Read Online The Tetherballs of Bougainville: A Novel (Vintage Contemporaries) by Mark Leyner - Free Book Online

other with “I Am Sixteen Going on Seventeen”—is used both for conjugal visits and punitive solitary confinement.
    During this lull, I become aware of a softly pulsing obbligato—the
ch-ch-ch
of innumerable inmates engaging in unlubricated sodomy, which, like the
ch-ch-ch
of stridulating male cicadas, can be heard on summer evenings in villages and towns miles from the prison.
    Emerging from his reverie, the doctor turns back to me.
    “Do you play any sports? You look like you’re in pretty good shape,” he says.
    “Tetherball,” I reply, miming an overhead smash.
    “Y’know, when I was your age, the jocks wore pearls … that was
the big thing
back then … freshwater pearls. You’d be in the locker room after football practice, and there’d be these big hairy naked guys wearing single strands of pearls, snapping towels at each other …”
    “No way!” I snort, not bothering to hide my contempt for the fleeting fads of bygone generations.
    “It’s funny when you look back … the things you thought were so cool, so tough … Freshwater pearls …” he trails off, returning his gaze out toward the gazebo.
    Our conversation continues desultorily, the doctor intermittently blurting a question or offering some random reminiscence, and then fading off again into mute introspection, the gaps filled with the ubiquitous
ch-ch-ch
.
    Despite the fact that, beyond a gustatory preference for brainsand marrow, we have almost nothing in common, I find myself bonding somewhat with the doctor. Having long accepted the stereotype of the physician as the stolid professional who views the fates of his patients with cold, clinical detachment, I was all the more moved by this doctor’s genuine empathy. He responded with such grief, and with such a sense of personal responsibility, that it was almost as if it were his own father he’d failed to kill.
    Perhaps also contributing to my feelings of affinity for the doctor is the fact that a V-shaped area from the waist to the crotch of my leather pants had become sodden with tears, causing a distinctive odor to waft upward. And whereas the pungent aroma of sweaty leather makes me feel omniscient, the bittersweet fragrance of tear-soaked leather engenders in me a sense of interconnectedness with all sentient beings.
    “Has lethal medicine always been your specialty?” I ask, infused with
agape
.
    “I was a third-year medical student when I made up my mind,” he replies. “I was assigned to the pediatric-execution wing of a large state prison up in Connecticut—it was the first of my clinical rotations in what was then called Malevolent Medicine. From that point on, I was hooked. For me, the field of pediatric executions has always been the most gratifying. There’s absolutely nothing in the world that compares to the look on the faces of a mother and a father after they’ve been told that the execution of their sociopathic, incorrigibly homicidal child has been a success. There’s an instant realization—you can see it in their eyes—that the courtroom vigils, the legal bills, the civil suits, the endless hours of family therapy are all over, that they and the deceaseddemon seed’s siblings can now go on and live a normal happy life. It’s an expression that never ceases to touch you deeply, no matter how many times you see it.”
    The telephone rings.
    The doctor reoccupies the high-backed chair behind his desk, picks up the receiver, and swivels around so that his back is to me and his conversation—save for an initial “I think that would be wise under the circumstances”—is inaudible.
    I pluck a lollipop from the fishbowl on his desk, wander over to the window, and gaze bemusedly at the gazebo.
    Ch-ch-ch. Ch-ch-ch. Ch-ch-ch
.
    Shortly the doctor swivels back into view and hangs up the phone.
    “The warden’s going to make an announcement in her office in a few minutes,” he says.
    He stands, circumambulates his desk, and embraces me