Fight Song (18 page)

“Here he is,” says Ace and points at Coffen, by way of a weird introduction.

“Bob is me,” Bob says to the woman, shaking her hand, watching the other one still patting on the boy.

“I’m Kathleen. Call me Kat.”

“Very nice to meet you.”

“Told you he was all manners,” Ace says.

“Are you excited for the show tonight?” Coffen asks her.

“No matter whether me and Ace are fighting,” Kat says, “I never miss a French Kiss concert. They are incredible, and Ace loves playing music so much.”

Bob is impressed with Kat’s commitment to Ace even when they’re fighting—fighting to such an extreme that he’s sleeping at work. “You are a good woman,” Coffen says. “Sometimes people who you want to support don’t want you around them. Sometimes they say that their Norwegian coach is the only team they need.”

“What?” Kat asks.

“Let’s cool it with the moping,” Ace says to Bob. “We’re here to live a little, right?”

Soon, Tilda saunters into the bar. She sees Coffen right off because the place is pretty empty. He’s hunkered alone at the bar. Ace and the other members of the French Kiss contingent are all backstage putting makeup on one another’s faces, getting into their facsimiles of Kiss characters.

Bob has switched from beer to vanilla vodka.

And he’s well on his way to being intoxicated. If intoxication is like putting on a pair of pants, Coffen has one leg in for sure and is now working the other through.

Bob is so happy to see Tilda. Can Coffen call her a friend? He’s going to. She chose to come here and spend time with him and that’s what friends do, after all—they enjoy each other’s company. Or so Bob’s heard around the water cooler.

Tilda’s wearing a cotton tank top and tight jeans. Muscles galore. Tanned muscles making lumpy stacks on her shoulders. She could be a cage fighter. In fact, Coffen doesn’t know for sure that she isn’t a cage fighter, so the first vanilla-vodka-atrophied idea that escapes his mouth is “You ever kill a man with your bare hands?”

“Always wear gloves because these days with all the DNA technology, killing with your bare hands is like signing a confession.”

“Is that a metaphor?”

“Which part?”

“The whole thing.”

“Sure,” she says.

“I need to believe you haven’t killed a man with your bare hands.”

“Then why’d you ask the question?”

It’s here that Coffen decides to enlist this bawdy Taco Shed confidant into Schumann’s kidnapping ring. Why would he do such a thing? Why involve anyone else? Simply put: He’s telling her because he’s buzzed and feeling useless and like an outcast, a looming divorcé, a weekend dad destined to fail his kids (and that’s not even to mention the terrifying prison dad hallucination), or to be replaced by somebody new, someone like Gotthorm—a man of strong body and mind, one blessed with a severe, Nordic bone structure, one well over six feet tall who can breed a platoon of bloodthirsty Vikings. This avalanche of panic isn’t all that’s going on inside Bob. Add to this the scene he’s recently witnessed at Korean barbecue: the boy who’d been so cruel to Ace suddenly saying that Ace Frehley is a genius; the boy meeting Ace somewhere near the middle, compromising, extending an olive branch of sorts. Will that smart-ass kid do everything in his power to put Ace through the ringer during his teenage years? No doubt about it. But it was touching to see some effort from the boy tonight. Maybe that’s all anybody’s really after: effort. A stab to meet in the middle. All of this piles on Coffen’s shoulders, plus the simple fact that there is a kidnapped sorcerer outside and Bob has no idea what to do next.

And so Coffen spills the beans to Tilda: “I’m tangentially involved in criminal activity this evening.”

“Guess you’re not the prude I pegged you for.”

“You know how you used to think I was a cop?”

“I’m still on the fence.”

“Really?” Coffen says, his feelings growing even more wounded. “Why?”

She nods. “I have trust issues. And if you are a cop, we’re back standing on the fertile soil of entrapment.”

“What if I was to say that I can prove I’m not a cop right this very second beyond any reasonable doubt?”

“That sounds like something a cop would say. Are you drunk?”

“Probably,” he says, taking another swig of vanilla vodka, “and I’d like to let you in on my crime, if you’d be interested in such information.”

“I’m listening.”

“What we did was—”

“Wait, who’s ‘we’?”

“I’m talking about me and Schumann.”

She smiles mischievously. “Schumann’s here?”

He takes her out front to Schumann’s SUV, which is still parked in the same spot as before, which was where Schumann had promised to leave it while Bob went back in the bar to formulate some kind of crackpot plan to deal with Björn, though once alone it occurred to Coffen that a) Schumann probably won’t listen to his plan anyway, seeing as how he went ahead and swiped Björn on his own quarterback accord, and b) he kidnapped a master of the dark arts without any concrete idea what to do with him, simply stole him for some kind of contorted notion of victory, and c) nowhere in Schumann’s cranium does there seem to be ample fear over the very real possibility of incarceration, and d) Schumann might be mentally
ill or so hardwired for competition that he’s somehow untrained for civilian life.

