Fight Song (5 page)
Coffen gets winded as he continues to give the business to the imaginary dog while talking.
“Dude, that’s disgusting,” the mouth-breather says, smiling, “and I would play it all day, every day, until I died.”
“What about the rest of you?” Dumper asks the remaining team members.
“I’d totally play that!”
“It’s awesome!”
“My friends are gonna love this filth!”
“What’s it called, Coffen?”
Bob grins, plunges aimlessly into the invisible pet. “Scroo Dat Pooch,” he calls out, and the juniors clap.
One of them says, “Dude is a genius.”
“He was just hibernatin’ since Disemboweler.”
Another: “It’s like watching da Vinci paint a masterpiece.”
“The bestiality
Mona Lisa
!”
“Jesus, stop gyrating like that,” Dumper says to Bob.
Bob concludes his coital parade, sags back down into his beanbag. His head hurts. It feels good to make a mockery of this, good to suggest something so far over the line that despite the enthusiasm of the juniors, Dumper has no choice but to say no chance in hell. Edgy’s one thing, but this idea is too taboo.
But apparently, there is chance in hell.
Apparently, Coffen hasn’t been making a mockery of
anything, at least not to the only person whose opinion on the subject matters: the Great One. Dumper reels his tongue back in his mouth, says, “Build a test level, Bob. I want to see how it plays.”
“Are you sure?” Coffen says.
“I’m not sure. But I’m window-shopping, snooping in the store. Now grab the bull by the horns and make the final sale. Can you do that for me?”
“I can try.”
“DG needs this. Our doors are getting itchy trigger fingers for some closage. Don’t let that happen. Now say it with some enthusiasm: Can you make the final sale to this window-shopper and appease our moody doors?”
“Bob is me,” Bob says, dejected—he can’t even sabotage his job correctly.
“Scroo Dat Pooch,” Dumper says. “Now that’s funny. Sick, but funny. No guarantees we’ll continue with it, but I’d like to see what it looks like. This might be a new direction not only for DG, but your titles, Coffen. You’ve never done anything comic before. This might be your renaissance.”
“That’s a reasonable suggestion,” says Bob.
“Get something rough together for next Monday’s status meeting.”
“That’s not much time.”
“It’s not. But you’re a pro’s pro. Make it happen.”
Dumper and the juniors skedaddle from the conference room, leaving Bob alone on his beanbag. He stays like that for some time.
Bob’s time of beanbag contemplation is interrupted when he sees his wife’s face pressed up against the glass of the conference room. Jane’s braids are wet; she must have come here straight from the high-priced gym where she trains. She’s working toward breaking the world record for treading water, which is currently at eighty-five hours. Her personal best is fifty-nine hours straight.
She eyeballs Bob through the glass. There’s something unusual about her expression that Coffen can’t exactly get a bead on. He assumes it’s a face much like the Native Americans must have worn toward the early Pilgrims: curiosity and apprehension and pity.
Seeing Jane in an office environment reminds Bob of where they’d first met. He worked at a company building web-platform games, ones to be downloaded and installed locally on users’ hard drives. She worked in the customer service department. Bob made up all kinds of asinine reasons to trundle over to CS and bug her. He’d feign interest in the customers’ problems solely to talk to her, hoping to grow the confidence to ask her out.
He waited a long time for that mysterious confidence to swell, but it never did. He was too much of a pussy.
The other guys on his team happily reminded him that he should let it go, no chance in hell he’d ever ask, and even if he did, what was the probability of Jane wanting to date Bob? In the end, he decided to build her something, knew that if he had a shot with her it would be in a different world than this one. He worked round the clock for three days building it and then emailed her the zipped files with instructions for how to install the HTML on her system to get into this new world he’d constructed for them.
The email only said:
Jane, please meet me in here tonight at 10:30.
He sat at home, slugging Coke from a two-liter, and waiting like an antsy child who needs to take a leak but is stuck in the backseat of the family sedan. Waiting and feeling stupid for doing all this. She wasn’t going to show. Why would she show? No doubt she could do better than a bloated coder.
It was 10:33.
On his computer screen, Bob’s avatar stood alone in the world he’d built. He designed the avatar to look like himself, save for a smaller waistline. The avatar was on the left-hand side of the screen, standing next to an elaborate maze. There was an Italian restaurant on the other side of it.
At 10:35 Coffen finished the two-liter of soda, which means he consumed the whole thing in a little over twenty minutes. His kidneys were not thrilled with the carbonated poison pumping through them.
I’ll wait until 10:45
, Bob thought.
And if that’s not enough time for her, I’ll wait until five in the morning, but not a minute longer!
It didn’t come to that.
At 10:39, Jane’s avatar popped onto the screen: It was a spitting image of her. The braids on her head. The yellow cardigan she always wore to the office. The black-rimmed glasses.
I’m here!
her avatar said in a chat bubble.
Sorry I’m late. Traffic on the highway was out of hand! Bumper to bumper.
Was there an overturned big rig blocking your path?
Toxic chemical spill.
I hope its noxious fumes didn’t infect you with a secret government-cultivated disease.
That’s a sweet thing to say.
I’m a gentleman.
Where are we?
We’re on a date. Are you hungry?
Starved!
Let’s go dig in.
Their avatars entered the maze. It took about ten minutes for them to stumble through it, making small talk the whole time, finally arriving at the restaurant. Once their avatars touched the shape of the restaurant’s exterior, the background changed. Now they were inside the restaurant, sitting at a table.
Do you like grilled calamari?
Bob’s avatar said.
The chef here is known for it.
When I was a little girl, a two-ton squid escaped from the zoo. It crawled in my window and hid under my bed. I kept it alive on saltwater taffy.
That squid is lucky it found you.
It’s a blessing and a curse, though. Now every single squid that escapes the ocean tries to track me down. It’s a headache.
LOL!
A robust, tan, mustachioed man came and took their order. Soon steaming piles of food appeared on their table. The avatars ate everything up.
After the meal, they sat at the table smoking cigarettes.
Jane said,
I like how these cigarettes don’t make my breath bad.
Your breath is superb.
You’re a smooth talker in this place, aren’t you?
No, I just like you.
I didn’t know you wanted to ask me out.
Bob’s avatar tamped out his cigarette.
I’m shy.
Me too. But you don’t need to be shy around me. I like you. You do?
Everybody at work does! You build the best games. I mean, look where we are right now! You’re amazing.
Thanks for meeting me here tonight.
Any time! I’m going to go get some sleep,
Jane said.
I have a CS meeting at eight tomorrow. Will you miss me until we’re at work together?
Of course.
Make sure and give the waiter a big tip. He did a phenomenal job.Bye, Bob! Thanks for doing this for me.
Hold on. My credit card was rejected. Do you have any traveler’s checks or something to pay the bill?
LMAO
Good night, Jane.
XOXO
The next day at work, there was a piece of saltwater taffy sitting next to Bob’s keyboard when he got there. He couldn’t decide if he wanted to eat it or keep it forever. Then a chat window popped up on Coffen’s screen. It was Jane.
Want to go out for lunch? I’m in the mood for calamari
I know a great place
, said Bob.
I mean, real calamari. Let’s me and you go out to lunch together.
Awesome!
And that was it. They had lunch. Then they had more meals. Nobody in the office could believe it. None of the other programmers understood how or why Jane had chosen Bob, and frankly Coffen didn’t much understand it himself. But he didn’t care. No reason to question such luck.
Then after about ten dates, they kissed. Slowly, they fell in love. Slowly, they decided to get married and have kids.
And now, here Bob is, staring at her through the glass.