Fight Song (11 page)
Björn gets out of the SUV and says to Bob, “Look, I’m trying to be understanding. You fell through the ice. You’re obviously having some kind of psychotic break induced by your wheezing marriage. Like I said, I went off the rails when my wife left me. But do me a favor and try to make this the dumbest thing you ever do. And appreciate my incredible empathy. Most men would not be cool about this. The world already has plenty of psychotics. Get your shit together.”
“I don’t think I’m psychotic,” Coffen says.
“Would you consider yourself more of a recreational kidnapper?” Björn asks.
“Okay, okay,” Bob says. “You’re not seeing me at my best. But thank you for your mercy.”
“I’m going to teach little Schu to throw a spiral tonight,” Schumann says.
Björn says to Coffen while he points at Schumann, “You shouldn’t spend time with that guy. I can tell you have at least one redeeming quality, maybe two. But that guy’s off his rocker.”
“Off my pigskin rocker.”
“Here’s one last trick,” Björn says, “to show I have a heart and won’t kick a man who’s in the middle of a midlife crisis. Look in your jacket pocket.”
Coffen does as he’s told, and there are two tickets to Björn’s intermediate show on Sunday evening: the night Step 2 is laid out for all in attendance.
“How did you do that?” Bob asks.
“I’ll never tell.”
“Why would you help me after what we did?”
“Please, I did something much worse than you when my wife left me.” Björn shakes his head. “It’s all so fragile, right? I mean, we’re all so fragile.”
The magician walks away from the SUV and Coffen thinks:
We are brittle beings, easily breakable, buried under circumstances.
Maybe these circumstances snow down in flurries, except the flakes are made of fluorescent orange, the bright color pocking Bob’s skin so everyone knows how lost he is. He staggers the streets slathered in the stuff, a fluorescent orange monster making things worse.
It had been a silent ride home, post-Björn. Coffen couldn’t find any words to talk about how disappointed he was in himself so he stewed in self-disgust, every now and again basting every bit of his psyche in the juice of Jane walking out of the ballroom, leaving him alone on their
thin ice
. Schumann couldn’t do much of anything except drive well under the posted speed limit and periodically peep to himself, “Little Schu … little Schu … little Schu … ”
Now, he drops Coffen off at home, and Bob’s scourge of a mother-in-law is out on the front steps, waiting for him with her wicked, diabetic smile. She drums her fingers on her knee.
Erma says to Bob, “It’s my esteemed honor to alert you that you are not welcome here until after Jane goes for the world record. And, maybe, you might not be welcomed back then, either.”
“Wait, what?”
“For now, assume you can come back after her record attempt. Probably.”
“That’s not until Monday.”
“What’s that thing around your neck?”
“It’s a dental bib.”
“Why?”
“Long story.”
“We think it’s best for Jane if she’s not burdened with the sights or sounds of you.”
“Who’s ‘we’?”
“Me, Jane, and Gotthorm.”
“You, Jane, and Gotthorm.”
“Yes, we’re concerned that your being is like an anchor around her neck. You pull her to the bottom of the pool.”
“I’m not an anchor.”
“Agree to disagree, Bob.”
“Can I please talk to her? I’ll leave right after, but I need to talk to her, explain what happened back there at the magic show.”
“She made it crystal clear that speaking with you is the last itty-bitty thing on earth she wants to do.”
“Where am I supposed to go?”
“Motels are lovely this time of year,” says Erma. “Entire guidebooks are devoted to their panoramic beauty.”
“Can I get some things first?”
She hands Coffen a plastic bag with his toothbrush, no toothpaste, nothing else at all.
“What about clothes?” he whines. “I’m still wet.”
“I’ll bring a suitcase by your office on Monday, before she goes for the record.”
“It’s Friday night. What am I supposed to wear?”
“Don’t raise your voice with me.”
“Can I at least see the kids?”
“Of course. They’re obviously asleep now, but you can see them this weekend. Call me first. We think notice is important. We are advocates of respected boundaries.”
“Listen, I know you don’t unconditionally love me,” says Bob.
“We do not love you.”
“But I’m the father of your grandchildren.”
“Uh-huh,” Erma says, a look on her face like Bob’s asking for directions to a destination that she feels like keeping secret.
“Yeah, I’m scared she might make me permanently move out of our house.”
“Uh-huh,” she says.
Coffen knows he’s not going to win, says, “Can you grab one other thing for me from inside the house?”
“You’re sure pushing your luck right now.”
“Sorry, I need it for work. It’s sitting in the downstairs hallway. It’s a kind of clock with an engraving on it.”
“I saw that.”
“Can you grab it for me? I need it for this project I’m working on.”
“Fine,” she says, going in and coming back out of the house in under twenty seconds. She hands the plock to him and says, “We appreciate you stopping by.”
Coffen puts the plastic bag with his toothbrush in his pocket, clutches the plock, and walks toward his car. Driving with his hurt shoulder isn’t ideal, but it’s better than dealing with Schumann right now—his athletically inspired help would only make Bob feel worse, as would his quiet woeful murmurings, “Little Schu … little Schu … ”
Besides, Bob needs to talk to somebody who will listen to him and Schumann doesn’t fit that description. Who does in Bob’s life? Jane is the only person he’s confided in since they’ve been married. He has old friends, sure, but nobody he feels comfortable calling up out of the blue. He’s on his own, he guesses. On his own to figure out how to clean all this fluorescent orange off him.
