Joshua Mohr - Fight Song

“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.

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 she deserves to know the truth?”

“I know the truth. That’s what matters.”

“I bet she’d disagree with that.”

“The important thing is that I’m going to be a better man now.”

“I bet she’d think the important thing is that you had sex with Tilda.”

It disappoints Coffen that Schumann isn’t going to level with his missus, but then Bob figures he has so much to worry about in his own life that he can’t try to control how Schumann’s going to handle things. At the very least, it sounds like Coffen will never endure another cameo from Reasons with His Fists. Thank Christ for pigskinned miracles.

Plus, and maybe this is the heart of the matter, Coffen sees Schumann for what he is: confused, sad, and broken, like so many others their age. Like Bob. Confused about their role in the world. A football game. A video game. It all adds up to the same thing. A way to escape how grueling reality can be, all the responsibilities, all the worries. There’s good stuff, too, as Tilda says, between the cops, monsters, prudes, and mice, but you have to hunt for it, or the routine can pull you under.

“You’re not going to tattle on me, are you?” Schumann asks.

“On one condition.”

“What?”

“For one week, starting now, I want you to take a steady dose of Scout’sHonor! ®”

“Why?”

“So you know when you lie,” Coffen says. “I want you to be aware when you lie to your wife.”

“What good will that do?”

“She won’t know, but you will.”

“I can’t walk around all week bleeding from my nose, Bob.”

“Exactly why Scout’sHonor! ®works so well. Nobody can afford to bleed all week long. Our lives are busy. Wonder what would happen if you don’t lie to her but come clean about everything?”

“I don’t want to come clean. And because you don’t cheat on Jane, you’re no perfect husband yourself. Don’t you lie to her about other stuff?”

“I more leave stuff out than lie.”

“Like what?”

“Like most of my real feelings.”

“Isn’t that lying?” Schumann says. “You should take Scout’sHonor! ®too. Let the pill decide what’s lying and what isn’t.”

He’s spot-on. No disputing that. If one of Coffen’s goals going forward is to do right by his people, then he has to find out all the facts. Try to be honest about everything, even issues he’s previously avoided or downplayed or gone dumb about. Bob should go into his future with his eyes open as to when he’s being dishonest. A week of Scout’sHonor! ®will help keep him on track.

“Fine,” Coffen says. “I’ll do it.”

“Right on. Good man. You take it for a week and after your time is up, maybe I’ll decide to take it once we see how it works on you. That makes perfect sense.”

“Take it or I tattle.”

“What if I bleed to death?” Schumann whines.

“Stop being so selfish and you won’t bleed to death.”

“It’s not that easy. You can’t stop cold turkey.”

“Choice is yours, Schumann. But I’ll rat you out.”

“These are the moments I know you never played on a football team. Teammates have each other’s backs no matter what, until the game clock of life expires.”

“What’s it going to be?”

“What choice do I have? I’ll take them and try not to bleed to death,” Schumann says. “But if I do die, you can have my bagpipes. Every time you look at them remember that you murdered me with your truth pills.”

“I can live with that.”

They shake on it. He squeezes Bob’s hand hard. Really hard. Hard enough that Coffen winces and emits a little girly yelp.

For the first time during the conversation, Schumann smiles, still crushing Coffen’s hand. “Now who’s peeping like a mouse,” he says.

After dumping Schumann at home, Coffen makes it to the status meeting with ten minutes to spare. It’s just him and Malcolm Dumper in the conference room, Coffen’s young cohorts only arriving seconds before these meetings commence, risking late arrivals to maintain a persona of youthful ambivalence to structure, rules, the asinine consideration of other people’s time.