Fight Song (13 page)

Ace smiles. “Then neither am I. And I definitely didn’t take a bath in one of the tubs in LapLand. That’s for sure.”

LapLand is one of the unusual accoutrements that DG offers its employees. It’s a room that has two endless pools—ten-foot tubs in which employees can swim against a manufactured current, covering great distances without ever moving from one freestyling or backstroking spot. Not only are these pools available for any employee to enjoy, but safety is key: There’s a lifeguard on duty, should anybody cramp up in a tub, sink to the bottom, and require immediate resuscitation.

“There are showers here, you know,” Bob says.

“Indeed there are. But LapLand has a certain je ne sais quoi. Not that I bathed there in the first place.”

“I’ve never gone in that room the whole time I’ve worked here,” Coffen says.

“You should. It’s marvelous. Hey, is your ass hungry?”

“Sure.”

“Sorry for cursing,” Ace says. “I’ve got a problem with
it, and the problem is that I love cursing. It’s a situation I’m aware of. How can I not be with the building manager, Mr. Winston, on my ass—I mean, sorry, my hind parts—every day about watching my mouth around the building’s tenants. That means you. He thinks cussing is a bad habit. I think cussing—or ‘the poetry of the streets,’ as I like to call it—is more akin to the real world.”

“Will you please cinch your robe?”

“The poetry of the streets is a beast in sheep’s clothing,” says Ace. “But don’t egg me on. I have to stop using so many curses. My lady doesn’t like it.”

“Check.”

“This is your lucky day,” he says, very much not cinching his robe. “I’m making some of my renowned breakfast.”

“It’s nowhere near my lucky day.”

“It’s about to be. I am known for three things: One is shredding on the gee-
tarrrr
; the second is my glorious morning wood.” Ace pauses and makes the international gesture for masturbation with his spatula-hand, moving it like mad in front of his pelvis. Then he does a little dance that’s mostly running in place but with a sprinkle of cross-country skiing and lip-licking. “But the thing I’m known for that you shall currently reap the benefit of is my secret French toast recipe. I’ll even let you in on it. Everyone loves Frosted Flakes. And everyone loves rum. So one morning it hit me, why not put Frosted Flakes and rum in my French toast batter? I mean, I’m going to enjoy them all for breakfast anyway. Why not combine all these ingredients into one super-food?”

Coffen momentarily forgets Ace’s difficulties with the long-lost art of bathrobe-cinching, because that secret recipe sounds delicious. Some Frosted Flaked and
rummed-up super-food might be what the doctor ordered, assuming the doctor is half-crazed and clad in a gaping bathrobe.

“That’s quite a recipe,” Coffen says.

“Bet your ass, Chump Change,” says Ace. “Sorry, I meant, ‘bet your hind parts.’”

“Chump Change?”

“That’s what me and the other guys on the building’s clean team call you. You’re always getting things from the vending machines with dimes and nickels. It’s a term of endearment.”

“Clean team?”

“We don’t like being called ‘janitors.’ Makes us feel like toe jam on the corporate totem pole.”

So Bob hadn’t been crazy all those times he thought the janitors—nay, the clean-team members—smirked when he stood making one of his hourly purchases. They got a giggle out of his prudent dispersal of pocket change, eh?
Well, excuse me
, Bob Coffen wants to tell Ace.
My blood sugar gets low, and don’t forget that frugality is an admirable trait in some societies
.

“Does it make you guys feel better about your job?” Bob asks.

“What?”

“The toe jam thing.”

“Exactly,” says Ace. “We are the toe jam thing. I couldn’t have said it better myself.”

“You did say it.”

Ace extends the bottle of rum up in the air and says, “To all the toe jam on all the totem poles all over the world! You’re in our hearts always. You will not be forgotten.” Then he guzzles rum.

“I’m going to the bathroom,” says Coffen.

“Enjoy yourself,” Ace says, still twiddling with the bottle of booze, “and breakfast will be served when you get back.”

On his walk, Coffen texts his kids.

To Margot:
How’s your morning? I think you’re great.

To Brent:
How’s it hanging, amigo?

It’s only a ninety-second trip to the bathroom—take a leak, brush teeth with the plastic-bagged toothbrush, sans toothpaste, breath still stinky afterward, his tongue a hostel for transient bacteria. He sticks out his tongue to analyze it in the mirror. It’s as if he can taste the acrid flavor that this might not be a blip with Jane, might be more than a one-weekend anomaly. The idea is globbed on his tongue along with the other germs. Jane has never asked him to sleep somewhere else before. What if Bob’s life is changing and he barely gets a say in the matter?

Ace sets two paper plates down on the small table, also plastic forks. Coffen does get a non-plastic coffee mug filled with coffee, which makes the scene a bit less depressing.

“Shall we say a prayer?” Ace says.

“If you want.”

“Please, Jesus, let my hair grow back. God, if there really is a god, why is the hair on my head falling out and the hair on my back growing like gangbusters? I mean, come on: I’ve gone
mano a mano
versus the world my whole life, so why can’t I keep some freakin’ hair as the fruits of all these labors?”

“Amen?” Coffen says.

“A-freakin’-men!” Ace claps his hands, then digs into his French toast. Bob follows his lead and cuts himself a bite with the edge of the fork.

There is no doubt that this is the single greatest bite of
French toast Coffen has ever ingested. Still chewing, he says simply, “Superb.”

“Rum: the other white meat,” says the trailblazing, bathrobed chef.

Which, of course, makes no sense, but Ace is smiling and so is Coffen, and why ruin a good moment, a great bite, with something boring and purposeless like sense?

