Hooligan

by Winkler, Philipp;

  After at least a half hour, I dare to move again. I pull on some socks. I carry the shoes in my hands. In the hallway I listen again, but there’s nothing to be heard. I go downstairs. The living room is completely destroyed. Cabinets and bureaus are emptied and demolished. The floor is covered with odds and ends. The sofas are slit open from end to end and the filling spills out like innards. No trace of Arnim. I risk a glance in the kitchen. The same sight as in the living room. I carefully open the front door, immediately reaching up for the doorbell so it isn’t jostled. Arnim’s pickup is still parked next to my VW hatchback. In my socks, I walk to my car and climb inside. I don’t waste a second thinking about who might be stopped at the end of the road, waiting for someone to come from the house. I just want to make sure I get away from here. I could care less that I’ve turned on the brights, just so I don’t run into anything. Once I come out of the woods and see the abandoned fields before me, I breathe a sigh of relief. I’m hardly back on the country road when I hit the gas in my socks and don’t take my foot off till I’m back in Wunstorf.

  I drive to Yvonne’s after I’ve made a stop at the gas station, where the only person there’s the night clerk, and loaded up on cheap liquor instead of beer. I spend the night in the car, in front of her house. Starting tomorrow, I’ll have to figure out what to do, but right now I don’t want to think. Although I’d like nothing more than to be with her and feel her presence, always beyond reach, the light in her bedroom is out and I don’t want to wake her.

  ———

  The first weeks and months after our move out to Wunstorf were terrible. And by terrible, I mean nauseatingly boring. I hadn’t become friends with Jojo and Joel yet. Jojo was just a quiet boy with a head of curly hair among all the boys in my new class. I automatically couldn’t stand any of them at first. And so I spent most of the time in the garden, as far from the coop as possible, pounding the ball against an imaginary goal on the garden fence. Till the neighbor shoved his face over the fence and bellowed at me, saying I’d better knock off the racket. If my parents hadn’t taken away television privileges, I’d lounge a lot on the sofa in the sitting room and watch all my favorite cartoons. I was so bored to death, I even stayed when Manuela came in and wanted to watch her girly cartoons, like Mila Superstar and Sailor Moon. I didn’t have anything better to do, and I was too small to jack off. The girls in my class all had little, pointy mice fists under their tops at most, and I used my dong exclusively for peeing or stretching it out in boredom and making doing-doing-doing.

  One day I was tired of it all. My father had been on a construction site for a couple days, and Mom was bending over from morning till night in the old folk’s home after retraining as nurse’s aide. Even on weekends. I’d gone through all the cartoon series on all the channels, and everywhere there were talk shows on in which idiots were yelling at each other. I turned off the television, pulled my bike out of the shed, and rode across town to the train station. I’d completely forgotten I was still wearing my pajamas. My plan was the only thing in my head. At least I’d thought to put on my boots. It must have looked pretty retarded the way I rode through town in my pajamas and rubber boots. With a massive grin on my tiny face.