Coffen and Tilda approach. Schumann exits the driver’s seat, walks toward the back but doesn’t open it, keeping Björn obscured.

“Hello, big fella,” Tilda says to Schumann, ogling his football uniform, the implied musculature underneath his sporty shell. “I was hoping our paths would cross when I wasn’t working.”

“I’ve changed my name to Reasons with His Fists,” he says.

“Your name’s as meaningless as these jeans I’m wearing,” says Tilda.

“I’m married.”

“Let’s not ruin our first non–Taco Shed impression with too many details from our personal lives,” she says.

“You’d make a good running back,” Schumann says to her. “You see an opening and hit the hole hard, hoping to score.”

“You’re going to make me blush, Reasons with His Fists,” she says.

“We need to focus,” Coffen says inconsequentially.

“My name is a tribute to my tribe,” Schumann says.

“Are you part Native American?” she asks.

“I am a warrior ready to ravage at the drop of a hat.”

“I’m prepared to drop much more than my hat,” says Tilda, enhancing her flirty words with a fellatio-impersonation, her hand moving back and forth in front of her open mouth. She looks like a demented sex-ed teacher trying to scare the kids into abstinence.

Schumann watches the demo and smiles. “You have the body of a fearsome warrior, too.”

“I’ve taken my lumps over the years.”

Coffen can’t take his inconsequentialness any longer and throws open the back of the SUV. The three of them stand, staring at the squirming, angrily mumbling magician.

“Who’s that guy?” Tilda asks, cool as a sociopath.

“Our vanquished foe,” says Schumann.

“He looks pretty pissed,” she says.

“His arms are probably asleep,” Schumann says. “Not to mention I had to knee his testes to properly subdue him before pitching him in there.”

“I like the way you say ‘testes,’” Tilda says. “Can I hear it once more, except this time, make it a little breathier, like you’re seducing me?”

Schumann answers in a baritone Don Juan playboy voice, “Testeeeeez.”

“You are my testes-hero,” she says.

“Anyway, this is the guy we kidnapped,” Coffen says.

“I am your testeeeeez-hero,” Schumann says, sexy voice doused with aftershave and five o’clock shadow.

“Maybe I’ll wait for you guys in the bar,” Coffen says, already sulking.

“That’s a great idea,” Tilda says. “Maybe Reasons with His Fists would like to take me for a drive so we can get to know each other more intimately. What do you say, daddy?”

“This will be like the glory days,” Schumann says. “Pillaging a coed to mark an important victory. Hail Purdue!”

“Nobody’s called me a coed in years,” Tilda coos.

“What about him?” Coffen asks and points at squirming Björn.

“He’ll be fine,” she guarantees. “He might even enjoy the show.” Tilda winks at Bob and then walks over and gets in
the SUV via the passenger’s side. Shrugging, Schumann hops back in, too, and starts the engine.

Coffen traipses up to his window and says, “I think we should deal with the problem at hand.”

“We’ll troubleshoot soon,” Tilda says.

“I was talking to Schumann.”

“Do you mean my new friend Reasons with His Fists here?” she asks.

“Yes,” Schumann says, “who is this Schumann you keep referring to?”

“Don’t encourage him,” Coffen says to her.

“I’m a gal hoping to take a relaxing ride with a friend.”

“He has a family.”

“And I have a daughter, who’s partial to living in Roy’s car.”

Making zero headway with Tilda, Bob turns his attention to Schumann, saying, “What about your wife?”

He revs the engine.

“You’re not seriously about to drive off,” Coffen says.

Then Schumann seriously drives off with Tilda giddy in the passenger seat.

A couple of pickling rocket scientists

Bob Coffen’s been journeying toward intoxication and he’s arrived at it. He’s—as the bar’s name publicizes—empirely wasted.

Schumann and Tilda have been gone now for half an hour. The bar is filling up. French Kiss is due to perform soon. Bob is alone, feels dusted in fluorescent orange. Like the artificial stuff is contagious and everyone’s keeping their distance. Don’t shake his hand, keep clear when he coughs. Otherwise, you might contract your own case, leaving you an estranged laughing stock. Too pitiful for pity. Too predictable for surprise.

The evening’s mission to go out and live a little is turning out to be a failure. Maybe he’s best at building games, best sequestered from the rest of humankind. Best suited for weekend dad status. Best living in a condo in Memphis. Best letting Gotthorm train his children in preparation for adulthood. He thinks about Ace’s guitar string snapping, how things break if you’re not watching out. What did Bob expect? Who’d been making sure things weren’t about to snap in his family?