Sag Harbor by Whitehead Colson Read Free Book Online

dependable for nonsense like, “Yo, last night, after you left, I went back to that party and got with that Queens girl. She told me she was raised strict, but I was all up in those titties! She paid me fifty dollars!”
    Nigger, please.
    “Yo, yo, listen: I was walking by the Miller House and I went to take a look at their Rolls and get this, I was like, they left the keys in the ignition. You know I took that shit for a spin, I was like Thurston Howell the Third up in that bitch! With Gilligan!”
    Nigger, please.
    Shortened to NP because the adults gave us trouble when they heard us using the word
nigger
. For understandable reasons. Like most authority figures, they had a hypocritical streak, as they used the word all the time, in its familiar comrade sense, but also to distinguish themselves from those of our race who possessed a certain temperament and circumstance. The kind of person that made the announcer on the evening news say, “We have an artist's rendering of the suspect,” quickening your heart. There were no street niggers in Sag Harbor. No, no, no.
    But we all had cousins who … you know.
    We thought we were being smart with his nickname until one day we were over at NP's house and his mom started getting on his case for some chore or other that he had neglected. He began some elaborate explanation—meteorites had squashed his bike and he couldn't make it home—when she lost her patience and cut him off with a sudden, shrill, “Nigger, please!” Mrs. Nichols's hand shot to her mouth, but it was too late. His nickname had approval at the highest levels. For all we knew, she'd coined it in the first place. One can only imagine watching the boy grow up in your house and knowing you were partially responsible.
    Like us, like all of us, present or as yet unaccounted for, NP had come out here every summer of his life, and even before he was born, as his mother had waded into the bay to cool her pregnant belly. We had beaten each other up, stolen each other's toys, fallenasleep in the backseats of station wagons together as we caravanned back from double features at the Bridgehampton Drive-In, the stars scrolling beyond the back window. We were copying our parents, who went back just as far, beating each other up thirty years ago under the same sky. Eating each other's barbecue, chasing each other down the hacked-out footpaths to the beach before there were roads, beach houses, a community at all.
    “Hey Benji, watch it!” NP cried out. “You're messing up my kicks!”
    I had been circling around him and Reggie, and my front wheel had squeezed out a pebble and sent it flying. The pebble collided with NP's sneaker, which I now noticed was the Fila model that Reggie was wearing. And just as white.
    I didn't see any mark. NP pulled a white handkerchief from his pocket, licked it, and rubbed it against his sneaker.
    “Sorry about that,” I said.
    “These are my Filas.”
    “There is one thing, though.” I cleared my throat. “I'm not going by Benji anymore. I'm going by Ben.”
    “What?” NP looked at Reggie for confirmation. I hadn't broken the news to Reggie yet. He tilted his head.
    “I want to go by Ben,” I said. “You know, have people call me Ben instead of Benji.”
    Harkening back to the aforementioned Plan: No more of this Benji shit. It was a little kid's name, and I was not a little kid anymore. Ben, Ben. Case in point: stuck there next to my brother in that “Benji 'n' Reggie” construction—it was demeaning. Benji was the name of a handholder, not a fingerfucker or avid squeezer of breasts, or whatever tyro sexual-type act I would engage in once I found a willing subject. One step at a time, and a step away from Benji was a good one.
    “Okay Benji, whatever, homie.” NP yawned.
    Reggie shook his head. “Let's go to town.”
    The three of us started back down the street. I was pretty excited to get out of the developments and grab a slice. To see if everythingwas where it was