‘Frankie and Johnny in the Clair De Lune’ (Johnny tells a story)

JOHNNY: I’ll tell you why I was laughing. All of a sudden — just like that! — I remembered this time back in high school when I was making out with this really beautiful girl and was feeling incredibly suave and sophisticated and wondering if anybody would believe my good fortune and worrying if she was going to let me go all the way — I think it would have been her first time too — when all of a sudden I let out this incredibly loud fart. Like that. Only louder. It was awful. (He laughs again.) And there was no pretending it wasn’t me. You couldn’t say something like “Boy, did you hear that thunder?” or “Jesus, Peggy, was that you?” The best I could come up with was “May I use your bathroom?” which only made it worse. And there in the bathroom was her mother taking a bath at ten o’clock at night. She had one arm up, washing her armpit. I said something real cool like, “Hello, Mrs. Roberts.” She screamed and I ran out of the house. I tripped over the garbage cans and tore my pants climbing over the backyard fence. I must’ve run twenty blocks, most of them with dogs chasing me. I thought my life was over. We never mentioned what happened and I never dated her again and I lost my virginity with someone else. But that fart banged that back into my consciousness just then . . . !