Leon Falk, a film producer and professor, and at 56 the elder statesman of the group, described it as “a way to honor fatherhood in the moment that we’re all engaged in our kids starting out in life together, and to blow off some steam doing it.”
The collective has actually proved artistically fruitful for several members. Mr. Greenfeld is writing a novel based on the breakfast-club characters; one chapter, soon to appear in The Paris Review, swirls outward from a parenting debate, at “a steakhouse recently taken to serving breakfast,” over how to deal with a child molester.
Mr. Katz has a play coming to the Public Theater in the fall, “Philip Roth in Khartoum,” that opens with a coffee-shop scene in which the dads bemoan the wives’ refusal to address their needs. “If my having an orgasm saved a whale or stopped global warming, then I’d have a decent shot,” goes one of the few printable lines.
Mr. Katz stressed that the play was fictional. But he conceded that the tone of the dialogue was “about par for the course.” This was certainly the case on Thursday, much of which Mr. Katz spent inviting his coffee-mates to his son’s bris and defending his decision to circumcise.
Across the table, John Fortenberry, a film and television director, flinched at the thought. “If there’s any screaming,” he said, “I’m out the door.” The fashion-photographer dad, Guy Aroch, wondered if it might be better to leave the boy intact. “That decision can be reversed,” he said. “The other decision can’t.”
“You don’t think that with our technology you won’t be able to get a better foreskin?” Mr. Katz asked. Mr. Greenfeld elaborated. “It would be softer and more sensitive than the natural one, and cleaner. Have you seen the technology they have for supple leather gloves?”
Eventually, food arrived — piles of eggs scrambled with salmon and onions, a rasher of bacon. No one ordered the diet plate. Conversation turned briefly to summer plans — houses upstate or on the East End, children off for Europe. Manly headlines were read from The Wall Street Journal: the Supreme Court’s scuttling of the Exxon Valdez settlement. The topic of foreskin resurfaced. “Sorry Table 7!” Mr. Katz called in the direction of two suited women working on their egg-white omelets.
Notwithstanding the potential poignancy of the moment, the last breakfast was devoid of sentiment, perhaps in homage to last year’s disastrous season finale, an attempt at a guys’ night out. After a steak dinner, the group repaired to the office of one of its members, who proceeded to whip out an acoustic guitar and offer up an achingly sincere rendition of “Wish You Were Here,” the Pink Floyd ballad of loss and age and the cost of compromise.
“I’ve never seen so many people so uncomfortable in my life,” Mr. Katz said.
This year, the P.S. 234 men’s breakfast club simply dissolved for the summer, one molecule at a time. Mr. Aroch had a photo shoot in New Jersey. Mr. Katz excused himself to buy liquor and numbing cream for little Maccabee’s bris. “I gotta go,” he said. “Julie’s gonna kill me.”
As the men departed, they shook hands; they did not hug.
The conversation dwindled. Mr. Dunn put down the newspaper. “Chrysler next year is going to put wireless Internet in its pickup trucks,” he announced.
“Wow,” Mr. Fortenberry said. And he, too, got up to go.
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