Three Black Suburbans All In A Row

By Dan Rattiner

I wonder if anybody has an answer to this question. Late Monday morning of Labor Day weekend, I was out on an isolated ocean beach writing on my laptop when an interesting thing happened. A shiny new black Suburban with those dark frosted windows appeared at the entrance to the beach, changed into four-wheel drive, and slowly made its way out past me and down the beach, finally coming to a halt about a hundred yards away facing the water.

From this black Suburban, about 10 people got out. You can fit a whole lot of people in these Suburbans as you know. In any case, the people carried out beach umbrellas, Styrofoam coolers, beach blankets, folding chairs and inflatables and sort of deployed themselves at the front of the Suburban. About half of them were children. All were in bathing suits.

Five minutes later, a second black Suburban came out onto the beach, drove past me and parked right next to the first, facing the beach. Then a third black Suburban came out and did the same thing. Two of these three had shiny black storage pods on the luggage racks on their roofs. Other than that they all were identical, as near as I could see.

From these last two Suburbans more adults and children in bathing suits came out to join up with those who arrived ahead of them. Kites went up, barbecue grills came out. They apparently expected to be there for some time. And they all proceeded to have a fine old time.

The whole scene, except for the Suburbans, appeared completely normal. Sandcastles were built. Three of the children on Styrofoam body boards, who looked between eight and 11, began skimming along the slick caused by the surf as it rolled up the beach and then back out. Adults carried squealing children into the ocean and back out again. Frisbees were thrown around.

About halfway through the story I was writing, I got up, ran into and then back out of the ocean in my tennis shorts, and then, to do a further little exercise, went for a brisk walk. I decided at that time that I would go in their direction and then past them, but at the same time I would not engage any of them in conversation since they were doing their thing and I was doing mine. But I would look to see what I could see.

When I got back to my chair 10 minutes later, I summed it all up. The women were attractive and the men brawny, but they weren't chic. The children were fine. Each of the Suburbans bore vanity license plates, though. And they were not New York plates. They read something like 20024U and 20034U, and then the third the same sort of thing, but I just walked briskly past so didn't write them down. They were something like that.

At one point, I passed close to a man of about 45 from that group who was holding a beach ball. We grunted and nodded at one another, but that was it. I did think for a moment that he briefly moved to block me as I walked by, but it might have been my imagination. I wasn't sure. He was a bit overweight and had a hairy chest. Maybe a businessman. Hard to say.

I went back to my writing. About 10 minutes later, I heard cheering. Everybody over there was clapping and shouting happily at something, but try as I might I could not see what it was. Had one of the kids done something? A half an hour later, they all packed up and left, leaving in a great procession.

So here's my question: What the heck was this?

I have lots of theories.

They were houseguests of a very rich man who had bought these three identical Suburbans with the wave of a hand one day just because he knew that during the summer, some of his married friends with their families would be out and could use these vehicles for transportation.

They were FBI agents who had company cars, and they all lived near one another in Nassau County and so had come out here with their families on their day off.

They were counselors and staff accompanying some campers from an extremely elite summer camp. It's so elite that nobody knows about it.

They were out here to protect a very important candidate running for a very high government office who had said, "I'll be at this fundraiser for the next four hours and we've got the house surrounded so you guys go to the beach and have a good time with your families."

They were Europeans. They flew into Gabreski Airport in Westhampton in a Learjet that had all these people inside, along with the three black Suburbans. They'd come for a day at the beach.

Please send in your own thoughts about this. The beach was the state beach in Napeague. What the hell was this?

Dan Rattiner, Dan's Papers, P.O. Box 630, Bridgehampton, NY 11932.

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