bound to enlarge to a relatively greater degree than a whopping one. All the same, mate, it’s still smaller, isn’t it?
Mortimer hadn’t been born with this feeling of inadequacy. Neither had it bothered him much in adolescence. If he ever overcame his shyness sufficiently in the showers after a basketball game to glance at somebody else’s rod, it never struck him as being outlandishly bigger than his. On the other hand, all men suffered shrinkage in the showers and so that may have been a faulty proving ground.
Digging even deeper into his Caribou, Ontario, boyhood, to Motke Shapiro, the only Jewish boy at Caribou High, he could remember him saying, “Do you know why Queen Elizabeth is disappointed in George VI?”
“No. Why?”
“Because she’s found out not every ruler has twelve inches.”
Twelve . Did anybody actually have twelve inches, he thought, or, conversely, did everybody but me –?
Motke Shapiro was the only boy Mortimer remembered as being singularly well-endowed and consequently, perhaps, a show-off. He was forever entreating the other boys to join him in a communal pee. “See this,” he’d say, shaking it at them. “This is a Jew’s harmonica.”
Or,
“Tell your sisters what you saw here. And if they don’t believe it,” he’d add, zipping up, “well, here I am, eh, guys?”
Right there, Mortimer felt, was planted the corrupting seed of his discontent, his suspicion that minority-group pricks (Jewish, Negro)were aggressively thicker and longer than WASP ones. And yet – and yet – though he had never cohabited with a colored girl, Mona Capelovitch, the one Jewess he’d had, never made denigrating remarks about him. His fear of derisory size, lying in wait in his unconscious for years, was released by literary experience. Book learning from Baldwin, Mailer, LeRoi Jones.
It seemed to be the philosophical contention of these talented, decidedly outspoken writers and thinkers, however much they differed in style and argument, that the average male Negro had a bigger cock and more thrust power than the average WASP . Furthermore this Holy Grail of a Negro cock was lusted after, consciously or unconsciously, by white women and created fear and trembling among white men, which was why Negroes were not wanted in white neighborhoods. Something else. While it offended Baldwin, Jones, and other Negroes no end to be told they were naturally musical or athletic, they were willing to allow that they did share one racial characteristic: big pricks.
Well, maybe yes, maybe no, Mortimer thought, but couldn’t they be more scientific about it? Take James Baldwin, for instance. Clever dick that he undoubtedly is, how does he know Negro cocks are bigger than white ones? It isn’t the sort of thing one can comparison-shop, is it, and in the natural order of things a guy simply doesn’t get the opportunity to measure one against the other. How in the world would he or, come to think of it, Mailer or LeRoi Jones ever get to see so many pricks, regardless of race, color or creed? It’s not as if they were the sort to hang around public conveniences, spying. Mortimer didn’t get it. His problem was he suspected he was small, but he couldn’t tell for certain. He had seen other cocks, bigger cocks, on statues, yes, but this could have been a case of art improving on life. Like Andy Warhol making his Campbell’s soup tins larger than they were in the supermarkets. At the same time, Mortimer had to allow that these writers were more gifted and intelligent than he was and so they must know whereof they spoke. Possibly the knowledge wasintuitive. An insight. Like Mailer’s discovery that cancer in America was caused by Protestants. Protestants like me, he thought.
Goddamn it, Mortimer thought, he didn’t even know how many inches Hy, his best friend, had, and it wasn’t the sort of thing he’d ask him. Or Diana.
Which brought him round to thinking about Joyce.
Not to brag, Mortimer would still
Mortimer hadn’t been born with this feeling of inadequacy. Neither had it bothered him much in adolescence. If he ever overcame his shyness sufficiently in the showers after a basketball game to glance at somebody else’s rod, it never struck him as being outlandishly bigger than his. On the other hand, all men suffered shrinkage in the showers and so that may have been a faulty proving ground.
Digging even deeper into his Caribou, Ontario, boyhood, to Motke Shapiro, the only Jewish boy at Caribou High, he could remember him saying, “Do you know why Queen Elizabeth is disappointed in George VI?”
“No. Why?”
“Because she’s found out not every ruler has twelve inches.”
Twelve . Did anybody actually have twelve inches, he thought, or, conversely, did everybody but me –?
Motke Shapiro was the only boy Mortimer remembered as being singularly well-endowed and consequently, perhaps, a show-off. He was forever entreating the other boys to join him in a communal pee. “See this,” he’d say, shaking it at them. “This is a Jew’s harmonica.”
Or,
“Tell your sisters what you saw here. And if they don’t believe it,” he’d add, zipping up, “well, here I am, eh, guys?”
Right there, Mortimer felt, was planted the corrupting seed of his discontent, his suspicion that minority-group pricks (Jewish, Negro)were aggressively thicker and longer than WASP ones. And yet – and yet – though he had never cohabited with a colored girl, Mona Capelovitch, the one Jewess he’d had, never made denigrating remarks about him. His fear of derisory size, lying in wait in his unconscious for years, was released by literary experience. Book learning from Baldwin, Mailer, LeRoi Jones.
It seemed to be the philosophical contention of these talented, decidedly outspoken writers and thinkers, however much they differed in style and argument, that the average male Negro had a bigger cock and more thrust power than the average WASP . Furthermore this Holy Grail of a Negro cock was lusted after, consciously or unconsciously, by white women and created fear and trembling among white men, which was why Negroes were not wanted in white neighborhoods. Something else. While it offended Baldwin, Jones, and other Negroes no end to be told they were naturally musical or athletic, they were willing to allow that they did share one racial characteristic: big pricks.
Well, maybe yes, maybe no, Mortimer thought, but couldn’t they be more scientific about it? Take James Baldwin, for instance. Clever dick that he undoubtedly is, how does he know Negro cocks are bigger than white ones? It isn’t the sort of thing one can comparison-shop, is it, and in the natural order of things a guy simply doesn’t get the opportunity to measure one against the other. How in the world would he or, come to think of it, Mailer or LeRoi Jones ever get to see so many pricks, regardless of race, color or creed? It’s not as if they were the sort to hang around public conveniences, spying. Mortimer didn’t get it. His problem was he suspected he was small, but he couldn’t tell for certain. He had seen other cocks, bigger cocks, on statues, yes, but this could have been a case of art improving on life. Like Andy Warhol making his Campbell’s soup tins larger than they were in the supermarkets. At the same time, Mortimer had to allow that these writers were more gifted and intelligent than he was and so they must know whereof they spoke. Possibly the knowledge wasintuitive. An insight. Like Mailer’s discovery that cancer in America was caused by Protestants. Protestants like me, he thought.
Goddamn it, Mortimer thought, he didn’t even know how many inches Hy, his best friend, had, and it wasn’t the sort of thing he’d ask him. Or Diana.
Which brought him round to thinking about Joyce.
Not to brag, Mortimer would still
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