The Glebe Bookshop was a modest establishment on a quiet street in Sydney’s inner west, the kind of place with creaky floorboards and mismatched armchairs and a resident cat named Gerald who had opinions about everyone. It had never hosted a book signing quite like this one.
The queue stretched around the block. It was comprised almost entirely of men. Strange men. Men who had read The Man, The Myth, and The Funnel: Welsh Women and the Prostate and felt, for the first time in their lives, seen.
Barry sat at a folding table near the window, his one suit now slightly too loose on him—he’d lost another five pounds, mostly from stress—holding a pen and wondering how his life had come to this. Beside him sat Catherine Zeta-Jones, Lady Gaga, and Rihanna, who were doing approximately ninety-five percent of the actual signing while Barry sat there looking bewildered.
“Next!” Cath called out, her voice ringing through the bookshop with the authority of someone who had once played a Bond villain’s wife.
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A man shuffled forward. He was in his fifties, wearing a faded flannel shirt and the expression of someone who had spent decades carrying a secret. He shook Barry’s hand with both of his own, tears welling in his eyes.
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“Barry,” he said, his voice thick with emotion. “I read your book. Cover to cover. Twice.”
“Thank you,” Barry said. “That’s… that’s very kind.”
“I agree with you, Barry,” the man continued, gripping Barry’s hand tighter. “The word ‘fun’ does NOT belong in ‘funnel.’”
Barry blinked. “I… I didn’t actually write that. Ms. Zeta-Jones wrote that. In the foreword. And also in Chapters Three, Seven, Twelve, and the epilogue.”
“I wrote it brilliantly,” Cath interjected, sliding a signed copy across the table. “Next!”
The man shuffled away, clutching his book like a sacred text. Another man took his place. He was younger, maybe thirty, with the nervous energy of someone who had rehearsed this moment in the mirror.
“Barry,” he said, shaking Barry’s hand vigorously. “Your chapter on the trapeze changed my life.”
“I didn’t write a chapter on the trapeze,” Barry said. “Ms. Gaga wrote that chapter. I specifically asked her not to.”
“It was artistically necessary,” Gaga said, not looking up from the copy she was signing with a flourish. Today she was wearing a dress made entirely of shredded book pages, giving her the appearance of a very glamorous bonfire. Trevor II the cockatoo sat on her shoulder, still coughing, now wearing a tiny waistcoat that Rihanna had made for him.
“The trapeze,” the young man continued, “taught me that sometimes, to unblock yourself, you have to… you have to let go. You have to swing. You have to trust the ropes.”
“There were no ropes,” Barry said. “It was a metaphor. Actually, it wasn’t even a metaphor. It was just a trapeze Ms. Gaga found at a garage sale.”
“Vintage,” Gaga corrected. “It was vintage.”
The young man didn’t seem to hear. He was already being gently but firmly guided away by Rihanna, who handed him a muffin—chocolate chip this time, “for grounding.”
“Next!” Cath called.
Another man. This one was older, distinguished, wearing a suit that probably cost more than Barry’s van. He shook Barry’s hand with the solemnity of a diplomat.
“Mr. Barry,” he said. “I am a urologist. I have been practising for thirty-two years.”
Barry’s face went pale. “Oh no.”
“Your book,” the urologist continued, “contains approximately four hundred and seventy-three factual errors about male anatomy.”
Barry buried his face in his hands. “I know. I told them. I told them.”
“I also,” the urologist said, “recommended it to all of my patients.”
Barry looked up. “You what?”
“It made them laugh,” the urologist said simply. “And then it made them talk. To me. To their wives. To each other. I have never seen anything like it. Your book is a medical marvel, Mr. Barry. Not because it is accurate—it is not—but because it is honest. And honesty, Mr. Barry, is the best medicine.”
He shook Barry’s hand again, took his signed copy, and walked away.
Barry sat in stunned silence. Rihanna slid a muffin onto the table in front of him. He looked at it. A perfect circle of potential. He didn’t eat it. He just looked.
“Next!” Cath called.
The next man was crying before he even reached the table. He was holding his copy of the book like a lifeline, his hands trembling.
