Fight Song A Novel

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.

“Have I lost it, Coffen? Is my face still the mask of a pigskin gladiator?”

“You look like a pigskin gladiator, I guess.”

“I am a warrior.”

“Schumann, I have real problems. I need to see my family. Can you give me a ride to my house to pick up my kids and then to the club?”

“It’s like, I’m getting older and softer and weaker—and Charlie’s out there in the bush, man. Charlie’s squatting in the mud, staying sharp. Charlie’s getting stronger.”

“Who’s Charlie?”

“Charlie from Apocalypse Now. The Viet Cong.”

“How do you know somebody who was in Apocalypse Now?”

“Forget Charlie,” says Schumann, getting really worked up. “He’s not the point. I’m the point. I used to be sharp as steel. I was formidable. They used to have to game plan around stopping me. Now, what, I’m a guy who starts crying when you mention my kid? We were in the middle of heisting that magician and I started blubbering in the driver’s seat. I’m pathetic.”

His face goes slack of any glowering athletic snarls. Bob watches Schumann looking at himself in the mirror. Looking at himself the way you might look at a once-prized possession that was past its prime.

From Bob’s perspective, having a face like Schumann would be a nice change of pace. Schumann keeps his hair in a buzz cut, like a throwback 1950s athlete. His rugged good looks are obvious: a jawline that tells everyone he can take a punch, a classic nose, and brown eyes that have no doubt taken a punch or two in their time.

“We weren’t heisting that magician,” Bob says. “You were.”

Schumann slaps himself across the face. Hard. His cheek immediately goes pink. He shakes his head around and howls and says, “I can get my game face back. I’m not dead yet.”

“What you did wasn’t pathetic at all,” Coffen says. “Your priorities have changed. And for the better, I might add. You care more about your family than you do for yourself.”

“I won’t wait for Charlie to crawl out of the jungle and slit my throat. So we tried to kidnap the magician and failed once. We won’t make that mistake again, Bob. Next time, he’s ours. I’ve been playing the game on the football field of my mind, and we’ll be prepared for war.”

“Where’s your wife?” Coffen asks.

“She and little Schu are at that new aquarium. There’s a sea horse show going. Then they’re off to her sister’s for a couple days. Not back until next week.”

Maybe Coffen and his kids can take in the aquarium together. Might be a nice outing, and it’s been a while since he’s taken them to do anything fun. Plus, picking them up from the house might give him a chance to do some recon, assess the damage.

“We’re basically without spouses this weekend,” says Schumann.

“Don’t remind me.”

“Remind you? This is how Coach would draw it up. This is how we can get our mojo back. It’s all about glory days, Coffen. We’ve stoked the renegade in my guts. He’s awake and ready to rumble. I can relive the past. I bet you never even had any glory days, did you?”

“I had glory days.”

“What happened in these alleged glory days of yours?”

“I stayed up pretty late. I drank my share of vanilla-flavored vodka.”

“Those are the kind of glory days that give real glory days a bad name. My glory days would punch yours in the face and give them a swirly in the closest toilet. I bet part of it is the prestigious uniform. Speaking of that … ”

“I also bowled a lot, and one time I stole the shoes,” Coffen says. “That’s a pretty crazy thing to do.”

Then Schumann blurts, “Would you like to see me in the cloth of my tribe?” He does another snarl, wild in the mirror.

“The what?”

“The cloth me and my fellow warriors wore at Purdue University.”

“I guess so.”

“He guesses so,” Schumann says. “This is the time to take what’s ours. Victory is there, but nobody’s going to give it to us on a shiny platter. We have to seize it! Are we going to seize the shiny platter of our rightful property of victory?”

“I still guess so,” Coffen says.

And Schumann tears up the stairs, stomping about. Sounds like an animal running loose, say a raccoon looting garbage cans. Things are being thrown about above Bob. Schumann had been the one to ram Coffen into the oleanders, but now it seems the events of the last week might have run Schumann into his own set of merciless bushes, jarring him down some kind of wormhole in which he can slip into skin that’s been dead for years.

It’s not long before he’s bounding down, taking the stairs three at a time, and jumping to the ground floor wearing his football getup—helmet, shoulder pads, cleats, the whole shebang—and he’s screaming, “Now, is this the day we seize our shiny platter of our rightful property of victory or what?”

Inadvertently, Schumann is telling Coffen what he wants to hear. Bob does want his shiny platter of victory, only in this context, that’s his family. “I need you to drive me to the pool.”

“Wait, how did you get to my house?”

“I drove, but I can’t drive my kids. I had some rum with breakfast.”

