Plus, and maybe this is the heart of the matter, Coffen sees Schumann for what he is: confused, sad, and broken, like so many others their age. Like Bob. Confused about their role in the world. A football game. A video game. It all adds up to the same thing. A way to escape how grueling reality can be, all the responsibilities, all the worries. There’s good stuff, too, as Tilda says, between the cops, monsters, prudes, and mice, but you have to hunt for it, or the routine can pull you under.
“You’re not going to tattle on me, are you?” Schumann asks.
“On one condition.”
“What?”
“For one week, starting now, I want you to take a steady dose of Scout’sHonor!®”
“Why?”
“So you know when you lie,” Coffen says. “I want you to be aware when you lie to your wife.”
“What good will that do?”
“She won’t know, but you will.”
“I can’t walk around all week bleeding from my nose, Bob.”
“Exactly why Scout’sHonor!® works so well. Nobody can afford to bleed all week long. Our lives are busy. Wonder what would happen if you don’t lie to her but come clean about everything?”
“I don’t want to come clean. And because you don’t cheat on Jane, you’re no perfect husband yourself. Don’t you lie to her about other stuff?”
“I more leave stuff out than lie.”
“Like what?”
“Like most of my real feelings.”
“Isn’t that lying?” Schumann says. “You should take Scout’sHonor!® too. Let the pill decide what’s lying and what isn’t.”
He’s spot-on. No disputing that. If one of Coffen’s goals going forward is to do right by his people, then he has to find out all the facts. Try to be honest about everything, even issues he’s previously avoided or downplayed or gone dumb about. Bob should go into his future with his eyes open as to when he’s being dishonest. A week of Scout’sHonor!® will help keep him on track.
“Fine,” Coffen says. “I’ll do it.”
“Right on. Good man. You take it for a week and after your time is up, maybe I’ll decide to take it once we see how it works on you. That makes perfect sense.”
“Take it or I tattle.”
“What if I bleed to death?” Schumann whines.
“Stop being so selfish and you won’t bleed to death.”
“It’s not that easy. You can’t stop cold turkey.”
“Choice is yours, Schumann. But I’ll rat you out.”
“These are the moments I know you never played on a football team. Teammates have each other’s backs no matter what, until the game clock of life expires.”
“What’s it going to be?”
“What choice do I have? I’ll take them and try not to bleed to death,” Schumann says. “But if I do die, you can have my bagpipes. Every time you look at them remember that you murdered me with your truth pills.”
“I can live with that.”
They shake on it. He squeezes Bob’s hand hard. Really hard. Hard enough that Coffen winces and emits a little girly yelp.
For the first time during the conversation, Schumann smiles, still crushing Coffen’s hand. “Now who’s peeping like a mouse,” he says.
After dumping Schumann at home, Coffen makes it to the status meeting with ten minutes to spare. It’s just him and Malcolm Dumper in the conference room, Coffen’s young cohorts only arriving seconds before these meetings commence, risking late arrivals to maintain a persona of youthful ambivalence to structure, rules, the asinine consideration of other people’s time.
Dumper is plopped on a beanbag, while Coffen hooks his laptop up to the overhead projector, so Scroo Dat Pooch will appear on the large white screen.
“Are you excited about your unveiling this morning, Coffen?”
“I’m excited to see what you think of it.”
“I bet the Great One will love it like a bee loves smelling the roses.”
“I hope you love these roses.”
“We still need to have that dinner we’ve been talking about for years,” Malcolm says.
“Yes, you’ll have to come by the house sometime soon.”
“Is your roof helipad-friendly?”
“I doubt it,” says Coffen, “but I’m not sure.”
“That means no. I won’t make that mistake again. One mighty big check I had to write those buffoons who are too dumb to know the specifications of their own roof. While we’re alone, I wanted to tell you that the layoffs I was mentioning are probably going to happen soon for some of our teammates. We need to whittle some pudge. And while we’ll miss those members of our family who are no longer our teammates, truthfully, it probably could not come at a more ideal time for them to take a hiatus. They’ll thank me in the long run. Go to Paris. Go backpacking. Fish in Alaska. Big things are afoot outside these walls.”
“Big things are about to be afoot inside these walls, too,” Coffen says. “Thanks for letting me know.”
“I’m pro-information. I want my people knowing as much as my people can know. Especially those who are plock-worthy. Those who hold plocks hold a special place in my heart. Some things, of course, are for my eyes and ears only. Heavy is the head that wears the crown, if you get my drift. Don’t worry about the pudge purge for now. Hopefully, your new game will help the layoffs be more of a simple cleansing than an all-out flush.”
“I’m glad there’s no pressure.”
The team scampers into the conference room, planting themselves on various beanbags.
“We’re all yours, Bob,” Dumper says, smiling.
Coffen launches Scroo Dat Pooch. What makes this tricky is the possibility, nay, the probability that Dumper won’t much care about the game’s feel, the game’s overall look. It’s conceivable that he won’t be concerned with such analytical components once he observes that Malcolm Dumper himself is the main character of the game, the head honcho of pooch screwing.
Bob has used a JPEG of Dumper’s face to build the avatar, so the likeness is top-notch. It’s almost a perfect match. And if Bob is too biased to make any objective observations about the facial likeness, as the test level launches, all of his teammates crack up and clap. Everybody in the conference room, except Dumper, is hysterical and nothing’s even happened yet.
All that’s on the screen is Dumper in his signature Gretzky sweater, #99.
All that’s up there is Dumper and his big, thick tongue lolling stupidly from his mouth.
All that’s there is Malcolm Dumper licking his filthy, bestiality-loving chops.
Kiss’s “Rock and Roll All Nite” starts playing in the game.
All Bob’s teammates tap their feet.
The mouth-breather says, “Awesome!”
Coffen is the only one standing in the conference room. His movements control the avatar. He now marches in place, his movements moving the Malcolm in the game. It’s an empty cityscape. Malcolm prowling the barren street. Then, over behind some dented garbage cans, he spots a collie. It’s looking generally frightened. Coffen’s even incorporated some audio: a sad, furtive series of whimpers and whines coming from the collie.
Coffen runs in place, quickly moving Malcolm toward the crying dog. Malcolm leans down and pets the mutt, strokes its head. A voice comes from the game, Malcolm saying, “There, there. There, there. Shhh. Hey, do you like to party?”
The collie turns its head to look at whoever is playing the game. The dog’s eyes bulge, seeming to say: Did this creep just say what I think he said?
Seconds later on the screen, Malcolm is undoing his belt and dropping his trousers.
Seconds later, he picks up the collie and mounts the poor thing.
Bob furiously pumps his hips in the conference room.