paddling our feet on the pavement, until we got around the corner. We went home and gulped down a lot of Hi-C to replace what we'd sweated out, and told the story of Division Street to our freaked-out friends, who were envious that we had something to talk about. They said, “Wow.”
When our parents came out that weekend—this was when Elena was in charge during the week—our father told us to get in the car and show him where it happened. We were scared until Reggie pointed out that the dog couldn't get us through the car. We kept the windows rolled up and locked the doors just in case.
“You see that there,” he said.
“What?” I waited for the Doberman to come loping out.
“That.” We hadn't seen the lawn jockey the first time. The little midget stood in the middle of the lawn holding a gold ring, grinning in his bright red getup. Shining, well-polished.
“That's how they train it to attack black people,” he explained.
“That cracker in there tosses raw meat by the lawn jockey, the dog eats there every day and then when it sees black people it thinks, Food. You're lucky it didn't tear you apart.”
I looked at Reggie and Reggie looked at me. Dag.
“It's not the dog's fault. It's how it was trained.” He stepped on the gas. “I want you to stay away from that house,” he said. “I don't want you coming here again.”
The Road Warrior's score thundered now that the yelling was over. I turned down the volume.
“Look at this,” he said, holding up the first batch. “I love it!” He transferred the chicken into a glass bowl. “I'd grill on the moon if I could,” he said wistfully. And Mars and Saturn and beyond. Is there grilling in Heaven? Who knows what angels eat. But I know there's barbecuing in hell, and its your very guts and inner stuff blackening before your eyes.
“You ready for some good chicken?” he asked.
“Yeah,” I said.
We were a made-for-TV family and when he called “Action!” we hit our marks and delivered our lines like pros. The scripts were all the same. We had the formula down.
Mrs. Gardner returned to use the facilities. “Where's Gail?” she asked, knocking the sand off her feet before she stepped inside.
He didn't answer so I said, “She had to run to the store. She'll be right back.”
She nodded and went into the bathroom. When she came out, he stopped her. “Girl, you best take a wing if you know what's good for you,” he said.
“Mmmm,” she said. “I was hoping to get a piece of that barbecue.” She grabbed a wing and topped off her white wine before rejoining the ladies on the beach.
For all his fear that people were watching all the time, that people will talk about you unless you're vigilant about what they see, no one was watching at all. No one cares about what goes on in other people's houses. The grubby dramas. It was just us. The soundstage was empty, the production lot scheduled for demolition. They'd turned off the electricity long ago. We delivered our lines in the darkness.
“Here you go,” he said, handing me a quadruple-reinforced paper plate of chicken wings.
You have a fucked-up haircut and everyone knows you have a fucked-up haircut. But no one says anything. You don't know you have a fucked-up haircut, or know it and can't admit it. Until one day you face the fact that you have a fucked-up haircut and you get a new one and everyone says, Good job, as if they'd been waiting for it. As if they cared.
“How is it?” he asked. He held the next tray of chicken in his hand, one foot inside the house and the other on the deck.
I took a bite. It was like biting into sand. The juices had boiled away or splattered the coals, leaving these dried-up shreds sticking to bone. I looked at the other wings on the plate in my lap. They were charred and shrunken, the lot of them, crumbling into black specks. I chewed up the sand and swallowed.
“It's great,” I said.
THE HIGHLIGHT OF THE SUMMER WAS THE U.T.F.O.—Lisa Lisa concert at Bayside. Lisa Lisa and Cult Jam headlined, thanks to their crossover hit “I Wonder if I Take You Home,” but U.T.F.O. was the real draw in our neck of the woods. They'd ruled the winter with “Roxanne, Roxanne,” a lamentation about a fly girl who wouldn't give them the time of day. In the tradition of the Village People, they employed theme personalities. The Educated Rapper boasted of his capacious intellect (“She needs a guy like me, with a High IQ”), Doctor Ice wooed her with his knowledge of the medical world (“Dermatology is treatment of the skin … There's anesthesiology ophthalmology, internal medicine and plastic surgery, orthopedic surgery and pathology”), while the Kangol Kid put his faith in … his Kangol, though frankly one should never underestimate the power of accessories to help one stand out in the crowd. Mix Master Ice, their DJ, kept silent, preferring “to speak with his hands,” as they said in his milieu.
A young lady calling herself Roxanne Shanté released an answer record called The Real Roxanne, a Rashomon-style revision of her dealings with “dictionary breath” and his friends. Answer records to answer records escalated matters, with Roxanne's “parents” chiming in, her big “brothers,” far-flung second cousins, and the occasional bystander, culminating in “Roxanne's a Man,” which, like a hip-hop Hiroshima, stunned all involved and effectively ended the conflict. In revisiting the Roxanne Wars of the mid-'8os, I know I run the risk of stirring the deep and fierce emotions associated with that unfortunate episode, but I feel the background is necessary to explain our excitement. U.T.F.O. (Un Touchable Force Organization) represented teenage striving, youthful perseverance aga
inst the odds, and goofball personas that made our own stabs at reinvention look like genius. Bayside advertised the concert in Dan's Papers all summer, so by August we were in a bit of a froth.
You had to be eighteen to get into the club. It was a former roller rink, a kinda sketchy operation where the skates squished unwholesomely moist on your feet and the squirrelly DJ often disappeared, putting Off the Wall on repeat and slipping out the back. Since the revamp, we'd been barred. The more adventurous among us tried all summer to breach the walls in a string of legendary failures involving strategic facial hair, studied nonchalance, and some inspired business about the Make-A-Wish Foundation. It was sad to see Clive and Nick get into character and shuffle up to the velvet rope only to twist back to Earth with melted-off feathers. If they got in, it was like all of us getting in. When they failed, we accepted our portion of shame.
By the time the big day rolled around, the only person with a real shot was NP, who'd been bribing Marlon the Bouncer for weeks with the Long Wharf's top currency—ice cream. Marlon came into Jonni Waffle a couple of times a night, NP ducking supervisors as he fixed him a cup with a conspiratorial nod. Marlon resumed his post, slowly eating his Banana Mint as a gaggle of preening Hamptonites queued up for inspection. He sucked on the tiny spoon with a pensive air while appraising those before him, some nice theater that lent his judgments the air of demented caprice.
“I know I'm getting in—I set him up!” NP told us.
“Better hope Freddie isn't on that night,” Marcus pointed out. “He'd be like, Nigger, please, Nigger Please.”
Freddie was this big bruiser from Bridgehampton, known for his martial-arts expertise. In addition to working Bayside, he bounced some nights at the Reef, a club on 27 where Marcus had worked earlier in the summer during one of his short-lived gigs. (“The barback said I stole two bottles of peach schnapps, but I was framed.”) “He has this case in his trunk where he keeps his nunchucks and sai and throwing stars,” Marcus warned us. “One night Freddie was working the door and this redneck got up in his face so he busted out his sai like boom-bip! and sent that bitch into traction.” Adding, “High all the time on coke, too.” All I knew about him was that when he ordered his Orange Sherbet, he never tipped, avoiding the sight of the tip cup as if it contained pictures of his pre-dumbbell, ninety-nine-pound weakling self.