“Rum in the morning. Nice. Now that’s got glory days written all over it.”

“Will you drive?”

“I thought Jane didn’t want to see you,” Schumann says.

“She probably doesn’t. But I have the tickets Björn gave me to his next show. That should score me some points, even if she’s pissed at first.”

Schumann does one more growl and smacks himself on the shoulder pads, then the helmet. “Let’s hit the field,” he says.



Erma is obviously less than thrilled to see Bob, and says to him, “Didn’t I tell you to call first?”

Bob’s first thought: This is what being a weekend dad will be like. I’ll pick up the kids, take them on outings of phony camaraderie. They’ll have a stepfather they admire more than me. And I’ll eat hot dogs alone in an unfurnished apartment.

“Yeah, sorry, my phone is dead,” Coffen says to Erma. “I’m going to take the kids out for a while.”

“Fine by me.”

The kids, however, don’t want to go to the pool. Brent is gaming in his room. Margot is glued to her iPad, exploring a crevasse at the North Pole with Ro. It’s clear that bribery is the only arrow in Bob’s quiver if he’s to coax them to the pool this afternoon. Twenty bucks each, though he gets the sense that once Margot puts the pieces together—and she will; his daughter is whip-smart—she might change the stakes some, ask for her cut to be heightened in exchange for compliance, or she’ll narc him out. The constant onslaught of Hollywood films has made children incredible negotiators.

It’s a warm day. Seventy-one degrees. No wind to speak of. A meteorologist might call the conditions suburban delight.

Schumann takes the main drag across town. The Coffen kin are buried in their gadgets. Bob stares out the window. No Mom and Pop presence in this suburb, every business is a cut-out of a business that originated someplace else. The intersection the Coffens currently sit at is a paradise of saturated fats—fast food Chinese, two corporate burger joints, a fish-and-chips shop that originated in Seattle, and a Taco Shed. The latter makes Bob’s stomach growl.

When they first moved here, Bob and Jane used the usual rationalization: Yes, this is a boring suburb, but the public schools are great and besides, it’s only a half-hour drive into the city, which is true. They haven’t, however, driven into the city in over a year. The freeway would take them there, if they got on it. The Coffens’ universe is getting smaller every year, as confining as a snow globe.

The pool where Jane practices treading water is a component of a high-priced gym that costs Bob $650 a month. The facility actually has two pools: a pristine, immaculately maintained indoor facility, where the very serious swimmers are allowed to train. There are two members who are Olympic hopefuls in their respective strokes. There’s an underwater ballerina who often hones her craft here. And, of course, Jane. These four represent the small caste permitted in the fancy indoor waters.

There’s also an outdoor pool that’s for the laypeople of all ages, the splashers, the elderly with their calisthenics, the Marco Polo players, the dog-paddlers, the pissers. This stratification between the two domains is strictly enforced.

The good news, at least from Bob’s perspective, is that the indoor and outdoor pools are only separated by one gigantic window. So if he were to, say, insist that his children accompany him to the outdoor pool for a couple hours of wily water shenanigans, he’d be able to see Jane and Gotthorm getting their workout in prior to the big bid to break the world record.

Bob gets the kids settled by the outdoor pool, close to the lifeguard chair, though it’s currently empty. Neither child is wearing a suit, though they have them packed in a duffel bag sitting between their chaise lounges. Schumann, also a member of this esteemed fitness community, stands there, still shoved into his whole football uniform.

“Dad,” Brent says, pointing indoors, “I see Mommy!”

Margot makes a face: You are busted. Unlike her brother, she’s pointing directly at Coffen.

Bob says to her, “Shall we make it $50?”

Coffen would like to think it’s not greed that makes her ponder these new terms. He’d like to believe it’s dedication—that his daughter, sensing something might be wrong between her parents—wants to help her dear old dad right the ship. This is what Bob would like to think, and he’s doing a decent job convincing himself that it’s probably true until Margot says, “$75.”

“She’s good,” says Schumann.

“Deal,” Bob says.

“I hate swimming,” Brent says.

“Did you bring your phone, buddy?” Bob asks. “Play a game and sit here enjoying the afternoon. You don’t have to swim.”

“I want to go inside.”

“Not right now. It’s good to be outdoors. And we’ll get frozen yogurt on the way home.”

“People call it fro-yo, dad,” Margot says, fiddling with her iPad, settling into her lounge chair.

“Fine, we’ll get fro-yog after.”

“Fro-yo.”

“That’s what I said.”

“You said fro-yog.”

