Whitehead Colson - Sag Harbor

“That's one patio set — burnin' motherfucker,” NP said.

“With his monkey ass,” I added, because the insult would have been naked just sitting there, on this chilly night.

“Where'd he go?” Nick asked.

Soon after, we heard the thumps again, but this time the light from the renewed fire was such that we had no problem seeing it clod down the steps. It was the twin of the first bench. I pictured the picnic table desolate in the middle of blue-and-pink paving stones, mourning its fallen brothers. I'd told myself that Barry David had raided somebody's garbage out on the curb, stuff they were getting rid of at the end of summer, but obviously that wasn't true. The benches were new, fresh from the Outdoors section of Caldor, discounted for End-of-the-Season Savings. He held the bench over his head, tottering, and he let out a Tarzan yell and tossed the second bench into the fire. It banged against the first one and slid off, knocking apart Mr. Nickerson's careful edifice in a blazing cascade. The little kids loved it and hopped up and down amid the sparks. Little Clive high-fived Barry David, his new hero. He threw his medal in the fire. It curled up on itself and became a black spot.

Barry David picked up a beer from the sand and took a big swig. He started up the steps.

This time we followed him, all of us, the kids satellites around him and our crew keeping a little distance, as if we'd be able to disavow being accomplices if someone caught him. Who was this gang of little kids cheering him on? Were they more bloodthirsty than us, or just less scared and more dumb? If there was a Little Clive, then why not a Little Nick, Little Reggie, and of course Little Me, skinny body shivering in his Azurest sweatshirt and not so glum in the light of the fire, energized by this escapade. Me and my gang should have stopped Barry David, but it was hard to resist the pleasure of watching someone fuck up so colossally Can you believe this guy? What's he thinking? What's wrong with him? As if we didn't know. As if we weren't jealous of someone who just didn't give a fuck.

Reggie said, “He's going to get into a lot of trouble.”

I told NP, “You should really stop him.”

“What for?”

“He's your cousin.”

“He's not my cousin,” he said. “I thought he was your cousin.”

“I've never seen him before in my life.”

“That's what Nick told me,” he said. We dashed ahead to catch up.

He'd taken it from the Gardners'. Everybody's parents' cars stretched up and down the street in front of the house. The music was loud, the '70s soul classics everybody knew by heart because of nights like this, when they played in a holy loop. A big glass wall overlooked the patio on the side of the Gardners' house and we could see them all in there, laughing, bobbing to the music, sipping cocktails. Everybody's parents, all the parents enjoying themselves behind the glass as if it were a TV screen. I saw my father talking to Mrs. Greene, with his sly smile, and my mother deeper in the room, carrying an ice bucket. She placed it on the table and tucked her hair behind her ear. We kept ducked down behind the cars so they couldn't see us. Barry David walked up to the edge of the patio, just inside the square of light cast from the room, and he lifted the edge of the red wooden chaise lounge to test its weight. It had wheels on one end, and he pulled it off the patio and onto the grass. The music didn't skip a beat. No one inside noticed him at all.

He maneuvered it around the parked cars and dragged it into the middle of Walker, singing “Darling Nikki.” The wheels squeaked hideously. The little kids clapped their hands and giggled. He could go all night. Sure, there was a finite number of patio sets in the developments, but more than enough to keep the fire going. Unless someone stopped him. There was a serious lack of supervision, you could say. I heard Nick tell NP, “He's no family of mine, shit.” The cushion fell off, and the little kids picked it up, holding it between them like pallbearers. Barry David, the ghost kid who was all of us and none, everybody's cousin and no one's, pulled the red chaise down the street.

When we got to the Nickersons' driveway, I tapped Reggie's shoulder. “Let's get a beer,” I said.

Reggie stopped. The group left us behind, marching ahead to the beach. He said, “Okay.” Usually we had to bicker over stuff like that, me making him miss out on something. As we walked away, we heard it thumping down the stairs to the beach. The kids counted off every crash and screamed when it hit the sand.

There were still a few beers left. I'd already had my three. I took another and gave Reggie one.

“That was crazy,” Reggie said.

“Yeah.”

He took a big sip. “I like Miller better.”

We heard them shout down on the beach, the loudest cheer yet.

“There it goes,” Reggie said.

Then it died out. It was quiet. At some point that day, I'd heard my last lawn mower until next year. Lawn mowers all summer, and now they were finally silent. If your shit wasn't in shape by now, it was never going to be.

“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?