Who does Benji Side with? NP or Nick?
In Sag Harbor, Benji works a summer job at Jonni Waffle, as an ice cream scooper. He gets all the free ice cream he can eat while on the job, which seems like a pretty sweet deal, until he decides to let it all melt in a blackout. After everyone leaves the building and finishes locking up, Benji runs back inside under the alibi of getting his mix tape. While inside, he leaves the freezer door open. Because of Benji's actions, the ice cream was never able to be sold, instead melting on the floor throughout the night. Years later, Benji still imagines the merchandise melting, "The bottom cans collaps[ing]... and the ones up high tumbl[ing] out of the freezer, knocking the doors wide, the lids of the cans popping off (Whitehead 144). One would wonder what Benji's incentive is for ruining that much ice cream.
Because of context clues and previous discussions between Benji and his friends earlier in the chapter titled "If I Could Pay You Less I Would," I believe Benji was taking revenge on the owner of Jonni Waffle, Martine, through this action. Earlier, Martine had patted Benji on the head while congratulating him for creating a stack of waffle cones. After this incident, NP and Nick continually argue over the intention of the action, whether it was seeped in racism, or a act of congratulations. Before Benji had been patted on the head, NP and Nick were bickering over if Martine was white or black; this incident merely added fuel to their argument. Keeping this in mind, it seems as if Benji is ruining Martine's sellable items for revenge because he sides with NP, thinking it was an act seeped in racist intent. Interestingly, Benji changes sides after he makes the ice cream melt, because of a picture that shows up in the office.
The next summer, a picture of Martine and his brother appears taped above Martine's desk. Benji can tell Martine's brother is black, which finishes the argument and makes the action one of camaraderie. The reader can observe Benji's change of heart when he thinks back on the melting ice cream. Rather than gloating about the revenge he got or the justice he received, Benji imagines the "slow ugly wave [of melted ice cream] reaching toward[s him across time and space] like a hand" (Whitehead 144). This imagery implies the regret Benji feels for his action and the anguish that continues to haunt him.
Cadence, wicked blog post. I think the ambiguity of the act of Benji opening that freezer door also speaks to something. As a rule, Benji doesn't usually act—he's a more hesitant guy. But this strange small action is perhaps his way of taking revenge in a less decisive way. This way, if it turns out Martine is Black, and therefore not racist in head patting Benji, there's really no repercussions for Benji. Even if there were repercussions, they would fall on his friend (which seems very fitting with the strange, me before you friendship they have). Bloody good job.
ReplyDeleteHi Cadence, amazing job well done! I am still kind of unsure on whether Benji actually meant to spoil the ice cream. Maybe at the time, he grew to regret it less because it felt like it could be justified partially by the way Martine treated him-- I definitely get that. But also, if Martine actually did not mean it in a racist way, this part of his argument is a lot less valid and Benji would be the one doing something completely wrong and against Jonni Waffle. Head patting is still kind of derogatory? Maybe Benji just felt a little inherently inferior in some sense? Either way, I liked your points :D
ReplyDeleteHi Cadence!
ReplyDeleteI feel like Benji's tortured feelings about melting ice cream kind of shows how he has such complicated feelings in general about Sag Harbor. He found such a tight-knit community full of black people, but next door to Sag Harbor is a neighborhood full of snotty white suburban people. He misses the freedom and simplicity of being young, but is also frustrated at his old naivety. Great Blog!
Hi Cadence! The melting ice cream incident truly was puzzling because older Benji himself said basically I don't know why I did that. In some sense, I think he wanted to believe that Martine was Black so that the head-patting incident could be "normal," and he could move on. On the other hand though, he clearly wasn't all the way sold on this idea because of the melting debacle. Anyway, I think you did a great job articulating the confusion that is Benji's choices. Great post!
ReplyDeleteI too read his dream about the melted ice cream reaching out to him like a hand implies something like conscience, his guilt at having wronged Martine like this. It sure seems like some kind of misguided effort at revenge when he first leaves the door open, although we should be clear that Benji at this point still doesn't know whether he believes Martine even HAS done him wrong, and if part of his aim in "doing something about it" would be to get NP and Nick off his back, he chooses a strangely secret and anonymous form of "revenge." Neither of these guys ever know which "side" Benji chooses, and the object of the indirect criticism, Martine, surely never associates Benji with the open door, let alone understanding it's directed at him in response to a racist gesture.
ReplyDeleteSo the whole affair is full of ambiguity, which is partly what makes it so fun and interesting to talk about. Benji might be feeling guilt and regret in that dream--as you say, the question seems to have been decisively settled the following summer, so Martine does NOT deserve this damage to his business. But he also expresses total bewilderment at his younger self, saying "I can only tell you how I lived." It's like he still doesn't know what to think about the whole story--the "hand" reaching out to him is ambiguous, and doesn't necessarily represent guilt. More like a confusing memory that he still doesn't know how to process or how to feel about. (I've got a bunch of these from my own misspent youth, and I feel like I have some sense of what Ben is talking about here.)