“She’s right,” Schumann says. “We all heard you.”

“I’ll be right back,” Coffen says. “Schumann, keep an eye on them.”



Gotthorm is the first to see Coffen enter from the men’s locker room and he shouts, “Nei, nei, nei, nei!” and waves his arms aggressively at Bob. He’s of course wearing nothing but his Speedo, though he normally never swims—at least not that Bob has ever observed—so a swimsuit seems unnecessary. Instead, he stands on the deck, hands on his hips, giving Jane instruction and encouragement—and, of course, a lovely view of the bulge.

“I’m here for Jane,” Coffen says, pointing to his wife, who bobs in the water.

“We can’t have you here, Bob,” Gotthorm says. “We need her mind flat as a frozen sea. We need her mind smooth and lithe.”

“She and I are ‘we,’ Gotthorm. We are married.”

“Not near the pool you’re not. Here, Jane is not a person. Here, she is muscle memory. She has no active mind. She is seaweed.”

“I don’t have time for your Swedish philosophy.”

“Norwegian.”

“Same thing.”

“Those two nations once fought a war. We’re very different people.”

“Yeah, who won?”

Gotthorm moves his arms in a dismissive gesture. “Jane is a drop of salt water. She is a molecule. She is the ocean and the ocean is Jane. No one can tell them apart.”

“Then why’s she in a chlorinated pool, genius?”

“Please go, Bob,” Jane says, still treading water.

“But I have something for you.”

“We’ll talk after I go for the record. Give me these days to train, please.”

“What I have for you won’t wait that long,” Coffen says.

“Then it’s not that important,” she says, coughing a bit from swallowing some pool water.

“That’s your fault,” Gotthorm says to Bob. “We don’t cough. We don’t break the flow of our gait until you arrive. We are a sea creature until you barge in.”

Jane isn’t looking. In fact, her eyes are closed. She seems to be done coughing, seems to be trying to find her center again.

“You go away,” says Gotthorm. “Let us glide with the turtles. Let us drift in a current.”

“I have something for Jane that’s none of your business.”

“Until we go for the record, everything is my business.”

“I’m leaving these tickets with the Cro-Magnon, Jane,” Coffen says, handing over the tickets to Björn’s next gig to Gotthorm. “It’s the magician’s intermediate show. You were right. He can help us. I really want to go back and see. I want to fix us.”

Jane doesn’t open her eyes or answer.

“Did you hear me?” Bob asks.

“An eel can’t hear a fool bellow from the shore,” Gotthorm says. “A mollusk has no use for your codes of language.” Then Gotthorm tucks the tickets in the front of his Speedo, dangerously close to the bulge, leaving only a short tongue of the tickets hanging out the top, like they’re a couple of dollar bills wedged in a G-string at a strip club.

“Can you not get your genital warts all over those?” Coffen asks.

Gotthorm turns his back on Bob, focusing his attention on the pool, on Jane. Her eyes are still closed and she puckers her lips as she exhales big breaths.

“The show is on Sunday night,” Bob says. “It will only take a couple of hours. It won’t affect you going for the record on Monday. It might help. It might make you feel even mentally lighter if we’re in a really good place as a couple.”

Her eyes snap open, but she doesn’t say anything.

Coffen tries to take that as a sign, but what does it mean?

Jane’s lips still puckering as she breathes out.

Bob stands and watches for a few seconds, wordless.

She is beautiful, treading water there.





Fro-yo hell


The fro-yo shop is a swarming mess of children and unhappy parents. It’s crammed with the aftermath of Saturday-afternoon soccer games; screaming teammates and rabid enemies now congregate here high on endorphins. They’re either ecstatic with winning—To the victors go the fro-yo spoils!—or surly, grass-stained losers in need of sugary consolations to salve their suburban wounds of defeat.

There’s a line of people out the door, waiting to order. The crowd is getting restless, collectively unimpressed with the amount of staff present to dispense this frozen elixir. Only one teenage girl toils behind the counter and she’s overwhelmed. Surely, this isn’t the first Saturday, post-soccer frenzy, so where are her coworkers? She’s back there in a frothy fit, wearing a pink polo shirt and pink visor. Coffen can tell she’s doing her best; he can clearly see that, and her effort makes him patient. He decides right then to stuff $5 in her tip jar.

“My manager had to go home early,” the girl says to Bob, after he asks about her lone presence on such a popular shift. “She says she can’t be nice to people today because Mercury is in major retrograde.”

“I guess that makes sense,” Coffen says.

