Fight Song (17 page)
“Tell me the name of a genius,” says Ace, eating meat off the bone while sitting in a booth at Korean barbecue with Coffen and the boy. The restaurant is pretty empty. It’s about an hour before they have to be at Empire Wasted for sound check.
“I don’t give a shit about geniuses,” his girlfriend’s kid says.
“Shakespeare,” Bob says.
“Koreans are meat-Shakespeares,” Ace says.
“That’s racist,” the boy says.
“It’s a compliment.”
“It’s still racist.”
“Come on, name a genius.”
“No,” the boy says, “your racism is ruining my appetite.”
“Einstein,” Bob says.
“Koreans are Meat=MC
2
,” says Ace.
“It’s racist because you’re making a generalization about a whole group of people,” the boy points out.
“It can’t be racist to celebrate the Koreans’ meaty geniusness,” Ace says. “I refuse to believe that. And if it is, then lock me up and throw away the meat-key because I’m a racist for how much I love freakin’ Koreans! Name another.”
The boy is mum.
“Michael Jordan,” Coffen says. Hearing Ace and the boy banter makes Bob think of Brent, so he texts his youngest:
I miss you very much. You are a terrific son.
Then Bob sends the same message to Margot, forgetting to change the word “son” to “daughter.”
Within three seconds, she texts right back:
I’m a girl. Thankz for noticin
Coffen:
Yeah, but you get the main message, right? The “you are terrific” part?
R u guyz divorcing?
No
STFU
What’s that mean?
Shut the eff up
You are a terrific daughter. Sea horses tomorrow?
She never answers, probably enjoying the Great Barrier Reef from the comfort of her bedroom.
“Koreans slam-dunk their meat like Mr. Mikey Jordan!” Ace says, suddenly an advertising exec, setting back international relations with every new slogan.
“This tea is terrible,” Coffen says, putting his phone in his pocket.
“Drink beer, for god’s sake,” says Ace. “We’re on our way to a rock and roll show, and you’re totaling tea? Grow a pair, Bobby-boy. Let down the eight hairs you have left and live a little. Go
mano a mano
versus the world.”
In Coffen’s opinion, Bobby-boy does not need to grow a pair. It’s true that he will soon be switching to beer, not because Ace peer-pressured him into it, but due to the fact that Korean tea is horrible. Now that’s something worth being racist about.
“Tonight I ask your beautiful ma to be my lawfully
wedded wife,” Ace says to the boy. “I’m thrilled to have your blessing, dude.”
The boy frowns at Ace.
“What’s wrong?” Ace asks.
“Nothing’s wrong.”
“You can tell me, my man. I know this is hard for you. Go ahead—put the screws to Uncle Acey. I can take it. You won’t scare me off. Me, you, and your ma are going to be good together.”
The boy’s frown fades.
Is that a small smile?
Yes, indeed, the boy small-smiles at Ace and now the kid says, “Ace Frehley from Kiss.”
“Are you saying Ace Frehley is a genius?” asks Ace, looking like he might start sobbing with oodles of pride.
Coffen’s phone vibrates, alerting him that there’s a new text, hopefully from Brent, hopefully confirming a father-son date to the sea horses. After watching Ace struggle with this boy, the task that Coffen has is easy—encourage some other activities besides gaming. Get Brent out of the house. Do stuff together. He can game, too, just not every waking second.
But the text isn’t from Brent.
It’s from Schumann.
And it is not good news.
It’s what might be called the opposite end of the spectrum from good news.
Schumann texts:
Bagged me a magician.
Bob: ?
Stalked him and secured him.
Why?
Tied him up and stuffed him in the back of the SUV.
Tied up??
Like a turkey.
Let him go!!
Where R U?
Coffen:
Meet me at Empire Wasted in 45.
That sad dank bar that doesn’t have any big screens?
45 mins!!
Hut, hut, hike
are the final words texted from Schumann.
“Do you mind if one of my friends meets us at the club?” Coffen says to Ace.
“You already said your friend from Taco Shed was coming.”
“Her, too. This is my neighbor, Schumann.”
