Fight Song A Novel - By Joshua Mohr Page 0,3

he should just go home. Maybe he should err on the side of caution. Maybe he should go lick his wounds and try again tomorrow.

A meteorologist might call the conditions an unusually warm night.

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