Margot wants boysenberry swirled with French vanilla. Brent wants Dutch chocolate with gummy bears and crumbled Oreos as toppings. They seem intimidated by their soccer-clad colleagues. Neither has said a word since entering this congested fro-yo hell, both buried in their online lives. Maybe Bob should suggest organized team activities to them, see if they like getting grass stains all their own.

Schumann says he wants nothing except the chance to once more prove himself on the battlefield with the magician. Kids and parents alike stare at his football uniform.

“Let it go,” Bob says to him.

“I hate losing.”

“We didn’t lose.”

“Coach would tell me I lost. He’d say, ‘You let me down, boy.’ He’d say, ‘How are you going to redeem your lackluster effort?’”

“And what would you say?”

“I would speak with ruthless actions,” says Schumann.



They drop Margot and Brent off at home. Coffen guides them inside the house. Erma sees him and motors over to block his path in the foyer. “That’s far enough,” she says.

“Jane’s not back?”

“They’re strategizing,” says Erma. “We did a very low-impact tread today, then the rest of the afternoon is working on mind-set.”

Bob sighs and says, “’Bye, kids. Maybe we can go to the aquarium tomorrow. There’s a sea horse show.”

“Ro and I swam with sea horses last week.”

“Where?”

“The Great Barrier Reef.”

“These are real sea horses, though.”

“They look exactly the same. I see them through glass here”—she shakes her iPad—“and we’ll see them through glass at the aquarium.”

“That’s completely different, Margot.”

“It is and it isn’t.”

“Real sea horses will be in real aquariums.”

“My real phone contains real images of real sea horses really swimming. It’s six of one, half dozen of the other.”

Bob turns his attention to his youngest, asking, “Buddy? Aquarium tomorrow?”

Brent furrows. There’s brown fro-yo smudged on his cheek. He says, “Only if I get past level seven before then.”

“Okay, I’ll call you in the morning.”

“Text,” he says.

“I’ll text.”

Bob walks back out of his light gray house. He notices the front lawn is getting a little shaggy—better get the gardener in line or the HOA will no doubt pelt him with belligerent emails. They pounced quickly when Coffen hung that bird-feeder a few months back without proper consent. How might his neighbors feel about the decorative contraption? wondered a passive-aggressive note sent from the HOA’s commander-in-chief. What if everybody wanted to hang an unapproved birdfeeder out in front of their homes? Should such a slippery-sloped precedent be employed? One day, it might simply be birdfeeders, but what eyesores lurked around the corner? Pornographic statues? Could such a gamble possibly benefit the subdivision’s greater good? A zero-tolerance policy had to be maintained.

A meteorologist might call the conditions getting windier.

Coffen’s phone rings. The caller ID does not identify anyone he knows. Normally, he doesn’t answer these mysterious numbers because rarely are they anything but veiled hassles, but he needs a friend—even a pesky solicitor, or a receptionist reminding him of an impending appointment, or a local delegate hoping to win his vote, whatever. He picks up on the second ring and says, “Bob is me?” not intending for it to sound like a question, but it does.

“What are you doing?” says some guy.

“Who is this?”

“This is a handsome member of the clean team.”

“Ace? How’d you get this number?”

“You people have to remember that the clean team has access to everything. We don’t only dump the trash. We have keys, alarm codes. We can get into every cranny. We know where you bozos hide your passwords and who has the best snacks tucked in desk drawers.”

“What can I do for you?”

“I’m gonna go back to the office to hang out before the big gig,” Ace says, “if you want to meet me there.”

“Okay,” Coffen says, excited to spend some time away from Schumann.

“If you’re still feeling the effects of the rum, drive slow,” he says. “Drunk drivers usually get popped for speeding.”

“I’m not drunk driving.”

“Exactly. No way would you. Remember to go slow. Before Acey settled down and joined the clean team, he might have wriggled on the wrong side of the law occasionally.”

“Your glory days.”

“Boy, were they.”

“Right now my life feels like the opposite of glory days.”

“We’ll see what some rock and roll has to say about that later tonight,” says Ace.



Bob has Schumann swing them by Taco Shed for an afternoon Mexican lasagna. They pull into the drive-through and Coffen almost tells him about Tilda’s shady business venture, but he decides to keep her secret safe. She seems like a good person, and Bob wants her to make all the extra money she needs.

He does not, however, expect Tilda to be working the day shift, but he recognizes her voice right off. Apparently, one of the other workers is on maternity leave and the extra shifts have been disseminated amongst the remaining Shedheads.

“Hi, Tilda, it’s Bob Coffen,” he says from the passenger seat.

“Bob who?”

