Can you feel it?

Throughout Sag Harbor the main character, Benji, usually doesn’t portray his teenagehood as being a particularly happy time in his life. Older Benji—or Ben, maybe—certainly describes himself on the whole as having been an extremely awkward person. While I actually like Benji quite a lot, and don’t think him an especially awkward person in reality, I still understand that dynamic between older and younger self pretty well. This being said, there is one scene in which we see dynamic absent from the narrative.

In Breathing Tips of Great American Beat Boxers a main theme throughout the chapter is Benji’s efforts to win himself admittance into a local nightclub, where a famous musical group, U.T.F.O, would be playing. Benji’s friends are also trying to get in, and have their own plan for how to do so, but aren’t letting Benjie in on it. As a result Benji has to try and fight his own way in, but in the end it proves not to be a problem at all. The bouncer lets them in without any trouble, and suddenly Benji finds himself amidst the very diverse crowd, which makes up the occupants of the Bayside Night Club.

At first, he and NP are both pretty nervous about their surroundings. They’re quite aware of how young they look and that they shouldn’t even be allowed there. Fairly quickly though, they start to realize that they haven’t really got anything to worry about.

No one looked at me. I was one of them on the dance floor and they were one of me. I jostled, was jostled in turn, collision as communication: I am here, we’re here together. The bass bounced my shirt on my chest. My elbow mashed the rib cage of this forty-something white lady in a green metallic jumpsuit and when I turned to apologize, she simply smiled and continued swaying to the music. (218)

For once we see Benji somewhere that he really doesn’t feel self conscious about himself at all. Throughout the entire novel we inhabit the mind of this kid who experiences a fair bit of social anxiety, and seems to always be quite aware of where he fits in to the social hierarchy. He feels he’s always been at the bottom, but in this instance we don’t see any of that. Instead he feels the collective identity of being part of a dancing crowd that really allows him to loosen up and just have fun without being afraid of what anybody else thinks.

I think almost everyone is familiar with what this dynamic to some degree, and for me it was a really nice section to read, where I can recognize just what the happiness that Benji is feeling is like. He really does seem to be quite happy and at peace with himself, and Whitehead sets up anticipation for what’s going to come next very well. This is where he leaves it, however. We never actually find out what the show is like, all we get is Ben (the older narrator) asking us “Can you feel it? “ right before the chapter ends.

Personally I’m kind of glad that this is how the chapter ends. The fact that in this one instance we’re addressed in the present tense gives us a sense that this is one of few feelings and experiences from his adolescence that Ben still loves, even as a grown man. Even more importantly though, is what his leaving us hanging does to enhance the feeling. The great thing about literature as an art form is the way in which it allows our imaginations to fill in all the scenarios. A descriptive writer helps us better craft a story in our heads, but ultimately it comes down to you to decide what the story is like. His cliffhanger of “can you feel it?” leaves us only with a sweet sense of anticipation of what’s to come that allows us to let our imaginations roam, which for me is a much more enjoyable result than if he had tried to use words to describe what it was like.