This one, too, convulsed Foderman, which led Sandy to throw in a quickie about the girl who comes to the doctor and says, “I haven’t fenestrated in a month, and I think I’m stagnant,” to which the doctor replies, “You mean you haven’t menstruated in a month, and you think you’re pregnant,” and the girl says, “All I know is my boyfriend reached a climate and he wasn’t wearing a phylactery.”
David, who had heard all of these jokes around the pool hall at the Philharmonic, yawned politely and glanced over his shoulder toward the bar, where Max Brandstaetter (for such was our violinist’s full name) was in deep conversation with Robert the Rapacious Barkeep. I thought David might get up and wander over for a beer and some musical discourse, but instead he said, “Do you know the one about the man who comes to a doctor with an infection of the big toe?”
“No,” Schwartz said, “tell it.”
“Tell it,” Foderman said, grinning in anticipation, and leaning forward in his chair.
“Well, this man comes to a doctor with a bad infection of the big toe, an open sore dripping pus, terrible mess. The doctor examines him, takes some smears, and announces in surprise that the man has gonorrhea of the big toe. ‘This is the first time in my life I’ve ever had a patient with gonorrhea of the big toe,’ the doctor says, and asks the man’s permission to report it at the next medical convention.”
“I never heard of it, either,” Foderman said, chuckling. “Gonorrhea of the big toe.”
“Well, at the medical convention, the doctor gets up before his colleagues and says, ‘I wish to report an astounding phenomenon. In June, I treated a man in my office for gonorrhea of the big toe,’ at which point a doctor in the audience raises his hand and says, ‘Excuse me for interrupting, but in June I treated a woman in my office for athlete’s twat.’”
Sandy and I burst out laughing simultaneously, but Foderman and Schwartz sat in stunned silence. (Had Alice been present, she would most certainly have said, “Naughty language.”) Foderman looked at Schwartz, who finally smiled. Taking his cue, Foderman also smiled, though he was blushing a bright pink.
“There must be a thousand doctor jokes,” Schwartz said at last.
“A million,” Foderman said, and all conversation jolted to a halt.
“Well, I think I’ll have a beer,” David said, and rose and walked to the bar, where Max greeted him effusively.
KR: Have you ever thought David might be homosexual?
ME: Don’t be ridiculous.
KR: Is the idea repellent to you?
ME: Abhorrent.
KR: Why?
ME: Because I know he isn’t.
KR: Have you ever discussed it with him?
ME: Never.
KR: Why not?
ME: Because if you know how to spell “cat,” you don’t look it up in the dictionary. I know David isn’t a fag.
KR: How do you know that?
ME: He sleeps with girls, that’s how I know it.
DR: Might he not also sleep with boys?
ME: No, he might not also sleep with boys.
KR: If you’ve never discussed it with him, how do you know?
ME: He’s my best friend. He would have told me.
KR: Perhaps he knew you would find it abhorrent.
ME: I do.
KR: Yet you’ve slept with David.
ME: I’ve been in the same bed with him, if that’s what you mean.
KR: Yes, of course that’s what I mean.
ME: And Sandy was with us.
KR: Sandy slept between you.
ME: Yes.
KR: On every occasion?
ME: On every occasion. Besides, it hasn’t happened that often.
KR: How often, would you say?
ME: Three or four times.
KR: When was the first time?
ME: Sometime after that summer.
KR: The summer of Rhoda?
ME: Jesus, I wish you’d stop calling it that. A lot of other things happened that summer, too. You don’t have to label it like the Pleistocene Age or something.
KR: Is it that summer you’re talking about?
ME: Yes, that summer.
KR: And the first time you, David, and Sandy slept in the same bed together was shortly after that summer.
ME: In the fall sometime. November, I think.
KR: Where?
ME: At Sandy’s house. Her mother was away with Snow White for the...
KR: Snow White, did you say?
ME: Yes, this guy she was going with at the time. I forget his real name. We used to call him Snow White.
KR: Why?
ME: Because he turned lobster red in the sun.
KR: I don’t see the connection.
ME: Forget it.
KR: In any case, Sandy’s mother was away with him.
ME: Yes, for the weekend. And Sandy called us up, and we stayed in the apartment with her.
KR: Was there only one bedroom in the apartment?
ME: Of course not.
KR: Then why did you all sleep in the same bed?
ME: What’s the matter, doctor? Are you shocked?
KR: Hardly.
ME: It goes on all the time, you know. This is now Doctor. We aren’t back in the Middle Ages, you know.
KR: It went on in the Middle Ages, too, I understand.
ME: And anyway, it wasn’t what you think. It wasn’t sordid or... shocking. It wasn’t shocking. I don’t know why the hell you’re shocked.
KR: I’m not.
ME: That’s right, you get all kinds of lunatics and perverts in here, don’t you?
KR: All kinds.
ME: It was, in fact, a very good experience.
KR: I see.
ME: You don’t believe that, do you? Well, it was. Grown-ups have some crazy ideas about...
KR: Grown-ups?
ME: Yes.
KR: You’re twenty-one, Peter.
ME: I know I am.
KR: That makes you a grown-up.
ME: I’m trying to say we weren’t grown-ups at the time. This was five years ago. And it wasn’t an orgy or anything like that, the way grown-ups always think of... of any arrangement that isn’t quite conventional.
KR: On the contrary, there are many grown-ups who have exactly such unconventional arrangements. They are not the exclusive property of the young.
ME: I’m not talking about a ménage à trois, Doctor.
KR: I didn’t think you were.
ME: Nor even a folie à trois.
KR: You’ve been reading.
ME: How else would I be able to follow you?
KR: In any case, you feel it was a good experience.
ME: Yes.
KR: For all three of you?
ME: Yes. Well, how do I know? It was good for me. I enjoyed it.
KR: You enjoyed making love to Sandy?
ME: I still do.
KR: Did David enjoy it?
ME: I never asked him.
KR: I thought you talked about everything.
ME: We didn’t talk about that.
KR: Why not?
ME: It was something the three of us shared together, there was no reason to beat it to death afterwards. We did it because we wanted to do it, and we enjoyed doing it, and that was that.
KR: And apparently you enjoyed it enough to repeat the experience again and again.
ME: Three or four times. We don’t make a habit of it.
KR: Why not? If it’s so enjoyable...
ME: I don’t think you understand the relationship between the three of us.
KR: Perhaps not.
ME: If we feel like going to bed together, that’s what we do. There aren’t any set rules, Doctor. This isn’t a club.
KR: It sounds somewhat like a club.
ME: All I’m trying to say is there aren’t any set rules.
KR: I can see that. If, for example, you and David wanted to go to bed together, there’d be no rules against that, either, would there?