Fight Song

by Joshua Mohr

  It compels Bob to blurt, “I really need that dental bib.”

  “Then let’s get you one,” Björn says.

  Student of the ocean

  “One more peep and you’re going in the glove box,” Coffen says to Schumann, who will not shut up with his squeaks. Björn’s given Bob a dental bib and now Coffen sits in his car, contemplating what to write on it. Or trying to contemplate, if the damn mouse would shut up.

  Bob’s threat seems to work because the rodent immediately goes silent.

  Is that contrition in his beady eyes? He sulks on Bob’s shoulder, minding his manners, a furry little gentleman.

  Nobody wants to be in a box, Coffen thinks. Not even a mouse.

  It’s hot in Bob’s car. He can smell the sautéing-cabbage funk from his armpits. And the mouse, he reasons, is probably producing his own stench.

  A meteorologist might call the barometric pressure unseasonably high.

  Coffen texts his daughter: Wanna see real life sea horses at aquarium today?

  Coffen texts his son: Sea horses at aquarium today?

  Margot: How long will it take?

  Coffen: Only a couple hours. There’s fro-yo in it for you.

  Margot: No thanks

  Then Brent’s response comes in: i’m gaming

  Bob: Please?

  Brent: fine

  Pick you up in 20?

  fine

  And off Coffen and Schumann zoom. He places the mouse in the glove box, says, “It’s best if my family doesn’t see you.”

  The mouse squeaks and peeps his counterargument, but to no avail.

  Bob figures it’s also wise to wipe the Kiss makeup off his face before he has to explain it to the kids. He doesn’t want to say goodbye to it, but he can always ask Ace to reapply it later.

  Coffen calls Jane on the way, wanting to warn her of his impending arrival at the home he’s verboten from, but it’s Erma who answers Jane’s cell with, “What?”

  “I’m coming by to pick up Brent.”

  “We already know.”

  “Has Jane said anything about the show I invited her to tonight?”

  “We think it’s an unnecessary distraction the night before she goes for the record.”

  “What does she think?”

  “We’re concerned that any unnecessary stimuli the night before could clutter her psyche, like garbage in the ocean.”

  “That sounds like Gotthorm.”

  “He’s brilliant.”

  “Does Jane want to come with me tonight?”

  Erma, talking to somebody, presumably Jane, yells, “He’s asking questions about the magic show.”

  “She has the tickets I left with Gotthorm, right?” Bob asks.

  “Yeah, yeah, we’ve got the tickets stuck to the fridge.”

  “Can I quickly talk to Jane? For like ten seconds?”

  “He wants to talk to you for like ten seconds.”

  Coffen can’t make out Jane’s voice in the background, but soon Erma says, “Honk when you’re here and Brent will come out.”

  Erma hangs up.

  Coffen honks when he’s there for Brent to come out.

  But it’s not his son who exits first. “Hi, Dad,” Margot says. “Are you sure you guys aren’t getting divorced?”

  “I’ll be home after your mom breaks the record.”

  “G-Ma is packing up a lot of your stuff.”

  “Don’t worry about G-Ma. Only worry about your mom and me.”

  “Isn’t that what I’m doing?”

  “Why don’t you want to come to the aquarium today?”

  “I’ve been in the ocean all week.”

  “Please?” asks Bob.

  “Fine. Let me go get my iPad.”

  “Leave it. Come on. Let’s go have some fun.”

  “I need my iPad.”

  Bob can make this concession, so long as she comes along. “Fine, go get it.”

  Margot walks inside the house, and Bob hears some scratching noises coming from inside the glove compartment. Some of Schumann’s past peeping was obviously negative, yet these scratches sound supportive to Coffen, somehow optimistic, as though each rake of unruly rodent nail says, Way to play it, Bob. I think you’re on the right road.

  “I have to be home by 2:30,” Margot says, walking back up to the car. “Ro and I are going to ancient Greece.”

  Coffen has to be done by about that time, too, so he can go prepare for his big plan, his way of luring Jane to come with him to the show, with the help of French Kiss. “We’ll have you home in plenty of time to travel the world. Here comes your brother.”

  The aquarium is on the outskirts of their suburb, bleeding into the adjacent one. If kids still liked going outside their rooms to play, this part of town would be immensely popular. There’s a bowling alley, a roller-skating rink, and of course the aquarium. But these escapisms aren’t in vogue.

  Coffen had actually been surprised that the aquarium was still in business when Schumann mentioned it. Judging from the empty parking lot, he’s not alone.

