Fight Song A Novel - By Joshua Mohr Page 0,52
wonder my daughter lives in a car with a bun in the oven. No wonder she loves that loser. Look at the example I set. Jesus, will you stop swinging him by his tail?”
Bob stops swinging him by his tail, stows him on his shoulder once more.
“On the off chance I did screw that mouse last night, treat him with a little respect, will ya?”
Now Schumann pipes up a bit on his own behalf, squeaking and peeping. Both humans look at the wee quarterback. Tilda even nods a couple times as though she understands his rodent dialect.
“Maybe that is Reasons with His Fists,” she says, “but either way, this is a restaurant, and I can’t harbor a rodent here. If the health department found out, I’d lose my job. You’re on your own.”
“I understand,” Coffen says, not understanding at all—wait a hot damn sec: She runs an intercom-sex operation out of this joint but is worried about boarding a mouse for a few hours?
“Did he say anything nice about me?” Tilda asks.
“What?”
“I’m not saying he is a mouse. But for the sake of argument, before he got turned into that thing, did he say any nice stuff?”
“Tilda, he raved about you.”
She smiled. “Thanks. I don’t even care if you’re lying. Would you like a Mexican lasagna for the road?”
“I’d love one.”
She disappears into the back for a couple minutes, comes back out with it. “Will you eat it here?”
“I have to run.”
“Stay a couple more minutes and eat. It’s the least you can do after waving that mouse around and telling me I took it to bed.”
They make small talk, bicker some, stay away from any more direct discussions about wee Schumann shelved on Bob’s shoulder. It only takes about six bites to choke down the Mexican lasagna. Coffen should chew more when he eats. If he doesn’t want to do it for his digestive tract, then he should do it for anybody forced to watch the splattering pageantry in person.
Then he and Schumann walk out front to depart Da Taco Shed.
Coffen barely has time to unlock his car when Tilda throws the restaurant’s door open and comes tearing into the parking lot after him, screaming, “I need to ask you a couple questions, Bob.”
“Of course.”
“Is that mouse on your shoulder my lover, Reasons with His Fists, a.k.a. your neighbor, Schumann?”
“Why are you asking me that?”
“Please answer the question.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Tell me.”
Coffen nods. “Yes, I think this mouse is maybe Schumann.”
Tilda stares at Coffen’s face. She’s staring at his face in such a way it’s making him really uncomfortable.
“What are you doing?” he asks, growing more alarmed with every second of her measured appraisal.
“Watching your nose.”
“Why?”
“For blood.”
“Why would I have a bloody nose?”
“I chopped up a Scout’sHonor!® and laced your Mexican lasagna.”
“What’s Scout’sHonor!®?” Coffen asks.
“It’s a pill. An over-the-counter truth serum.”
“That’s a real thing?”
“Tell a lie while you’re on it,” Tilda says, “and a pond of blood will rip-roar from your nose.”
“How long has that been on the market?”
“Let’s stay focused on the questions about Schumann.”
“Is it FDA-approved?”
“If you don’t wanna tell me the truth from your mouth, your nose will tell me what I need to know,” says Tilda.
“Why’d you lace my lasagna?”
“I have to know the truth. So please say it once more: Is that mouse really my lover, Reasons with His Fists, a.k.a. your neighbor, Schumann?”
Bob doesn’t know how to answer that. His head says no, of course not. His heart says, I doubt it but it is the tiniest bit conceivable, after Bob saw Björn morph the ballroom floor into ice baths. In a sense it doesn’t matter what he thinks about the likelihood of Schumann’s mouse status. It’s up to Scout’sHonor!®.
Bob decides to go with his heart: “Yeah, I’m pretty sure the mouse is Schumann.”
“I need a definitive answer.”
“It’s him.”
She ogles Bob’s nose, which stays bone dry. Tilda looks surprised. So does Coffen. Then once she’s convinced that there’s nary a deception on the premises, Tilda says, “Now that I know for certain you’re not lying, I’m happy to baby-sit.”
“Maybe the truth serum doesn’t work,” says Bob.
“I don’t know if I can believe your story, and I certainly don’t believe that hustling magician. But I’ve used Scout’sHonor!® many times on many men and I know that it works like a charm.
“Life is getting weirder,” she says, taking the mouse from Bob, holding her palms flat so Schumann can nose around, walk in little circles, tickle with his whiskers. She brings him up close to her