What Even Was Up With That Firefly? Duality in “Gangsters”

Note: I have the hardback version, so my page numbers are likely different from yours. Also, disclaimer, I wrote this before I finished the book. 

Near the end of the chapter “Gangsters,” Benji is watching fireflies when he is shot with a BB gun. The wound from the BB gun takes precedence in the mind of the reader, but the fireflies are clearly an allegory for… something. Ben notes that the firefly “got its name from its fake time, people time, when in fact most of its business went on when people couldn’t see it,” a description which is pretty evocative of Benji’s internality and lack of action in the next chapter. (p 153) Ben continues on the matter of fireflies, saying that “both parts were true, the bright and the dark,” seemingly giving closure to his previous discussion of “Other Families.” (p 153) Similarly, earlier in the chapter, Ben describes the betrayal of having another life, and how each family cannot be sure whether they, or their counterparts, are the Other Family, summating “You might call this speculation dumb. Each house made the other a lie. None of it was real. I’m not so sure.” (p 122) In both cases, Ben advocates for a complex truth, saying that two contrasting things can both be true without invalidating each other. 

After the BB incident, Ben mentions his regret for his actions, and uses it as an excuse to go on a tangent about Greedo. He notes that Greedo was retconned into shooting Han first, and that many fans were upset about it, but that he was able to hold the two conflicting versions of Greedo in his mind, saying “Greedo didn’t change… To me they’re both real. It’s a simple thing to keep the two Greedos together in your head…” (p 157) This gives us three separate parts of this chapter which call for multiple truths, rejecting the law of the excluded middle. Ben is clearly trying to tell us something. 

It could be about Ben’s father, contrasting Ben’s father the racist-fighting protector of his kids, and Ben’s father the alcoholic abuser, as this is the first time we see the second side of his father. On the other hand, if it is, why does it seemingly contradict the message of the next chapter, which is that his father is entirely phony, to the extent that it ruins even his good qualities such as his barbecuing skill? 

It could be about the performativity of masculinity, where Benji/Benjamin who punched kids to defend his honor (gender or racial) is the same person as the socially awkward, gangly youth that we follow. This acceptance of two truths is contrasted by the social norms of the day that Ben describes, wherein “You were hard or else you were soft, in the slang drawn from the territory of manhood, the state of your erected self.” (p 146) This depicts the self as something that is performed, like the firefly that Ben later discusses, and the discussion of performance and double consciousness in the previous chapter, “If I Could Pay You Less, I Would,” where he notes that the Black residents of Sag Harbor were “not performance artists,” but that they either deliberately avoided stereotypes, or sought to play into them to rebel as Nick did. Besides, Benji and most of his friends (minus Randy) aren’t in the territory of manhood: they’re still in that weird blurring of their teenage years, the time when they’re meant to be learning that life is more complicated than binary yes or no. 

It could be about Ben trying to reconcile himself with Benji, the difference between his present-day self and the “way [he] used to live.” (p 116) This is what Ben talks about at the end of “Gangsters,” and it is something important enough that Mr. Mitchell had us write about it in our notebooks. In the context of the next chapter, it also gives us hope that Benji eventually gets out of his current family situation, although clearly it won’t happen over the scope of the book, seeing as this is only a few months into “That Time Dad Called Reggie Shithead For A Year.” (p 161) This makes sense, given that Ben is often (over)-critical of his younger self, as seen when he mocks his attempt to ride a too-small bicycle in the first chapter, and reflects on how the way he spends his time in Sag Harbor seems unbefitting of the effort his forbears put into founding the community. If we accept this as the reason, then it further encourages us to look at the book through the lens of “Ben is trying to re-understand his childhood through the lens of his adult self.” However, given that I am analyzing Ben’s repeated refrains on the existence of multiple contrasting truths, I think advocating for this interpretation doesn’t have to mean that the second interpretation is wrong. 

 Edit: Upon reading the next chapter, we can see that in contrast to Ben, Benji still thinks in relatively black and white ways, categorizing people into stiff alignments. Character alignments are, while great for D&D, or for categorizing stuff like getting up early, Not How Real People Work, and thus not the best for a work of realistic fiction like this one. Once Benji gets out of his main D&D phase, he abandons Neutral and thinks in even more binary terms, saying "Either/or was where it was at." (p 203) This difference in worldviews furthers the idea that Benji (and by extension Ben) are temporary, and that Benji's teenage ailments will come to an end, and it emphasizes the difference in maturity between the two: growing up means acknowledging the shades of gray in life, the contradictions, that things aren't so simply cut, something that I myself have learned at uni and especially in Mr. Mitchell's classes. It's been wonderful growing old with you all. I wish I got to know you better.