  In fact, to say that the sea horse exhibit is exhibiting a sparse public interest would be a vulgar euphemism. The aquarium is empty. Only the Coffens and a few straggling employees. Why would nobody come and bask in the unmitigated splendor of these underwater steeds? Anybody’s guess.

  But the silver lining in this sea horse cloud is that Coffen, Margot, and Brent can easily view each aquarium. There are sixteen small ones, all in the middle of the room and shaped like little domes with varying species of sea horse. The nice thing about the size and shape of the individual orbs is that they allow a 360-degree view of the horses’ habitats—Margot and Brent rotate all the way around the tiny universes, following the creatures as they slalom about. Some of the sea horses are the size of coffee beans, while others stretch out six, maybe seven inches. There’s a wide array of colors and patterns on their bodies, but they all have those thin, elongated noses.

  Coffen stands next to his daughter, watching the sea horses. “Is it better than seeing them online?” Bob asks her.

  “It’s different. I don’t know if it’s better or not.”

  “They are beautiful in person, aren’t they?”

  “I can zoom in and get closer to them when me and Ro go swimming.”

  “Right, but here you can actually appreciate their uniqueness. There are living, breathing sea horses contained in this environment.”

  “Right, but if I zoom in I can really analyze that uniqueness.”

  “Right, but seeing them here gives you a sense of scale.”

  “Right, but if I swim up quietly, I can hold one in my hand.”

  “Right, but that isn’t your real hand.”

  “Right, but it serves the same purpose. There’s a fish in my hand that I’ll probably never get to see in the wild.”

  “You should learn to scuba,” Bob says, hoping to find Margot a real-world hobby. “I’ll happily pay for those classes.”

  “Maybe.”

  Now there’s an employee’s voice calling, “Hey! Hey!” and waving at the three Coffens. “This one’s about to give birth. Get over fast and observe science firsthand.”

  They make their way to the aquarium in question.

  “How do you know?” Coffen asks the woman.

  “Because I’m a college-degreed scientist is how,” she says.

  The particular sea horse in question is in the dome alone. It is bright orange, almost fluorescent orange, or that’s the association Bob makes. It’s near the bottom of the tank and has wrapped its tail around a rock to steady itself. A hole has opened in the abdomen. Its body lunges in staccato, contracting motions.

  “She’s going to be a mommy?” Brent says to the crabby scientist.

  But it’s Margot who answers: “A daddy. With sea horses, the daddies give birth to the babies.”

  “Aren’t you a smart girl?” the scientist says.

  “I spend a lot of time under the sea.”

 
“Good for you.”

  “She means under the sea on the computer,” Coffen says.

  The scientist smiles at Margot. “You’re smart to take advantage of every resource to learn more about nature.”

  At that, there’s the first volley of newborns flying out of the hole; somewhere between twenty and thirty tiny sea horses shoot out, rolling in the water. They are pale, wiggling, the size of slivers of fingernail. Once birthed, they swim haphazardly, directionless.

  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.

  Scout’sHonor!®

  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.”

  “Is it FDA-approved?”

  “If you don’t wanna tell me the truth from your mouth, your nose will tell me what I need to know,” says Tilda.

  “Why’d you lace my lasagna?”

  “I have to know the truth. So please say it once more: Is that mouse really my lover, Reasons with His Fists, a.k.a. your neighbor, Schumann?”

  Bob doesn’t know how to answer that. His head says no, of course not. His heart says, I doubt it but it is the tiniest bit conceivable, after Bob saw Björn morph the ballroom floor into ice baths. In a sense it doesn’t matter what he thinks about the likelihood of Schumann’s mouse status. It’s up to Scout’sHonor!®.

  Bob decides to go with his heart: “Yeah, I’m pretty sure the mouse is Schumann.”

  “I need a definitive answer.”

  “It’s him.”

  She ogles Bob’s nose, which stays bone dry. Tilda looks surprised. So does Coffen. Then once she’s convinced that there’s nary a deception on the premises, Tilda says, “Now that I know for certain you’re not lying, I’m happy to baby-sit.”

  “Maybe the truth serum doesn’t work,” says Bob.

  “I don’t know if I can believe your story, and I certainly don’t believe that hustling magician. But I’ve used Scout’sHonor!® many times on many men and I know that it works like a charm.

  “Life is getting weirder,” she says, taking the mouse from Bob, holding her palms flat so Schumann can nose around, walk in little circles, tickle with his whiskers. She brings him up close to her face and makes smooching noises. He responds with squeaks that seem jubilant.

  Then she holds him right up to her left eye: “My god, it might really be him.”