Fight Song A Novel - By Joshua Mohr Page 0,59
that he’s completely famished and asks if he can have a Mexican lasagna. Nobody objects, so he takes Coffen’s straight out of his hands and digs in, signals that he’s going to wait for everyone outside so he can try and think straight about this. Tilda altruistically volunteers to keep him company in the morning light—no doubt to test his memory of all she said to him while babysitting. He chomps away and Coffen watches her give him quite a speech. It makes Bob kind of sad, actually, thinking about Tilda pleading to her former mouse man, trying to make him want what she so badly wants.
“Good-bye,” Björn says to Bob once the others are outside, finally removing his shades. His cheeks are dry. Moustache flattened on one half. “It’s been interesting.”
“You’re not crying … ”
“Not after the show last night. I’m done bending over backward for people. The world is full of ingrates.”
“Magic is hard for us.”
“Why?”
“I’m trying to turn over a new leaf and believe, but it’s hard.”
“Turn it over,” says Björn. “Being a know-it-all is a terrible way to go through your life.”
“I’m trying.”
“What’s the holdup?”
It’s all so much for Coffen to take, to accept, to change years of his thinking. He never before has believed in magic, so why all of a sudden does he want to? And where’s the valve on the parts of himself that don’t want to believe? How can he turn them off, leaving only the open-minded parts of Bob? The ones that believe in Jane’s chances to break the world record. Believe in Björn’s dark arts prowess.
“Hello?” Björn says. “I asked what the holdup is.”
“I’m probably the holdup.”
“Do you want one more trick to prove I’m the real deal?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay, this one will knock your socks off. This one will prove beyond any reasonable doubt that I am who I say I am.”
“When’s it going to happen?”
Björn laughs. “Stay tuned and keep your eyes open. I’m leaving this skid mark of sprawl one last spectacle. Do you like rainbows?”
“Rainbows?”
“Keep your eyes peeled,” he says, then limps toward Taco Shed’s door, putting on his sunglasses. He looks back at Bob and says, “I hope you turn over that leaf.”
“Me, too.”
Björn doesn’t say anything to either Tilda or Schumann as he makes his way to his rental car. He speeds off.
Coffen makes his way outside, too.
“Can you drop me off at home?” Schumann says to Coffen.
“I’ll drive you home, sweetie,” Tilda offers.
“Thanks, but no. Bob and I need to talk about some stuff,” he says.
“Don’t we need to talk about some stuff as well?” Tilda asks. “We left a lot on the table last night.”
“Yeah, but let me gather my thoughts, okay? I’ve been through quite an ordeal,” says Schumann. His football uniform, which had always seemed symbolic and poetic and larger than life, now looks like any other costume—something a person puts on when he wants to see how the other half lives, when he wants to escape himself.
“Call me later?” she says, to which he nods, something timid in it, something defeated, victim of a fourth-quarter comeback that’s come up short.
Tilda waves wildly as Coffen and Schumann start driving away from Taco Shed. The last thing Bob sees is Tilda bringing her hulky arms up, flexing like she’s onstage in a bodybuilding competition. Bob’s not the only person who’s gotten out of his box this weekend; Tilda is taking a chance and opening up to her mouse man. Coffen smiles, looking back at Tilda’s massive physique.
The plight of the people of now
Bob’s nice enough to drive Schumann home when in actuality what he needs to do is hightail it to work for his team’s Monday-morning status meeting, which will be getting underway in roughly half an hour. Coffen’s boss is not a fan of late arrivals and often attempts to scold those of his underlings who traipse in after the clock has struck late, like a snobby professor sarcastically welcoming a tardy undergrad to class.
“Well, that was quite a weekend you had, Reasons with His Fists,” Coffen says.
“Please don’t call me that.”
“What are you going to tell your wife?”
“As far as they’re concerned, I’ve been on the couch watching the boob tube the whole time they were gone. And that’s exactly what I will be doing from now on. My competitive streak has been cauterized. I thought I wanted to relive my glory days, but I don’t. I’m not that person anymore.”
Bob is appalled: “Jesus, you really are a mouse.”
“What?”
“You don’t think