“Barry,” he sobbed. “I have funnel envy. I’ve had it for years. I thought I was alone. I thought I was broken. But your book… your book taught me that the funnel is not the problem. The shame is the problem.”
“That’s… that’s actually really nice,” Barry said, genuinely moved. “I’m glad the book helped.”
“And the trapeze,” the man added. “I bought a trapeze.”
Barry’s face fell. “Oh no.”
“It’s in my living room. My wife is furious.”
“You don’t need a trapeze,” Barry said desperately. “The trapeze was a mistake. The trapeze was a bit. Ms. Gaga made it up. You don’t need to buy a trapeze.”
“Vintage,” Gaga repeated, signing another book. “You need a vintage trapeze.”
“Gaga, please.”
But it was too late. The man was already being handed a muffin by Rihanna and guided toward the door, weeping with gratitude, already pulling out his phone to search for vintage trapezes on eBay.
The queue continued. Man after man. Some crying. Some laughing. Some asking detailed questions about “funnel maintenance” that Barry couldn’t answer because they weren’t actually about plumbing at all. Some asking for Cath’s autograph instead of Barry’s, which she gave with great enthusiasm. Some asking for Gaga’s autograph, which she gave with even greater enthusiasm, along with a personally inscribed haiku about blockages. Some asking for Rihanna’s autograph, which she gave on a muffin, because she had run out of paper.
And through it all, Barry sat there, signing the occasional book, shaking hands, accepting muffins he couldn’t bring himself to eat, and slowly, gradually, beginning to understand something.
These men weren’t here for him. Not really. They were here for what he represented. They were here for the permission to talk about something they had been told to be ashamed of. They were here for the muffins and the trapeze and the absurdity and the honesty.
They were here for the funnel.
“Barry,” a voice said. He looked up. The queue had finally thinned. The bookshop was emptying. Gerald the cat had fallen asleep on a stack of unsold copies of a celebrity memoir that wasn’t doing nearly as well as Barry’s.
Barry looked at the man in front of him. He was ordinary. Middle-aged. Tired. He looked like Barry, if Barry hadn’t been dragged into a surrealist adventure by three megastars. He held out his hand.
“Thank you,” the man said. “I don’t have funnel envy. I have… I have something else. Something I can’t talk about. But your book made me laugh. And I hadn’t laughed in a long time. So thank you.”
Barry shook his hand. “You’re welcome. And for what it’s worth… I don’t think you’re broken either.”
The man smiled, took his signed copy, and left.
Barry sat back in his chair. Cath was tidying the remaining books. Gaga was examining a copy of her own foreword with visible pride. Rihanna was eating a muffin—actually eating one, finally, because she had decided that potential was nice but sometimes you just needed a snack.
“I don’t understand,” Barry said.
“Understand what?” Cath asked.
“Any of this. The book. The queue. The… the men. How did this happen?”
Cath smiled, that movie-star smile that crinkled the corners of her eyes. “Barry, you told the truth. About something men aren’t supposed to talk about. And you did it badly, and absurdly, and with terrible medical information—”
“Four hundred and seventy-three errors,” Barry muttered.
“—but you did it honestly. And apparently, that’s what they needed.”
“The muffins helped,” Rihanna added.
“And the trapeze,” Gaga said.
“The trapeze did not help,” Barry said.
“The trapeze changed lives.”
“The trapeze nearly killed me.”
“Artistically.”
Barry sighed. He picked up a muffin—one of Rihanna’s, a perfect circle of
potential—and held it to the light. He didn’t eat it. He just looked at it.
And then, for the first time all day, he smiled.
“Same time next week?” he asked.
“Same time next week,” the women confirmed.
“With muffins?”
“Obviously.”
“And birds?”
“I’m bringing two cockatoos,” Gaga said. “Trevor II needs a friend.”
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Trevor II coughed in what might have been agreement.
And somewhere in the distance—beyond the bookshop, beyond the queue of strange men, beyond the absurdity of it all—a kookaburra laughed.
How long do king-parrots live?
Or maybe it was Barry.
Or maybe, just maybe, it was the funnel itself, finally, at long last, laughing with them.