  I didn’t know how you got a ticket from the machine, but I hadn’t brought along enough money anyway. And I’ve never gotten an allowance my whole life. So I just got on the next regional train with my bike. People sure must have looked funny at the little twerp riding the train in his pajamas. But no one said anything. I listened to the stops being announced and rubbed my arms. It wouldn’t have been a bad idea to put on a jacket at least, but what boy voluntarily puts on a jacket? When Hannover Central Station was announced, I jumped up and was the first at the door, waiting impatiently for the train to stop and the doors to finally open. I used the elevator to reach the corridor through the station from the platform. I’d never done it before and absolutely wanted to try it. Besides, I told myself, I had my bike along and couldn’t get down the stairs very well. Confused over which side of the station I should exit on, I ran back and forth. City Center or Raschplatz? I wiped my snotty nose with my sleeve and decided on City Center. Simply for the reason that the statue with the tail seemed a bit more familiar than the gray concrete of Raschplatz. I rode slalom through the crowds of shoppers. It must have taken forever, and I always seemed to come out at the Kröpcke clock on that square. But I didn’t let it get me down, and tried out a different route again and again. At some point, I actually did end up on a corner I was familiar with. From there, it wasn’t very far to our old home. I didn’t care when other kids or teenagers laughed at me from time to time as I rode past. I was way too excited to see Kai’s face when I rang his parents’ bell and I’d be suddenly standing there in front of their door, completely relaxed and with my arm resting casually on my handlebars. The thought never occurred to me that there might be no one there. When I finally saw our old building, I kicked it up a notch and skidded to a stop right in front of the main entrance. I rang everyone’s doorbell, and someone buzzed me in without anyone asking who’s there through the intercom. I squeezed into the tight elevator with an old grandma who came in the front door after me. She stank of cat piss and musty fur coats and looked down at my trusty bike in disapproval. She had a bulldog’s face, and I was glad when she got out on the second floor. The elevator stopped on our old floor. The apartment belonging to Kai’s family was closed and I risked a glance at the nameplate next to our old place. It was taped over and the surname Lorkowski was written on the tape in permanent marker. I was pleased the coach from 96’s Cup winners was living at our place, and I imagined he’d made my old room into a trophy room. But surely it wasn’t Michael Lorkowski who was living in our run-down widow bunker. Whatever. That’s the way I pictured it. And then the next door opened. I jumped forward and almost scared Kai’s mother to death when I screamed, “Haha!” and smirked, in my pajama pants covered with mud.

  “Heiko,” she said and placed a hand on her chest in surprise.

  I casually asked if Kai had time to play. He came out of his room, and when he saw me, joy rose in his face, and he laughed at me at first because of how I looked, and then we laughed together, and over orange juice and Nutella toast in the kitchen, I told him how I’d gotten there, while Kai’s mother was trying vainly to reach someone at my home.

  ———

  I hardly sleep anymore. After spending the first few nights in my car, I’ve set myself up in the gym and lie down on the middle bench in the locker-room. At least I can take showers there. Still have had no sign of life from Arnim. I thought about going to the police, but years ago he drummed into me that I should never go to the police under any circumstances if anything happened to him, and I respect his wish. After all, Arnim knows exactly what kind of life he leads, and who am I to put myself before his wishes. I’m concerned about the animals. If Arnim doesn’t let me know soon he’s okay, then I won’t have any choice but to go home and take care of the critters. Can’t just let them starve. But at the moment, I have other things to do. The match is coming up, and I want to make a final attempt to at least get Jojo at my side. When I called him, he said we should meet at Midas, but I said he didn’t have to go to the trouble. I’d come over and visit him at home again.

  It’s ass-cold. The wind whips around the corner of the Seidel house, but my clothes are still dryer warm. I was in the laundromat earlier and sat in front of the drums in my underwear and wifebeater, waiting for my freshly washed things, which I immediately put on.

  I hadn’t been to the Seidels’ for ages but immediately feel transported back in time when Jojo opens the door, we greet each other, and he lets me in. The familiar scent of antique farm-themed wallpaper and decades-old carpeting rises to my nose.

  “You missed coffee by a couple minutes,” Jojo says and leads me through the narrow hallway to the kitchen, “but I can still make you one. You want a coffee, Heiko?”

  I thank him and decline. His mother is st
anding at the sink and washing two sets of coffee cup and saucers. She’s wearing an apron in frumpy colors and has her hair pulled up in a matching headscarf. You don’t see that much anymore. Maybe with elderly Turkish women. But the familiar sight of German grandmas with headscarves must have disappeared at some point in the aughts. Or the people who wore the headscarves gradually died off.

  “Hello, Mrs. Seidel,” I say and shake her hand.

