Fight Song (3 page)
If Bob had built this, if this current scenario were one of Coffen’s video games, then this would be the final level. You won the whole thing if you conquered the neighborhood bane. You got fifty thousand bonus points if you decapitated him. You were labeled the “Subdivision Badass.” The
surviving neighborhood dads basked in your splendor at the barbecues, their wives all randy for you, swooning each time the winner, Bob Coffen, came by the house returning tent poles.
This isn’t a video game, though. Unfortunately not. This is Bob Coffen fresh off falling from his bike, almost being rammed into the oleanders. This is Bob nursing a suspect clavicle and ribs from landing on the plock. This is Bob deciding to swallow another snort of pride and limp home defeated.
Yet right as he’s about to surrender, there’s a noise coming from inside Schumann’s house. This is a noise Bob knows.
Screechy.
Mewling.
High-pitched.
It’s bagpipes.
Yup, those are bagpipes coming from Schumann’s.
And the spot of pride-swallowing that has been slowly working its way down Coffen’s esophagus gets thwarted, deemed irrelevant. He can’t go home. No way. He can’t pretend that this never happened, Schumann leaving him in the street like roadkill.
These brash bagpipes push Coffen to retaliate. Here he is bleeding on the grass. Here he is bleeding and Schumann is in there merrily bagpiping songs for his family? Here Bob is feeling so alone in his life, feeling so separated from his own wife and kids, and the Schumanns are happily huddled by the hearth appreciating a bagpipe recital? And why had it been so easy for Schumann to abandon Bob in the street back there? Why was it so easy for people to abandon Bob Coffen? First his father had walked out, then the few girlfriends he had throughout his twenties, and
now he and Jane had wilted into the ultimate cliché—a sexless marriage. They had a life much like the subdivision itself: walled off from everything, even each other.
All these things inspire an elegant gush of rage in Coffen. He notices an American flag that hangs from a silly stick outside the château, and he thinks that maybe he can indeed think about this as a video game—maybe the hero can snatch the skinny flagpole. Maybe he can position himself in front of the huge picture window in Schumann’s living room—maybe this hero can pull back his arm to heave the patriotic javelin, the American flag whipping behind it—maybe Bob Coffen is in fact this hero.
He feels the bruised clavicle burn even though he’s using the opposite arm to throw the javelin, not that the agony much matters, no way, because nothing’s going to keep Coffen from doing this.
He watches the javelin sail, the flag waggling behind it.
Bob watches and admires his toss as it glides toward the window.
Watches its trajectory and thinks:
The HOA will not be impressed with what’s transpiring on one of its hallowed lawns
. Bob thinks,
I might be stepping in some serious shit, but oh boy, does sticking up for myself feel good.
Yes, if this were a video game, the picture window explodes!
Sure, if this were a video game, Bob’s well on his way to winning.
But in Coffen’s reality, his aim isn’t such great shakes. His javelin misses the huge picture window. Misses it badly. His heave is over near the front door and knocks off a flowerpot that’s suspended from a support beam. It shatters on the porch.
The sounds of breaking terra-cotta halt Schumann’s bagpipe recital. Commotion in the douche’s lair. Footsteps stomping, dead bolt turning, and any second Coffen will hear a stampede through the door, and the featured brawl can commence, pitting the underdog versus Notre Dame.
Schumann opens the front door, holding his bagpipes, spies Coffen out on the lawn. He yells back into the house for his wife and kids to stay put, he’ll handle this.
It’s only Bob
. Then he says in a calm voice, “Your head’s bleeding pretty good.”
Coffen nods.
“Look,” Schumann says, “let’s not make things any worse.”
“You can’t smear me into the oleanders.”
“Seriously, your head is pouring blood.”
“And my shoulder’s hurt, too.”
“I’ll take you to the hospital.”
Coffen stares at the bagpipes, limp in Schumann’s arms like a sleeping toddler. Bob wipes some blood from his face and asks, “What song were you playing before?”
“Huh?”
“What song was that?”
“The fight song of my alma mater. Called ‘Hail Purdue.’”
“A fight song?”
“Our call to arms.”
Having fought for something—having fought for himself—Bob feels like he needs to hear the song in its entirety. He fancies himself victorious in this situation with Schumann, despite the mangled bicycle, the bleeding head—despite the fact he’s only hours removed from somebody honoring him with a plock, probably the most malicious prize ever designed. Always midnight. Always
lying about how much time has gotten away from him. Always Robert.
“Before we go to the hospital, will you fire it up again?” Coffen says.
“Why?”
“I want to hear the song.”
Schumann looks momentarily confused, then shrugs. He gets the bagpipes going, those gigantic, funereal squawks. Coffen stands on the lawn listening to “Hail Purdue” coat the whole subdivision in celebration. For some reason, Coffen has brought his hand up and placed it over his heart like he’s pledging allegiance to something.
Bob initially hated how the bagpipes squawked, but soon the sounds transform into the most beautiful music ever, and Coffen is mesmerized, burrowing deep into the fight song’s melody. He’s heard people talk about experiencing things so perfect, so sating, that they feel they can die happy right then. Finally, he understands the meaning of such righteous hyperbole. It’s a moment nude of any other details, life freezing momentarily—much like the plock’s hands—and it’s only Bob, inside the fight song, finding solace in the idea he can stand up for himself. Sounds simple, easy, obvious to a certain kind of person: Of course you should stand up for yourself; you’re supposed to do that. But for somebody emotionally programmed with a three-thousand-pound inferiority complex, like Coffen, this act of resistance is a major coup.
