Joshua Mohr - Fight Song

Margot pulls out her iPad and starts shooting video.

“Enjoy the moment,” Bob says.

“I am.”

“Just be here.”

“I am.”

Another large burst of brand-new sea horses dash from the abdomen.

“Just exist in the here and now,” he says to her, knowing that she’s not going to hear him, that she’s incapable of listening to any of his words. What she doesn’t understand is that they’re warnings.

“I am here. I am now,” Margot says.

More babies tumble from the father.

“Does the daddy feed them all?” Brent asks Bob.

But that doesn’t stop a certain scientist from piping up. “They aren’t like people. The daddies don’t care for the babies once they’re born.”

“Who does?”

“They have to take care of themselves,” Margot says, continuing to film it all.

“You are a fantastic student of the ocean,” the scientist says to her.

“Thanks for noticing.”

“It’s scary that nobody takes care of them,” Brent says, looking up at Coffen. “Don’t you think that’s scary?”

“Yes, it’s scary,” Bob says, “but you’re safe. Don’t worry.”

Everybody is staring into the aquarium. They are transfixed. Coffen can’t comprehend why he ever felt so seduced by artifice. What was so enthralling about the unreal? Why had he stationed himself away from the present? What could have ever seemed more compelling about fake lives when all this life was happening around him?

“Isn’t it incredible to witness stuff like this?” the scientist says.

Every Coffen nods, spellbound.

Tilda isn’t buying the story Coffen stammers through. He’d hoped that she’d kind of accept the fact that the quarterbackclad mouse he now swings slowly by its tail before her eyes is Schumann. Unfortunately, she’s proving impervious to the spell of his spiel.

This is transpiring at Taco Shed in the late afternoon — after fro-yo, after Bob had dropped his children off at home. Tilda mans the register. As this is the chain’s pre-dinner lull, no other customers or employees are there. Her muscles seem especially plump on this fine day, in that fine uniform.

Her eyes stay trained on the dangling mouse. “I didn’t know there were any other ways men could break up with me; I thought I’d seen it all before, but now you’re trying to tell me an evil magician turned him into a mouse.”

“He’s not an evil magician per se,” Coffen says. “Honestly, his motives remain pretty obtuse to me. But I wouldn’t say outright evil.”

“I knew Schumann was married and that our affair, no matter how torrid, had a short shelf life, but now you’re waving a mouse in my face saying that’s him? Jesus, I didn’t think it would get any worse than when that welder gave me gonorrhea on Valentine’s Day.”

Coffen continues to swing Schumann back and forth by the tail like he’s trying to hypnotize her. “Tilda, I wouldn’t make this up. Frankly, my imagination isn’t capable of making something like this up.”

“I thought me and you were friends.”

“We are.”

“Then why are you lying to me?”

Bob Coffen is not the man for the job of mouse-sitting right now. Normally, sure, he’d be happy to place Schumann in a shoebox with some handfuls of newly shorn grass, a wedge of fine Danish cheese for him to nibble the day away, an exercise wheel to burn off those heavy dairy calories. But not tonight. Tonight has to be all about Jane and the show with no distractions.

“I was hoping you’d baby-sit him,” Coffen says to Tilda.

“What now?”

“Will you watch him for a few hours?”

“Baby-sit the mouse?”

“Please.”

“You make that welder who gave me the drip seem like the most romantic man in the universe.”

“Between you and me, I’m about to go try and win my wife back. I can’t be responsible for Schumann tonight.”

“Maybe that welder’s number is still listed. Gonorrhea really isn’t that big of a deal when you think about it in context with all the other atrocities going on in the world today — a little gonorrhea, big whoop … ”

There are certain sentences that human beings are never prepared to utter until they leave the lips, and here goes a doozy from Bob: “I would never say this mouse was Schumann unless this mouse was indeed the notorious Schumann.”

“No 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.”