Read Online The Emerald Light in the Air by Donald Antrim - Free Book Online

everybody?” She crossed her arms. She was taking his measure. She wore a pink woolen scarf wrapped loosely about her shoulders, in the style of young Parisian women. At the rear of the café, a mother and her two small children were making a racket. Christopher spoke up. “My family. My family laughed at me,” and immediately she broke in, “I understand what you mean. Everybody who matters,” and he replied, “Yeah, right?” before continuing, in tones that she would learn to recognize as harbingers of a mild paranoia, “For example, let’s say I had something serious on my mind, something to say at the dinner table. I’m trying to think of an example. I can’t think of one. It doesn’t matter. I could have been talking about anything. They’d burst out laughing! It got so that I was afraid to speak! If I tried telling a joke or a funny story—and I didn’t often try that—they’d sit in their chairs and chew their food. But I could read the obituaries, well, maybe not the obituaries, and my father and mother and sisters would laugh!”
    This made her laugh— he ’ d made her laugh. She could just see the awful scene around the family table. Christopher peeking over the top of the obituary page. She hoped her laughter would be taken conspiratorially, as evidence of her recognition of his mistreatment. And his shame.
    At the back of the café, the mother struggled with her children. Crying had begun. Jennifer turned to look. When she finally turned back to Christopher, he said, “You see? You laughed. It’s so exasperating.”
    That was when she rolled her eyes. Was she playing with him? He gazed down at his spoon and knife, at his empty cup set crookedly on its saucer, at the miniature milk pitcher and the sugar bowl. What was the use in telling her how bleak he felt when people found him funny? What if he were to reach across the table and touch her face? Right now. Would she understand, through his touch, that making people laugh felt to him like being hit? What made people want to hit him in this way?
    He said, “It’s not your fault.”
    â€œWhat’s not my fault?”
    â€œNothing. Everything. I don’t know.”
    How red his hair was beneath the warm coffeehouse lights. He looked to her like a skinny, freckled, Scottish orphan. “You can tell me a joke,” she said.
    â€œYou’ll hate it.”
    â€œI won’t hate it.”
    â€œIt’s not going to be funny.”
    â€œPlease?” she said.
    The joke involved a horse, a carrot, and a man wearing a cap. A third of the way through the setup, he broke character and said, “The guy in the cap is Norwegian. I forgot to mention that.” He started over and, a moment later, paused again before saying—to himself? to her?—“Is it a carrot? It’s got to be a carrot, it’s a horse.” Looking across their small table, he could see her eyes narrowing. He sighed and—he was getting panicky now—said, “The reason the horse won’t give the Norwegian a ride is that he’s depressed. The horse is depressed, not the man.” At that point he lost the thread. What in the world was he doing? He had no tolerance for comedy. He said, “How’s your coffee?”
    â€œGood. It’s good.”
    He paid the check, and they walked out and stood on the sidewalk, which was busy with people coming and going in parkas and hats. It struck her, as she watched him standing on the dark street with his hands shoved deep into his coat pockets, that he was a decent person, a serious man, and she wanted to sleep with him, but it was too soon for that, and besides, she did not see how she could invite him to her apartment, where Susan would undoubtedly be planted on the living-room couch—the foldout couch that Jennifer slept on—watching television in a sweatshirt. Jennifer did not yet know