One summer Elena dated Bill, two summers later she was driving around in Nat's convertible, and so on. Reggie and me benefited from this situation. The big kids had to be nice to us, lest word of their bullying misdeeds get back to our sister and ruin long-or short-term plans. The older boys ferried us in their backseats to the ocean, to the movies, they bought us comics at the Ideal in town, forked over the cash for ice cream at the Tuck Shop. Not bad at all.
Then Elena's group turned eighteen, grabbed their diplomas, and stalked off into the big wide world, ceding control of the developments to our gang. We were a different breed. Whether it was martinis or cigarettes or the deleterious effects of ambient Nixonian radiation, '68 to '72 turned out to be a hard time for X chromosomes. The girls were scarce. Look at us in the car there. Boy's town.
Blame for Randy's sudden appearance in our group should fall on his parents' lovemaking schedule. He was an in-betweener, living like a weed in the cracks between the micro-demographic groups of the developments. Too old to hang out with us, really, and too young to be fully accepted by my sister's group, he had wafted in a social netherworld for years. Frankly, before he started putt-putting around town in his Toyota, I had little idea who he was, never saw him except at the annual Labor Day party. Randy had just finished his freshman year in college, but against usual custom, he still came out to Sag. No Great Exodus for him—why leave when the pond was so small, and you were so big? He relished his new status. He had a car, he was old enough to buy us beer, and for this we accepted him intoour tribe. It has been observed by wiser men than me that kids who hang out with kids who are too young for them often make themselves useful in the transportation and beer-buying sectors. We overlooked his shortcomings.
The No-Girls thing was true in essence, although there were a few exceptions. Let us open the case files. Marnie was two years older than me, but had never been part of our group, even when we were very young and the boy-girl divide a nonissue. The girls of Elena's group kept her as a sort of mascot, ditching her only when it was rec-room slow-jam time or walk-down-the-beach-at-night time, and once they left Sag Harbor, she started spending her summers in the city as well, in premature exit. And then there was Francesca, whom we had barely seen for years. She was a bit of a debutante, popping out of her mother's womb with elbow-length white gloves, so it was said, and come junior high she spent all her time on the ocean side with her finishing-school friends. Occasionally we'd see her being dropped off in a white Porsche or similar chariot, and she'd delicately wave in our direction and run inside her house as if we were swarming paparazzi. So in truth, there were girls our age—they just didn't want to hang out with us, and frankly who could blame them. This was to change in a few weeks, but we didn't know that yet.
“Look at that goofy motherfucker up there!”
We passed Marcus on the turn to Sagg Road, which was a dead shot through the South Fork to the Atlantic. Marcus'd made good time. For his efforts we heckled him. Fists and catcalls out the windows.
“Better change that gear!”
“My grandma goes faster than that in her wheelchair, sucker!”
Check out Marcus huffing away. What had formerly been the embodiment of cool—ten, count 'em, ten speeds!—was now the ultimate signifier of lameness. That summer you walked like a man, a summering desperado, or drove, behind the wheel or shotgun. Marcus was making good time, but let's face it, he was on a bike.
“Leave him alone,” Clive said. And we did. Except for some obscene gestures through the tiny Toyota's back window as we pulled ahead.
The houses thinned out, dangling in mystery at the end of snaking driveways, and we entered the no-man's-land in the middle of the island. Outside our black enclave and
Then Elena's group turned eighteen, grabbed their diplomas, and stalked off into the big wide world, ceding control of the developments to our gang. We were a different breed. Whether it was martinis or cigarettes or the deleterious effects of ambient Nixonian radiation, '68 to '72 turned out to be a hard time for X chromosomes. The girls were scarce. Look at us in the car there. Boy's town.
Blame for Randy's sudden appearance in our group should fall on his parents' lovemaking schedule. He was an in-betweener, living like a weed in the cracks between the micro-demographic groups of the developments. Too old to hang out with us, really, and too young to be fully accepted by my sister's group, he had wafted in a social netherworld for years. Frankly, before he started putt-putting around town in his Toyota, I had little idea who he was, never saw him except at the annual Labor Day party. Randy had just finished his freshman year in college, but against usual custom, he still came out to Sag. No Great Exodus for him—why leave when the pond was so small, and you were so big? He relished his new status. He had a car, he was old enough to buy us beer, and for this we accepted him intoour tribe. It has been observed by wiser men than me that kids who hang out with kids who are too young for them often make themselves useful in the transportation and beer-buying sectors. We overlooked his shortcomings.
The No-Girls thing was true in essence, although there were a few exceptions. Let us open the case files. Marnie was two years older than me, but had never been part of our group, even when we were very young and the boy-girl divide a nonissue. The girls of Elena's group kept her as a sort of mascot, ditching her only when it was rec-room slow-jam time or walk-down-the-beach-at-night time, and once they left Sag Harbor, she started spending her summers in the city as well, in premature exit. And then there was Francesca, whom we had barely seen for years. She was a bit of a debutante, popping out of her mother's womb with elbow-length white gloves, so it was said, and come junior high she spent all her time on the ocean side with her finishing-school friends. Occasionally we'd see her being dropped off in a white Porsche or similar chariot, and she'd delicately wave in our direction and run inside her house as if we were swarming paparazzi. So in truth, there were girls our age—they just didn't want to hang out with us, and frankly who could blame them. This was to change in a few weeks, but we didn't know that yet.
“Look at that goofy motherfucker up there!”
We passed Marcus on the turn to Sagg Road, which was a dead shot through the South Fork to the Atlantic. Marcus'd made good time. For his efforts we heckled him. Fists and catcalls out the windows.
“Better change that gear!”
“My grandma goes faster than that in her wheelchair, sucker!”
Check out Marcus huffing away. What had formerly been the embodiment of cool—ten, count 'em, ten speeds!—was now the ultimate signifier of lameness. That summer you walked like a man, a summering desperado, or drove, behind the wheel or shotgun. Marcus was making good time, but let's face it, he was on a bike.
“Leave him alone,” Clive said. And we did. Except for some obscene gestures through the tiny Toyota's back window as we pulled ahead.
The houses thinned out, dangling in mystery at the end of snaking driveways, and we entered the no-man's-land in the middle of the island. Outside our black enclave and
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