“I knew I dug your style,” Ace says and rubs Bob on the shoulder.
“It’s only one show,” Kat says. “I know you’re disappointed, baby, but it’s not your fault.”
The other bandmates attempt to console Ace with low-grade clichés:
“We’ll come back better than ever once we dial in a new bassist.”
“We can be even greater than the great band we already are.”
“French Kiss will climb higher on the throne of rock and roll.”
“Tonight was supposed to be special!” Ace blurts, his voice getting really agitated. “I’d planned something really special and Mr. Javier Torres bastardized my special evening.”
“You can’t bastardize a time of day, bro,” the French singer corrects again.
“I can’t believe he did this to us,” says Ace. “Tonight was going to be a really important night.”
The room goes quiet.
Coffen is in a unique position to understand why Ace is so upset. Certainly, Kat’s kid knows, too, but he doesn’t seem to be locked into what’s bothering Ace right now. Bob empathizes. He knows how deadly it can feel when you envision how something will play out, much like reading the signs at Björn’s show: He and Jane were supposed to take in the information and use it as a way to better their marriage, but somehow Bob messed it up, made her so mad she walked out. Bob felt that sting so viscerally, watching Jane leave him in the ballroom, and he doesn’t want Ace to endure something similar. He wants Ace to be saved from it. “Do it anyway,” Bob says.
“What?”
“You know what,” Coffen says. “Do it now.”
“Do it backstage here?”
Bob nods and smiles. He’s stopped crying. “Why not? Why wait one second longer?”
“Yeah?”
“Live a little,” Coffen says.
Ace’s eyes bounce between all present — the remaining members of French Kiss, Coffen, the boy, and finally, Kat. He fumbles through his pocket for something and kneels in front of her, still in his Kiss makeup and leather ensemble. “I meant to do this onstage in front of our legions of loyal fans. I wanted to make this something really special for you, my queen, but alas, there’s nothing I can do about that now. And maybe it’s better for Acey to do it like this. Because we’ll never have a fancy life. Ours will be a modest existence. I’m not rich or famous and I never will be. I’m just a janitor.”
“My dad has a better job than you,” the boy says.
Ace only smiles at him and continues: “I’m another person getting by who’s trying to do my best. But I’ve done hard living, which has taught me that when something makes you smile, that’s what really matters. Like they say, life is short and life can be hard, but you and me, we make the world better for each other. I promise to always try to do that. I’ll never quit trying to make you happy, and I’ll always try to provide for you. I love your son.”
“I’m not calling you dad,” says the boy.
“Shhh,” Kat says to him.
“Never call me dad, dude,” Ace says. “But let’s be friends, okay?”
The boy looks away.
“I love this band,” Ace says. “I’m even starting to love my new friend, Bob. So here we all are in a room that stinks like puke, but that’s the way the world is, right? No matter how happy you are, things are never ideal. There’s always a catch. At least there always is for normal people. Maybe millionaires have it better. Who knows? But we’re the normal people, and normal people make do with what the world gives them. We are happy no matter how the room smells.”
“Oh, Ace,” she says.
“I’m serious, my queen. No matter how the room smells we’ll be happy. I know without any doubt that I want to spend the rest of my life with you. Let’s go mano a mano versus the world together. I will love you and your son for all time. Will you make me the happiest Ace in the whole deck?”
“My dad’s condo has a huge deck,” the boy says.
“Stop it,” Kat says to him. “This is what I want.”
“What about what I want?” the boy asks.
“I hope you can be happy for me,” she says. “I love you. Your dad loves you. Ace loves you. All of that makes you a lucky boy.”
He doesn’t say anything.
Kat looks at kneeling Ace, who says, “Will you please marry me before the rest of my hair falls out?”
“I can’t wait to marry you.”
He slides the ring on her finger.
He stands.
They smooch, hug each other.
To Bob, the boy sort of looks happy, whether he wants to or not.
French Kiss starts clapping and howling. Each member pushes in and hugs Ace and Kat and the boy.
There Bob Coffen is, humbled and alive and speechless. This is what he wants; this is what he needs — to answer his wife’s dental bib. For if a motivating force is what she requires to swim against the sweeping, raging current of their complicated life, isn’t the best thing Coffen can offer her what Ace has said to Kat: to be happy no matter how the room smells?
“Aren’t you going to tell us congratulations, Bobby-boy?” Ace is asking.
“Can I hug, too?” Coffen asks.
“Get in here,” Ace says.
Bob shuts his eyes and feels their bodies in his wide arms.
“We are happy as clams,” Ace says.
“You got that right,” Kat says.
“My man?” Ace says to the boy.
The kid nods — no small victory.
“Sorry you didn’t get to gig tonight,” Kat says to the whole band, but mostly to her newly anointed fiancé. “I know you were excited.”
“It’s more than fine,” Ace says to her. “Especially since we might still be able to salvage the gig.”
“How?” the French singer asks.
Ace looks at Coffen, all of them still tangled in a hug.
Picking fights with sorcerers
Who’s to say that Javier actually needs to be Javier? The band only needs someone to stand there like a fool and pretend to play the bass, amp never getting turned on. They dress Coffen like an official member, make him up as an exact replica. He likes the face paint a lot. Then they mount the stage and Bob embarks upon his world premiere, a quasi-Javier, a bassist roaming the limelight.
When he first hits the stage, his feet begin to tingle, then his hands. His vision gets all spotty around the edges and Bob thinks he’s going to pass out from nerves. He makes eye contact with Ace, who must see the panic in his eyes because, like a savvy veteran, he saunters over to Bob and says, “For the next forty-five minutes, we are rock gods.” Coffen keeps his eyes shut for the whole first song, pretty much staying in one place, not getting into the performance too much. But when he hears the audience scream, when he hears all the heads present clap and whistle and hoot, Coffen opens his eyes and smiles.
Slowly, he test-drives the give in his hips.
By the time the set is half over, he whips his wig around in heavy metal spasms.
He waggles his tongue at pretty girls in the crowd and notices their welcoming flair as they flirt back with salacious gestures, one even baring her breasts for Coffen to appreciate.
Pelvic thrusts—à la Bob’s pitch for Scroo Dat Pooch — haven’t seemed so hopeless and clunky and arrhythmic in the history of rock and roll, but the music, the stage, the fancy lighting, all these aid his thrusts mightily.
He’s getting even sweatier than he had been when riding the bike and he’s having the time of his life. Feels wonderfully winded. Feels light-headed and loves every second of being live entertainment. Live! There’s no computer screen. There’s no streaming. No tape delay. No buffering. Bob Coffen is a human standing and sweating onstage in front of a roomful of other humans.
There’s a surrender of sorts inside of Bob as he feels the hands of rock and roll all over him — as his adrenaline bucks. And if “surrender” is too strong a word, well, at least he’s deciding something. Fuck his job. Fuck building one more game he doesn’t believe in. Fuck security. Fuck steady paychecks if he hates the life he’s secure in. Coffen is good at building games and if DG isn’t satisfying him creatively, he can find another job. It might be the Kiss makeup, might be the javelin, could be the fact that he’s been towing the line of his life and it isn’t working. And right when French Kiss is in the middle of playing “Rock and Roll All Nite,” Bob makes a decision onstage: This will be his fight song. Jane loves this one, too. Coffen closes his eyes and gets the tongue waggle working again, his hips doing an awful hula.