Being imbedded inside “Hail Purdue” doesn’t last long, though. Before Schumann launches into the fight song’s final chorus—
Bam! Knock! Splat!—
down Coffen crashes onto the lawn, out cold, hand falling from his heart.
Next thing Bob sees is Schumann’s missus hovering over him, saying, “We can rule out death because I think he’s breathing. Are you breathing? I think I see him breathing probably.”
“I’m not,” Coffen says.
“Not breathing?”
“Not dead.”
“Obviously,” she says, “we’re in the midst of conversing.”
Next thing Coffen remembers after that is being in the SUV with Schumann, driving down the main road in the subdivision.
“Stay with me, muchacho. Schumann shall save the day.”
“I don’t need you to save my day.”
“I want to save your day.”
“Do you know I’ve fantasized for years about hurting you?” Bob asks.
“That’s what I’m talking about!” Schumann says, taking his hands off the wheel and clapping a few times—slow, awestruck applause. “I love it! Who would have thought you had violence in you. I feel a new kinship to you, Coffen. Dare I say I like you after you threw that flagpole and admitted you want to kick my ass! You’re a possessed warrior tonight. ‘In the zone,’ as Coach used to say. Honestly, I see you in a whole new light. One that makes me deeply respect you. I have a business proposition, my friend.”
“We aren’t friends,” says Coffen.
“I think we might be now.”
“You’re always making fun of me at our block parties.”
“It’s nothing personal. Comic relief helps everyone relax at those things.”
“I don’t find it particularly relaxing when everybody thinks I’m a pussy.”
“Don’t be so thin-skinned.”
“You told the guys I couldn’t play touch football because of my yeast infection,” says Coffen.
Schumann tries to repress a giggle, but it slips out. “That’s your standard locker room razz.”
“This isn’t a locker room. This is real life.”
“Real life is a gigantic locker room, Coffen,” he says, laughing harder.
They’ve turned out of their subdivision, driving down the road with the oleander. Coffen sees his wrecked bike, his rucksack, and says, “Pull over.”
“Why?”
“I need my plock.”
“That’s not a word.”
“I need my plock to remind me not to give up another decade.”
“Maybe your tongue is swelling from injury and I can’t decipher your slurred speech.”
“I’ll show you.”
Schumann pulls the SUV into the bike lane and Coffen hops out, retrieves his newly received anniversary present, jumps back in the vehicle.
“Oh, you meant ‘clock,’” Schumann says.
“No, plock.”
“Man, you really hit your head hard.”
“You hit my head hard. You tried to ram me with your car, prick.”
“Look, I shouldn’t have run you toward that oleander.”
“You think?”
“It’s my damn competitive streak. I want to win the whole world.”
“You could have seriously injured me.”
“Coach used to say I take things too far.”
“He’s right.”
“He used to punish me after practice, and you should,
too. It’s the only way I learn. Do you want to ram me with my car so we’re even?”
“What?”
“Then we’d be fair and square, except technically I never rammed you with my car. Technically, I only
almost
rammed you. But I can overlook this inconsistency. I can take one ramming for our team. Don’t go faster than my speed from earlier—seven miles per hour.”
“You’re saying I can hit you with this SUV right now?”
“Only if you want to. There’s no obligation. If you don’t feel up to it, I’m totally fine with that.”
“No,” Bob says. “I’d like very much to hit you with a car.”
“And then we’re even.”
“Why would you do this?”
“Psycho Schumann’s not doing anything. You’re doing something.” Schumann opens his door. He walks in front of the SUV, stops about fifteen feet down the road.
Coffen crawls over the console and into the driver’s seat, plock riding shotgun.
He looks at Schumann standing out there in the headlights.
Looks and thinks about how rare it is when a fantasy comes true: Bob’s secret yearnings to inflict pain on his subdivision foe are about to be realized.
He revs the engine.
“I am not afraid of anything,” Schumann says. “I’d take a grizzly bear’s temperature rectally. I’d tickle Sasquatch’s ass with a feather.”
“You ready?” Bob asks.
“Are you ready?”
“I can’t wait,” says Coffen.
He means it—or really, Bob
wants
to mean it. A certain
part of Coffen is excited by the impending violence, but unfortunately, that faction of his psyche is outweighed by a more empathic caucus, a body of voices all whispering the same thing in his head:
You can’t do this. No matter what, this is a road too low for you. Don’t go down to this disgusting level
.
“Hut, hut, hike!” Schumann says, eyes closed, arms flexed.
But the SUV doesn’t move, continuing to idle.
“I can’t do it,” Bob says.
“What?” Schumann says, his eyes still closed.
“I can’t ram you, even though I really want to ram you.”
“Why can’t you?”
“I’m not insane.”
Schumann lopes back to the driver’s door; Coffen climbs back over into the passenger seat, holds the plock in his lap. Schumann starts driving and says, “I think I can coach you, Coffen.”
“How’s that?”
“Imagine you’re on a football team and you get a new special teammate. Imagine that every player on the opposing team is not on steroids, and they are sort of weaklings, staggering around and not really doing very good out on the field. And this new special teammate of yours is on steroids and sculpted like a Roman statue and having him on your team is going to guarantee a stampede into the play-offs. Does this sound like the kind of teammate you might want on your side?”