Fight Song A Novel - By Joshua Mohr Page 0,46
boy says.
Ace only smiles at him and continues: “I’m another person getting by who’s trying to do my best. But I’ve done hard living, which has taught me that when something makes you smile, that’s what really matters. Like they say, life is short and life can be hard, but you and me, we make the world better for each other. I promise to always try to do that. I’ll never quit trying to make you happy, and I’ll always try to provide for you. I love your son.”
“I’m not calling you dad,” says the boy.
“Shhh,” Kat says to him.
“Never call me dad, dude,” Ace says. “But let’s be friends, okay?”
The boy looks away.
“I love this band,” Ace says. “I’m even starting to love my new friend, Bob. So here we all are in a room that stinks like puke, but that’s the way the world is, right? No matter how happy you are, things are never ideal. There’s always a catch. At least there always is for normal people. Maybe millionaires have it better. Who knows? But we’re the normal people, and normal people make do with what the world gives them. We are happy no matter how the room smells.”
“Oh, Ace,” she says.
“I’m serious, my queen. No matter how the room smells we’ll be happy. I know without any doubt that I want to spend the rest of my life with you. Let’s go mano a mano versus the world together. I will love you and your son for all time. Will you make me the happiest Ace in the whole deck?”
“My dad’s condo has a huge deck,” the boy says.
“Stop it,” Kat says to him. “This is what I want.”
“What about what I want?” the boy asks.
“I hope you can be happy for me,” she says. “I love you. Your dad loves you. Ace loves you. All of that makes you a lucky boy.”
He doesn’t say anything.
Kat looks at kneeling Ace, who says, “Will you please marry me before the rest of my hair falls out?”
“I can’t wait to marry you.”
He slides the ring on her finger.
He stands.
They smooch, hug each other.
To Bob, the boy sort of looks happy, whether he wants to or not.
French Kiss starts clapping and howling. Each member pushes in and hugs Ace and Kat and the boy.
There Bob Coffen is, humbled and alive and speechless. This is what he wants; this is what he needs—to answer his wife’s dental bib. For if a motivating force is what she requires to swim against the sweeping, raging current of their complicated life, isn’t the best thing Coffen can offer her what Ace has said to Kat: to be happy no matter how the room smells?
“Aren’t you going to tell us congratulations, Bobby-boy?” Ace is asking.
“Can I hug, too?” Coffen asks.
“Get in here,” Ace says.
Bob shuts his eyes and feels their bodies in his wide arms.
“We are happy as clams,” Ace says.
“You got that right,” Kat says.
“My man?” Ace says to the boy.
The kid nods—no small victory.
“Sorry you didn’t get to gig tonight,” Kat says to the whole band, but mostly to her newly anointed fiancé. “I know you were excited.”
“It’s more than fine,” Ace says to her. “Especially since we might still be able to salvage the gig.”
“How?” the French singer asks.
Ace looks at Coffen, all of them still tangled in a hug.
Picking fights with sorcerers
Who’s to say that Javier actually needs to be Javier? The band only needs someone to stand there like a fool and pretend to play the bass, amp never getting turned on. They dress Coffen like an official member, make him up as an exact replica. He likes the face paint a lot. Then they mount the stage and Bob embarks upon his world premiere, a quasi-Javier, a bassist roaming the limelight.
When he first hits the stage, his feet begin to tingle, then his hands. His vision gets all spotty around the edges and Bob thinks he’s going to pass out from nerves. He makes eye contact with Ace, who must see the panic in his eyes because, like a savvy veteran, he saunters over to Bob and says, “For the next forty-five minutes, we are rock gods.” Coffen keeps his eyes shut for the whole first song, pretty much staying in one place, not getting into the performance too much. But when he hears the audience scream, when he hears all the heads present clap and whistle and hoot, Coffen opens his eyes and smiles.
Slowly, he test-drives the