  She gives me a warm, motherly smile. I always used to like that, even if I’d have never admitted it to myself. I didn’t know it from home. But Jojo and Joel’s mother has a presence that makes you want to wrap yourself up in a blanket and sip on a hot chocolate. As stupid as it sounds. She’s aged visibly. The Seidels were by far the oldest of the parents among us boys and even back then seemed more like Jojo and Joel’s grandma and grandpa than their parents really. I take a seat at the table. Look at her infectious smile. Maybe it’s the first time in her life that her appearance fits her character. As hard as I try, I can’t picture Jojo’s mother as a young woman or girl either. Without being asked, she places a plate in front of me with two slices of white bread and a jar of homemade blackberry jam.

  “I don’t have anything else to offer you, Heiko. If Jojo had told me in time, I’d have baked something.” She gives him a strict look that isn’t completely serious.

  “Mama,” he says, “we’re not twelve anymore.”

  “Oh, all righty,” she says in an artificially high-pitched voice, “the grown-up sirs don’t like cake anymore, yeah?”

  “That’s fine, Mrs. Seidel. Thank you,” I say and spread the jam on my bread even though I’ve hardly been hungry for days.

  To be more precise, since the night I spent crouched in Siegfried’s room while some random guys did God knows what to Arnim.

  “What’s the news?” Jojo asks, retrieving a glass from the kitchen cupboard and giving it to his mother, who fills it with Coke and places it in front of me. A well-oiled machine.

  Of course, in front of her I can’t really talk about how I need him to beat the living daylights out of those Braunschweig sons of bitches, and I say I just want to hear it again. When he doesn’t get it, I nod my head to the side, as much to say: Let’s talk about it upstairs.

  We make some small talk while I’m pushing the pieces of bread in with some effort but still trying to make it look somewhat enjoyable. I usually have trouble chatting, but Mrs. Seidel moderates the whole thing with great ease and asks how Kai and his eyes are doing. I’m surprised how well-informed she is, but at the same time I ask myself what Jojo told her about why Kai’s in the hospital in the first place. She even knows I work at my uncle’s gym in Hannover and also asks about that. I produce some random phrases I’ve picked up here and there. Stuff like: “Yeah, it’s really protracted,” and “it has to, just has to.”

  Then she looks at the clock and says her program is about to start. Jojo and I slip upstairs. We take a seat in Joel’s old room. The same posters on the wall. One of his old jerseys has been framed in the meantime. Handbooks about football coaching are spread across the desk and every free surface. Colorful Post-its poke out from between the pages.

  “Wait a sec,” Jojo says and retrieves something from his own room next door, “here.”

  He hands me an old Diercke world atlas.

  “Yeah?” I ask. “What am I supposed to see here?”

  “Just open the Oceania page.”

  I look in the table of contents. In an open space: Joel Seidel. Sixth grade, class B. Then I leaf to the page way at the end of the atlas. A tiny group of islands in the middle of the blue nirvana of the Pacific Ocean has been circled with red marker. The islands, printed in yellow, are so small that at first glance you could mistake them for crumbs or boogers smeared in the book. The name Nation of Tonga is next to them. Also next to it, in Joel’s red handwriting: FIFA World Ranking 199. I look up at Jojo. His face is as serious as if he’d just handed me his autobiography to have it read, and he asks, “You still remember?”

  “Of course, I still remember,” I whisper and watch my fingers travel from island to island.