“You and I,” Ace says, “don’t really know each other. For example, did you know that I’m in a Kiss cover band called French Kiss? Our singer is from Paris, and he can sing like Paul Stanley. Total dead ringer. There are a lot of schmucks out there playing Kiss songs exactly the way they were originally recorded. Which is fine. To each their own. But we have a secret weapon that those schmucks can only fantasize about. Our singer sings the songs in French.
In French!
As far as I know, we’re the only Kiss cover band on the entire planet where the singer goes international, baby. That’s what separates us from the packs of poseurs and wannabes.”

“Sounds interesting,” Coffen says, savoring each succulent chewing motion. He’s also savoring all of Ace’s inane blathering, more distraction from Jane booting him out.

“We may be old and balding and fat as hell,” Ace muses, “but we can still rock and roll with the best of ’em.”

Coffen has devoured his portion of breakfast, and he now sips his coffee. “If you opened a diner that served only this French toast, you’d be a very rich man.”

“I do it for the buzz, not the glory.”

“Honorable.”

“Can I pry a bit?” Ace says.

“Why not?”

“Did you sleep here last night?”

“I fell asleep at my desk because I’m finishing up a new game design.”

“Oh yeah, what game?”

“Scroo Dat Pooch.”

“And it’s about … ”

“Pooch screwing.”

“Not gonna tell you how to do your job, Chump Change,” he says, “but is there a market for dog sex games?”

“Probably not.”

“It’s like rock and roll. You have to give the kids what they want. If you don’t, you’ll be banished to obscurity.”

Something makes Bob feel like telling the truth. Maybe it’s the rum. Maybe it’s waking up on a beanbag. Maybe it’s that Ace is staying here, too. “My wife threw me out last night.”

“So did my girlfriend. Not last night. Wednesday.”

“Why?”

“She wants to get married.”

“You’ve been staying here since then?”

“Unofficially.”

“I won’t say a word to Dumper,” Coffen says.

“We’ll be roommates here.”

In some way that makes Bob feel better—or again, the rum is kicking in. He checks to see if Brent or Margot texted back yet. Nada.

Coffen sends the same note to both of them this time:
I’m the luckiest dad in the world!

“You’re all right, Chump Change,” Ace says.

Coffen thinks,
Why all these nicknames?
First, there’s the plock praising Robert for all his years of faithful service. Then there’s Tilda calling him the
capitán
of Mexican lasagnas and also a cop. Why doesn’t anybody think of Bob as Bob?

“I am Bob,” he says.

“You staying here all weekend?” Ace asks.

“Unfortunately.”

“Are you going to mope the whole time or should we have some fun?”

“Probably I’ll mope,” says Bob.

“It’s not going to do you any good. Mope when you’re old. Tonight let’s remember that we’re lucky to be alive.”

“I don’t feel lucky to be alive.”

“Well, you are—we all are—even those of us squatting at work. And my band is gigging tonight at Empire Wasted. You should come along.”

“I think I’ll stick with moping.”

“Not a chance I’m letting you do that. Come on—get out of your head. Let’s go out and live a little.”

Coffen likes this idea of living a little. Maybe it’s exactly what this house cat Robert Coffen needs—to get out of his head, get out of his latest game, get out and interact with somebody. “You know what? I’m in,” Bob says. “Let’s live a little.”

“Rock and roll is quite the temptress. Few men can ward off her seductions.”

“What instrument do you play in the band?”

“Do you even have to ask?”

So Coffen asks, “Why shouldn’t I have to ask?”

“My nickname is Ace, as in Ace Frehley. I even got him tattooed on me,” he says, rolls up his gaping bathrobe’s sleeve and points at a picture of a guy with long straight black hair wearing white paint all over his face like a rodeo clown. There’s black lipstick on him and also black patterns painted jagged around his eyes.

Coffen doesn’t get it.

“He’s the guitarist in Kiss—meaning I play guitar in French Kiss. I’m a straight-up shredder, a bona fide, certified, genuine genius of the fret board.” Ace does his dance again: running in place and cross-country skiing and lip-licking, except now there’s more flair to it.

Bob watches him shimmy and a smile crosses his face. Here’s a guy, a core member of the clean team, who wants Coffen’s company. Here’s somebody who wants Bob around, and for a second he wonders,
When did I become so dispensable in my own life?

Being included in Ace’s plans makes Bob want to see his kids today, see his wife. He wants to get out and live a little in his own life, too.

The only thing that Coffen can choke out is this: “You really want me to be at your gig?”

“Bet your hind parts,” says Ace.

Classic glory days shenanigans

Coffen isn’t the kind of parent to put his kids in harm’s way. So even if the alcohol present in the French toast mostly cooked off, Bob’s not going to chance it. He feels a little under the influence, but maybe that might be placebo, or a by-product of a restless night’s sleep on the beanbag. Problem is that if Bob’s not comfortable operating a motor vehicle in his condition, then he needs to find an impromptu designated driver. Problem is that means his impromptu life coach, Schumann.

He needs somebody to drive him and the kids to the high-priced gym where Jane is training for her run at the world record. He needs to talk to her. Jane is at her most relaxed in the pool, which to Bob makes it the ideal time to chat.

Coffen’s not really worried about being under the influence with just himself in the car, and so he chugs over to Schumann’s to see if the maniac can be the DD.

It takes approximately four seconds for Coffen to regret this decision. He should have gotten a taxi, chartered a private jet, rented ponies, pogo sticks, whatever. Any other viable mode of transportation would have prevented Bob from being greeted like this in Schumann’s foyer, Bob watching Schumann making growling angry-athlete faces.