The Funny Man Read Online Free Page B

scenarios that would bring us together, like porn, but with actual romance involved. My throat and chest would tighten and I would crumple and strangers would be asking me first if I needed help, before saying, “Hey, are you that guy?”
    “It’s like there’s too much choice,” I said to my therapist. “It’s like buying toothpaste. Have you tried buying toothpaste recently? It’s like a whole aisle, just toothpaste. It used to be a shelf, but now it’s a whole aisle. Soon we’re going to need an entire store called Just Toothpaste.” I got up off of the therapist’s couch and spread my arms to indicate a large store sign and pulsed my fingers to indicate flashing lights. “Just Toothpaste. Do I get tartar control? Whitening? Breath freshening? Something with sparkles in it? What about the flavor? Spearmint? Baking soda? Citrus? Fresh mint? What the fuck is fresh mint, anyway? Is there a stale mint flavor? The Just Toothpaste stores are going to have those guys like at the fancy restaurants who know everything about wine. Whaddya call them?”
    “Sommeliers,” the therapist said.
    “Yeah, we’ll need toothpaste sommeliers, toothpaste consultants just to figure out the right goddamn toothpaste. I’m telling you, doc, the choice is killing me.”
    “Is this in your act?” the therapist asked.
    “No,” I said, “should it be?”
    “It’s very funny.”
    “But you’re not laughing.”
    “I don’t laugh because I understand what’s behind the joking, which isn’t a laughing matter, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t funny.”
    He is and always has been a buzz kill. If I was going to kill anyone, it should’ve been him.
    “Anyway, you’re not a sex addict,” he said.
    “Then what am I?”
    “A man.”
    W HEN THE JUDGE enters this time, I take care to focus on her face, which is undeniably pretty. Normally, middle age is not attractive to me, but this woman has kept it together and the age lines around her eyes and mouth are charming. Barry has warned me about this kind of thing, this appearing to be what people think I am. He said that there are two key things to know about juries: Number one, they notice everything, and number two, they’ve got nothing to do but talk to each other, particularly when a jury is sequestered, as they are in this trial. According to the focus groups, I’m supposed to be demonstrating respect for the process, an understanding of what’s at stake, and a fundamental trust in the American system of jurisprudence, and staring at the judge’s legs or grinning at the thought of her serious, but charming face are likely not in sync with those values. Under no circumstances should a man in my circumstances be grinning.
    “Pinch your sack if you have to,” Barry counseled.
    With a brief wave of her hand the judge indicates that everyone should be seated as she settles in her high-backed chair behind the bench high above us. The judge’s clerk approaches from the side to privately confer on something with the judge as the court reporter, just to the right of the witness chair, cracks his knuckles in anticipation of going back on the record. For the last week or so I’ve had this urge to tell the judge how impressed I am with her, how good she is at what she does. She appears overwhelmingly comfortable with each and every action, like the way she unhurriedly takes her chair, even though she must know the entire room is waiting for and looking at her, that she is the focal point. Or how she accepts a file from her clerk with a graceful flick of one wrist, while the other hand moves the stylish reading glasses hanging from a chain around her neck into place on the bridge of her nose. She has a nod she gives the court reporter that signals it’s time to go back on the record that I couldn’t even see until I took care to look extremely closely, but somehow it always snaps the court reporter from his dazed inactivity into a straight-backed virtuoso of the steno