  Jojo sits down on the chair in front of the desk and, lost in thought, leafs through his football instructional manuals. Without having to look up, I can sense how he continues to watch me. For a moment that stretches like hours, I’m ripped out of the here and now and see myself back then with Joel, sitting on the tower roof of the shuttered step ladder factory, legs dangling twenty meters up. I’d scraped my chest on the handle of the heavy metal door leading up to the roof, and a thin line of blood seeps through my T-shirt. It was the night after Joel had told us about his transfer to the 96 youth squad, and we’d messed ourselves up in my new apartment in the residential tower. We’d simply left the others behind because they were lying there passed out, and our nocturnal stroll led us to the place where we’d already held more than one private party. The beer cans of countless teenage nights lay untouched at the foot of the tower. We used to roll them down the corrugated roof when they were empty, betting on whose’d be first. That’s how I got fifty euros off Jojo one night. I still remember exactly the way Joel blew his parted bangs from his forehead and laughed because he couldn’t believe he’d actually be wearing the Reds’ jersey from then on. We couldn’t even imagine back then he’d develop into one of the young players with the most potential in his age group. Even less, how badly he’d been thrown by the training injury so severe it nipped his chance in the bud. Well. And then. That he’d jump to his death from precisely this spot, where we were sitting.

  “You’ll hook us up with some box seats, right,” I’d joked, but of course I wasn’t planning to ever spend a game sitting next to all those money bags and sponsoring fuckers, who don’t give a damn whether they put their petty cash into a football club or a race horse. After all, everything’s just a joke for them.

  “Just let me have a game on the scrimmage team first,” he said and laughed, “I still think this whole thing’s a huge misunderstanding and they’ll give me back to the Havel team.”

  “Oh, cut it out!”

  I thought he was going over the top with his humble routine.

  “Well, let’s wait and see. And even if I’m just subbed after a couple times. It’s already completely nuts as it is,” he said and grinned. “On the other hand, there’s always Tonga.”

  “Why Tonga, actually?“ I asked and couldn’t understand why he wouldn’t—with his talent—at least pick a halfway legit country where he’d want to get citizenship if he didn’t have the stuff for German pro football. Which I wasn’t assuming, and was completely of the opinion he could easily make the leap. And maybe he would have.

  “Why not Tonga? First of all, it sounds good. Say it once: Tonga.”

  I repeated after him and nodded and said, “Yeah, rolls off your tongue.”

  “And then,” he counted down his arguments on his fingers, “Tonga is so low in the international rankings they’d immediately give citizenship to any European player who can just barely hit the ball. It’s sure to be enough, money-wise. I mean, you’re living on a crazy tropical island. Can lie around all day on white beaches, and the bright blue ocean is only a couple steps away. You’re celebrated by everyone in the country as the new Maradona of Tonga and can pick and choose between women in hula skirts and coconut bras. How great is that?! Who‘d need the cash to buy a stupid sports car or something?”

  “You’re right,” I said.

  Then we lay back, ignoring the hard ridges of the roof, looking into the night sky and imagining we were on the beach in Tonga, where I’d visit him several times a year, and there’d probably be a coconut bra girl or two left over for me.

  “What’d you actually want?“ Jojo asks.

  I have to think about it for a moment, because in my mind I’m still lying on the beach and sipping a chilled Tongan beer.

  “About the 18th,” I say. “The match against Braunschweig,” I say, but Jojo already knows what I’m
talking about.

  He grimaces. Now he’s thinking about how he can let me down gently, but I don’t have any desire to have some excuse thrown at me.

  “Let me guess: you’re gonna be there. Right?”

  He exhales and rubs his neck. Dandruff falls like fake snow from a Christmas-themed snow globe.

  “Heiko …” he starts.

  “No, not Heiko now. Say it.” I was a little surprised at myself and how vanishingly short my patience is.

  “I’ve thought it over. What Ulf said and—”

  “Fuck Ulf. I get the impression he never felt it!” I give my statement added emphasis with my hands.

  “I don’t believe that, Heiko. No, that’s just not true. But it’s not just that. The thing with Kai.” I try to rub the headache from my forehead. “Heiko, I never want to see a friend like Kai was that night. Never again.”

  “I can’t believe it,” I say into my cupped hands, “I can’t believe all of you are abandoning me at the same time.”

  Jojo pushes the chair closer to me and I automatically move back.

  “That’s just not true. How do you get the idea that we’re all abandoning you? That’s not true, Heiko.”

  If he says my name one more time, I’ll either have to scream or smack him one.