Bob’s first stop is Taco Shed. It’s after midnight and he’s never been here so late, though this is his favorite fast food, a lunchtime staple. He turns into the drive-through, only one car in front of him up at the intercom.
A couple storefronts down in the strip mall, he sees two people polishing a statue of the Buddha out front of a temple that used to be a SportsZone. Why they’re doing this task so late, he’ll never know, but give them credit: Even at this time of night, the shine they’re whipping up on the deity is impressive.
Waiting patiently …
But two minutes becomes three …
Becomes five.
And five minutes waiting behind one vehicle in a Taco Shed drive-through is unheard of, especially because Bob is steeped in this particular drive-through’s traffic patterns as only a top-notch connoisseur can be. His enthusiasm for Mexican lasagnas makes Coffen conspicuous around Taco Shed—he sometimes goes there more than once a day. He gets self-conscious when he doubles-up his greasy treks, which makes him bashful around the employees, assuming that once he motors off they all gossip about the sad man with a tapeworm that can only be sated on a steady diet of Mexican lasagnas.
He toots the horn, which gets a whole heap of nothing as a response. He rolls down his window and says, “What are you doing up there?”
Another horn toot produces zilch, and Coffen sees nary another option but to do some reconnaissance work.
Throw the car in park.
Wing open the door.
Approach the inexplicably idling vehicle.
Coffen sees a guy in the driver’s seat passed out cold, sleeping with a whiskey bottle wedged in his crotch and $20 bills scattered about. What he hears, however, is a woman’s scratchy voice coming from the drive-through intercom, saying, “Well, Otis, I got my panties down at my ankles and I’m ready to be mounted. Mount me, Otis! Mount me something fierce!”
Safe to say this stops Coffen dead in his famished tracks.
More from the scratchy raw lady voice coming sexily from the intercom: “Otis, I like my men to yank my hair a bit when they come up from behind. You gonna yank my hair and drive me crazy, Otis, you old goat?”
Bob shakes Otis, who isn’t big on answering or moving, but is sleeping soundly with some spittle dripping from his mouth. Shakes him once more for good measure and the scratchy raw lady voice says, “Otis, I’m waiting for your hard taco meat to slide in my wet taco shell!”
“Hello?” Coffen says to her.
“Who the hell’s that?” says the lady without much friskiness behind these words.
“A paying customer who’s hungry.”
Then the voice pauses, makes some phony computer beeping noises, and finally says in a robot voice, “We are experiencing some technical difficulties with this intercom system. For example, unofficial messages totally unaffiliated with this fine establishment have been mysteriously beamed here from places unknown, maybe outer space, and please keep in mind that the words currently reaching your eardrums from this malfunctioning intercom system have not been approved by any sanctioning body. We hope
to have this situation remedied quickly and are so sorry for the inconvenience.”
More phony computer beeping noises.
“You’re not fooling anybody,” Coffen says.
A dramatic exhale from her and then, “Otis, you know the rules. You can’t bring any friends along.”
“Pardon me,” Coffen says to her. “I can’t order because this drunk is asleep in his car.”
The scratchy lady voice sighs. “Not again.”
“Not again?”
“Hold up a minute,” she says.
Coffen looks at Otis, poor guy grabbing some shut-eye at the drive-through intercom. Life could be worse, right? At least Bob doesn’t binge-drink and go dead to the world getting intercom hanky-panky at Taco Shed.
He says to Otis, “Looks like you’re going to have to jerk it the old-fashioned way tonight, my friend.”
Still nothing from the narcotized Casanova.
Then the back door opens and a woman with gargantuan muscles spilling from her official uniform storms out. Her nametag says Tilda. Coffen has seen this woman many times before and is always impressed with her many muscles, like a bodybuilder. She’s probably fifty years old and too tanned and Coffen feels thankful not to be Otis yanking Tilda’s hair and mounting her from behind.
“Hey, I know you,” says Tilda.
Coffen actually blushes. Jane is doing her best to break the world’s treading-water record and Bob is poised to be the first human to munch one million Mexican lasagnas. “I know you too.”
“You’re here all the time.”
“Not all the time.”
“Yeah, you’re the
capitán
of Mexican lasagnas,” she says with a Spanish flare.
If it’s possible, Bob blushes even more. “I guess I am.”
“
Capitán
, I’d like to apologize,” Tilda says, “for this strange man that I’ve never seen before sitting in his car, obviously inebriated. This is an injustice and on behalf of Taco Shed, I’d like to prepare you a complimentary gourmet meal.” She puts a muscled paw through Otis’s window and gives him a spank on the face, very hard, and Otis stirs awake and stretches with surprise. “Get out of here, you strange stranger,” Tilda says. “Get out of here before I alert the proper authorities to your inebriated state of mind. You are a public nuisance, and I’m aghast by this strange stranger’s actions!”