‘today’s your lucky day, kid. you just met billy joel’ — a day in sag harbor

BEFORE YOU GO OUT EAST, as they say, people warn you about the traffic. Fish-shaped Long Island splits into two forks at its eastern end, and the southern one of these forks, the South Fork, is the premier destination for monied and cultured people from all over the world, but largely who arrived there from New York. Because of them, and people who want to be like them, including at times me, there is a lot of traffic, as people wait patiently to access the collective “Hamptons.”

There are tricks though to get through this traffic. If you drive out to Riverhead, you can take some back roads that will land you just outside the Shinnecock Canal, which separates the South Fork from the rest of Long Island which means that, actually, the South Fork is an island on its own, as it is completely surrounded by water. From here you begin to pass businesses with names like “Dream Hampton” and “Bottle Hampton.” There are golf courses and lobster factories, and many convertibles. The traffic yesterday though was manageable, or not as scary as it was made out to be. Only that long ride into Sag Harbor took time, as all vehicles descend on the nexus of Main Street, Ferry Road, Bay Street, and Division Street, which later turns into Hampton Street. My father had some business to do out there, so I got dropped off in Sag Harbor for about two hours. Originally, it was just supposed to be for an hour, but his time estimates, like my own, are always off. “I’ll be right there,” means that it could take him hours.

Places like Sag Harbor, where there are t-shirt shops, fashion boutiques, diners, book stores, etc., were a setting of my childhood. The greatest reward was to get a book, maybe a Calvin and Hobbes collection. Yesterday in the book shop I saw an original copy of John Lennon’s nonsense book, A Spaniard in the Works from 1965.

It was in these shops where you could also meet “real Europeans” working, mostly Irish who would come and work in these restaurants and stores over the summers in the 1980s and 1990s. Probably, they are still here.

I went to Sag Harbor looking for ideas, which is a really odd way to work. Usually ideas come to you, but I started a fictional website based roughly around the East End a few years ago, and I intend to get a few more story ideas together for it. It’s a personal project. But how do you even get ideas? You just have to wander around. Up and down the Main drag, pausing to visit the hotel where Justin Timberlake drank his fateful martini before the DWI arrest heard around the world. I passed the Sag Harbor Police Department too. Imagined Justin Timberlake locked up in there, getting his picture taken. It’s not that I’m a fan, I just know that even in Tahiti, they know that this happened, and that it happened in this old town. But what’s so special about it?

At an establishment called SagTown Coffee, I finally got a cappuccino, which cost me north of eight euros, making the six euro Jamaican blue mountain coffee at the Green House in Viljandi seem like a deal. What is going on with these prices? They’re ridiculous. There are, of course, good-looking or at least interesting-seeming people wandering the streets here. Men must wear polo shirts, or at least something with a crisp collar. Or a t-shirt. Women are obligated to wear a straw hat and billowing white dress. All dogs must be small and kept on a short leash. Names like “Rupert” or “Albert” are appropriate for Sag Harbor summer dogs.

And there’s the Bay Street Theatre, advertising its Summer Gala with Neal Patrick Harris. Matthew Broderick and Sarah Jessica Parker will be in attendance. It’s kind of odd to me that these names are known everywhere, and if the police bust one of these special “stars” here, everyone will know about it. Yet the theatre itself is smaller than Ugala or Vanemuine in Estonia. It’s a little theatre by the docks. How, and why, did American, or even New York culture, take over the world?

I did start to get ideas, maybe not long after I ventured into a store that promised THC gummies for free. Well, of course I was going to take advantage of that offer. All I had to do was hand over my email address. There were four pouches in front of me, “Leisure,” “Calm,” “Sleepy”, and one other I can’t remember. Maybe “Party”? I chose “Leisure.” “I’ve never had a gummy before,” I told the seller. “Take half,” she said. “And if you are okay with that, eat the other half in an hour.” I did as prescribed. After the first half, I felt fine. Then, an hour later, I swallowed the second half. After that, things got a little weird.

How were they weird? When I went back to SagTown Coffee, I started seeing people I knew. Just out of the corner of my eye. A man with white hair walked in. I thought it was Richard Denny, the artist. “Richard, is that you?” Oh, that’s right. He’s not in Sag Harbor. Then I looked the other direction, and saw Priit Võigemast, the Estonian actor, drinking an eight-euro cappuccino, in his sunglasses. Only to realize again, Wait, but Priit Võigemast isn’t in Sag Harbor. Then Jõeste walked in.

But she wasn’t there either.

That’s when I realized that I was stoned.

Outside the café, I saw an older man with a younger woman. He was traveling with a small entourage. By voice alone, I realized it was Billy Joel, the piano man. This, at least, was not a hallucination. I know this because a woman with a child came in the café after and she said to her son, “Today’s your lucky day, kid. You just met Billy Joel!” So it was really him. I actually tried to get a photo of him, to show to my friends, but only caught him as he walked away. He likes Sag Harbor, they say, almost as much as he likes Cold Spring Harbor. Maybe more.

Anyway, I did get ideas for two short stories yesterday, after getting stuck in Sag Harbor for two hours. There isn’t much to Sag Harbor other than Main Street and some businesses on adjacent streets. These side streets are nice to walk, and I like to go up alleyways and try to find ways in which the streets and lanes connect to each other. Sometimes you find an outlet, but sometimes you need to turn back. I wonder about the people sleeping upstairs. I wonder who they are, what their lives are like, and what it’s like to live there full time.

In the off season, Sag Harbor is nothing like this. The almost carnival atmosphere subsides. I usually would drive to Sag Harbor, when we lived in Orient a decade ago, by taking the ferry from Greenport to Shelter Island, and then the ferry from Shelter Island to Sag Harbor. That’s my secret in-and-out to the Hamptons. I remember taking the kids there in March or so and forcing them to visit Montauk and them being sort of unimpressed, and then getting pizza in Sag Harbor.

We felt like the only people in town.