“Last night. With Otis.”

“It’s not ringing a bell.”

“The cop.”

“Still no.”

“The capitán of Mexican lasagnas.”

“Ah, yes,” she says. “How many would you like?”

“Three.” Coffen feels the urge to talk to her alone. He wants a couple minutes without Schumann here to chat. Bob truly enjoyed their time together last night, chomping Mexican lasagnas in the parking lot. He whispers to Schumann, “Give me a minute.”

“Why?”

“I need to talk to her.”

“Hark the herald angel likes to watch TV in his birthday suit,” Schumann says, smiling, parroting the magic words to get into Tilda’s erotic speakeasy.

“Who’s that?” Tilda asks.

“It’s Schumann.”

“Howdy, big fella,” she says.

“You guys know each other?” Bob says.

Schumann only shrugs. Tilda says, “Don’t be a prude, capitán.”

“Can I talk to Tilda privately, Schumann?” Bob says. “Will you give me a minute?”

“Teammates can say anything in front of each other,” Schumann says.

“Now, Schu, play nice. Give me and Bob a moment alone,” Tilda says through the intercom.

Schumann makes a face like this is truly an inconvenience for him, but quickly exits the driver’s seat in a huff, slamming the door. Bob crawls over the center console.

“You okay?” Tilda asks.

“Never better,” he says. “Except that’s a lie.”

“I’ve been better, too. Found out one of my exes is getting lethally injected soon. Turns out he’s a serial killer.”

Nothing from Coffen.

“Did you hear me?” Tilda asks.

“Why did you sleep with a serial killer?”

“It was an accident,” she says. “He wasn’t wearing any kind of identifying badge.”

“Cops and monsters.”

“Now you’re catching on. Plus, he wrote poetry.”

“What were they about?” Coffen asks.

“Mostly they were whiny anecdotes about how he needed more love in his life. He had a crappy father.”

“Me, too,” Bob says.

“Me, too,” says Tilda. “The Mexican lasagnas are ready. Please pull up to the window.”

“Before I pull up, can I ask you something?”

“Ask away.”

“Do you ever want to get out of your box?”

“What box?”

“The box you’re in right now,” he says.

“I’m at work right now.”

“Right, but I mean the box that our lives turn into, whether we want it to happen or not.”

“Just break out of your box.”

“I’m talking about being trapped,” Bob says. “My life, my job, my wife. Jesus, my kids are in a box that I created for them—they barely go outside. They are more comfortable online. They’re afraid of real life.”

“Stop feeling sorry for yourself,” says Tilda. “My daughter is in a literal box—Roy’s car. Now that’s a f*cking problem.”

She’s right, Coffen thinks. That’s a problem. He can fix what he’s teaching his children, starting tomorrow, starting with the sea horses. They say they don’t want to come, well, Coffen’s going to make them come. He’s their father. He’ll insist, and if that doesn’t work, the bribery from this afternoon might rear its ugly head again. He has the money and if that’s the bait to get them to go, so be it.

“If you ever fancy a change of careers,” Bob says, “I think you have a future in helping people.”

“I do help people: Every time a guy pulls his pud while I talk dirty, that’s helping humanity.”

“You know what I mean.”

“I do,” she says, “but why would I give up all this glamour?”

Coffen pulls the SUV up to the window.

Tilda hands him the bag of lasagnas. He’s astounded by her muscles every time he sees them, the way she’s wrapped her heart in bulky protection. He looks across the parking lot and sees Schumann, uniform and all, throwing rocks at a stop sign. “He’s one of your regulars?” Coffen asks her.

“That man loves him some raunch. If he wanted to take our relationship to the next level, I’d certainly get out of this box so he could get into mine.”

“Do you like music?”

“What kind?”

“Kiss.”

“I love Kiss,” she says.

“I’m going to hear a Kiss cover band tonight. Wanna come with?”

“Are you asking me out on a date?”

It hadn’t occurred to Coffen how this innocuously conceived question might be received. He meant nothing smarmy. The last thing on earth he wants is to cheat on his wife. Coffen posed the invitation to Tilda simply for the companionship, and in fact, the mere idea of an official date with her brings with it a few unfortunate images: He pictures Tilda’s naked, engorged muscles, then the likelihood that if she ever saw Bob nude, the probability of her unbridled laughter.

“Not a date. As friends,” Coffen says.

“Good. I don’t date prudes. But as long as we’re going as friends, I’d love to.”

“I’m not a prude.”

“Guess we’re adding to our list.”

“Our list?”

“Cops, monsters, and prudes,” she says.