“You’re doing French Kiss a favor, helping us fill every seat in the house. The more, the merrier,” Ace says, and then he looks at the boy again. “Like our household, right, dude? We’re three happy Kiss-loving clams.”
“Happy fucking clams,” the boy says, which makes Bob think of his household: Would they be considered four unhappy clams, their shells boxing them away from everything in the world, much like the subdivision’s electric fence?
Dumping salt in Coffen’s wound, Ace starts humming
here comes the bride, here comes the bride …
The three of them roll into Empire Wasted before Schumann or Tilda arrive. Coffen dismisses this place, shaped like a big rectangle, as a dump. The walls are stacked cinder blocks, neither painted nor covered, only nude gray concrete. The stage is pretty low to the ground
with an empty dance floor in front of it. No tables anywhere. There’s a bar at the back of the room. An old man behind it wearing a tank top. Bald on his head but not on his shoulders.
Bob helps Ace carry his amp in. Coffen is amped himself, paranoid-thinking about a kidnapped magician who’s probably mighty pissed and ready to cast some nasty curses or, worse, call the cops and rat them out, not solely for Schumann’s solo kidnapping tonight, but also for what he and Bob did to the magician last night.
Empire Wasted technically isn’t open yet. The only people there are the staff, the band—the rest of French Kiss’s chubby, bald members setting up gear—groupies, if you can call them that, and a few friends.
Coffen makes his way to the bar to order a beer and another text from Schumann comes through:
The eagle has landed.
Which makes no sense to Bob, who responds simply with: ?
Code for I’m out front.
So Coffen gets going out front. Sure as sure can be, there’s crying Björn hog-tied in the back of the SUV, not pleased with the whole kidnapped situation that’s unfurling before his eyes.
“This can’t be good,” Coffen says. “We’re going to get shipped off to prison for round-the-clock sodomy sessions.”
“In the right hands, sodomy can be beautiful.”
“That’s not really what we’re talking about,” Bob says.
“I have made a breakthrough,” says Schumann, still wearing his football uniform, although thank god for small miracles, he’s not wearing the helmet.
“Breakthrough with what?”
“I know what my gladiator identity was missing. I needed to stop using my white man name.”
“You are white.”
“I was. Or maybe I am normally, but not right now. Not while I’m wearing the cloth of my tribe. I’m a Native American warrior.”
“I don’t think so,” Coffen says.
“From this moment on, I’ll only answer to the name Reasons with His Fists.”
“I refuse to call you that.”
It looks like Schumann might start arguing with Coffen, but Björn makes these really angry mumbling noises.
“How did you even do this to him?” Bob asks.
“That show you saw last night. He did the same one tonight. So I waited outside and then snuck up and cold-cocked him and tied him up and taped his mouth and here we are.”
“He’s going to kill us.”
“We scored a touchdown.”
Coffen, once worried about being a weekend dad, now is crippled by fear that he’ll be a prison dad, rotting away in a cell, scribbling letters that his children never respond to. They’ll certainly never visit him. Prison dad doesn’t spend holidays surrounded by loved ones. He spends them slow-dancing with his cell mate, resting his head on a muscled, tattooed shoulder.
“I’ll never see Margot’s graduation,” says Bob. “Somebody else will explain the birds and the bees to Brent.”
Schumann points at Björn: “We are the winners. I beat your ass, sucka!”
“I never asked you to do this,” Bob says.
“We went for the jugular and were handsomely rewarded,” Schumann says.
“What are you talking about?”
“The killer instinct of competition.”
“That’s exactly what I’m worried about, Schumann. What if he
kills
us once we let him go? What if he takes back his word about not calling the cops and he tells them everything?”
“I am Reasons with His Fists,” he says, “and I fear no man.”
“You are Schumann, and you should fear that man,” Coffen says, pointing at the wiggling magician, still making angry mumbling noises.
Bob Coffen flees Schumann and goes back in Empire Wasted to figure out what to do about Björn. He decides a beer is in the cards, goes over toward the stage once he consumes it in four panicked swigs. Ace is talking with a woman, presumably his girlfriend. The boy is hugging her. She pats his back.
