Hooligan

by Winkler, Philipp;

  “Papa!” Manuela hisses, embarrassed, “that’s not true. And even if, then it’s none of your business.”

  “I’m not gonna let him touch me,” he answers and opens his mouth wide to push in a chunk of meat.

  “Where’s Damian?” I ask, changing the topic.

  “He’s down in the playroom with Andreas.”

  “Um … Andreas is sitting outside the door.”

  She looks at me with such disgust, as if I’d wiped my finger in my butt crack and was poking it in Hans’s food. Then she goes to the door. Immediately, they can be heard starting to yell at each other.

  “Sheesh,” my father says, “trouble in paradise.”

  “You would know.” It slipped out of me.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Never mind,” I say. “Then you’ll be out next week?”

  “That’s what it looks like.”

  Then no one says anything more. Hans eats his ham or whatever the hospital chef calls that shoe sole. Mie tries to push the cart with the food closer to my father because the fifth pea has rolled under his covers without him noticing. And I push up my sleeves and out of boredom slap my forearm and leave a red handprint on my arm, but it always disappears immediately.

  Manuela returns. She slips her phone in her bag. Unexpectedly, she puts on a smile and says, “I have a little surprise for you.”

  “Some real food?” Hans asks, and the next pea rolls toward his crotch and leaves a trail of brown sauce on the sheet.

  Manuela taps her fingertips in front of her stomach and says, “Mother’s on her way here.”

  “What?” I explode. Mie stops fiddling with the table, and Hans lets his fork clatter on the plate.

  “That’s right,” Manuela says, “we’ve been back in touch since a couple of weeks ago. I thought it’d be a nice opportunity to bring the family back together again. She’s bringing her boyfriend along.”

  My chin drops.

  “You’re in touch? You?” I can hardly hold back my surprise.

  All these years, my sister has never said a single word about our mother, and now she pulls this out of the fucking blue.

  “Are you crazy?” Hans yells, and his fellow patient looks over and timidly pushes his headphones from one ear. “Why are you bringing her here?”

  Manuela gives Hans an ice-cold look and says with a bossy teacher voice, “Because. I think it’s the right thing to do. Just look at us! Just look at us! This is no family. All I want is for it to get better.” The authority seeps from her voice and is transformed into an insistent whimpering. “Maybe not like with Andreas’s parents. But a little normalcy, is that too much to ask?”

  Hans pushes the table aside, hitting Mie’s upper arm. She squeaks in shock or pain. The fork thuds to the side of the bed and from there to the floor.

  “If I can overcome my fears and call Mom, then you could come my way a little! Especially you, Heiko. I thought you of all people would be happy.”

  “I don’t want to see the dumb bitch!” Hans bellows. “She’s not coming in here. And no way in hell with her squeeze. I think I’m losing my damn mind!”

  Looking for help, Manuela glances my way, but she can’t expect anything from me. Hans continues screaming that he wants to get out immediately, but with every new motion he grimaces in pain and remains prone, completely exhausted, and is still grumbling insults to himself, several for each of us, while Mie pats his arm.

  “Out! Everyone out!” he screams. “Get lost!”

  “Heiko,” Manuela says and leaves her mouth open.

  But I just shake my head. I feel my nostrils flare and suck in a deep breath. Then I push away from the windowsill and very quietly, so it almost disappears under Hans’s curses, say, “You’re all completely crazy,” pushing myself sideways past Manuela so we don’t touch. She turns along with me. “Just leave me alone.”

  My sister calls after me, but I slam the door shut behind me. Andreas is coming up the stairs. He’s pulling Damian behind him by the hand. Andreas opens his dirty, untrusting mouth, but before he can say anything, I slam my fist into his face. Not with full force, but hard enough so it’s more than sufficient for him. He falls half backwards. He pulls on Damian’s arm, who yells, “Ouch!” I’m already stomping down the stairs when I hear Andreas yelling after me that he’ll press charges and what all else. He should go ahead. I don’t have anything anyway. That stupid son of a bitch.

  ———

  Tomorrow’s the day. Tomorrow’s when the boys from Braunschweig will pay for what they did to Kai. Axel filled me in on the crucial details by SMS. The whole thing is going to take place in the passageways of the Ihme complex, as I suggested. At 5 p.m., so we can, in the best-case scenario, follow the broadcast of the game at Timpen. Or the others can. I’ll be getting in my car and driving to Kai in the hospital. And even if we can only follow the game on the radio or internet, I’ll smuggle in some beer and we’ll make a toast, regardless of how the game ends up. And then everything will have come to an end. Kai will be healthy again, we’ll be able to start again. Axel will transfer the leadership to me because I’ve proven myself. Jojo and Ulf will come back, and together we’ll shake up the whole damn scene.

  They all stare at me when I come into Kai’s room. Jojo and Ulf are sitting next to his bed. Look at me with googly eyes, as if I were a passerby who’d stumbled into a secret meeting in some random dark alley.

  “Kai, can we have a word? The two of us,” I stammer.

  Ulf sits up. Wants to open his mouth, but Kai holds up his hand and says, “No problem.”

  Then he heaves himself up from the bed with their help and staggers over to me. We walk down the corridor, through the cafeteria and its glass facade, out into the park. He’s now wearing patches over both eyes. The right eye’s is white with ventilation holes. There’s a transparent patch over the left one.

  “Can you see stuff again?” I ask and point to my own left eye while we walk side by side and the headwind makes us go even more slowly.

  “Not bad. Everything’s still blurry, but the doctors say my left eye is healing so well that I’ll soon be able to see again. Almost like before.”

  “And the right side?” I ask and the feeling that everything will turn out all right spreads across my chest.

  “They can’t say yet. The tear is much worse than with the other eye and the doctors are holding back with a prognosis.”

  We take laps over the prescribed path for a couple minutes and I pass out cigarettes.

  “I have to go back in. The draft isn’t good for the eyes,” Kai says in a hushed voice.

  “I’ll be there tomorrow,” I blurt out, and I give Kai a pat on his bicep, “then we’ll celebrate. I’ll come here and we’ll celebrate.”

  “No, Heiko,” he sounds weak. Maybe we’ve already gone too far, done too much; “not me. You’re going to have to celebrate without me.”

  “I’m telling you, they’re going to suffer something terrible, the sons of bitches.” I clap my hands together symbolically. “Score settled.”

  Kai stops abruptly and literally pierces me with his one eye. He hits my chest with the back of his hand. The translucent cup makes his left eye seemed cruelly distorted.

  “I don’t want anything to do with it anymore! Get that through your head. I’m out. That’s it for me. How many other ways do you want to hear it?!”

  I just stand there. In his eye cup there’s a flat, brown reflection of me blurred beyond recognition. A tiny figure without a face, copying every turn of my head. A human residual image in front of a gray backdrop.

  “Come along,” he says and swallows hard.

  “Where?”

  “To London. You have enough saved up. And here? What’s keeping you here? Not a fucking thing, man. Let’s get away. Just for a while.”

  I can’t look him in the eye. Instead, I watch how his gown flutters around his ankles. The path around us begins to shine with moisture. Rain drops fall on my head and r
un down my forehead and over my face, along my nose.

  “Besides, I could use a good guide dog,” he says uncertainly when I manage to lift my head again. He laughs in the hope I’d join in and we could laugh together. I grab his forearm with my left hand and shake his hand with my right and say, “Take it easy, brother.”

  As I walk past him, I think I hear my name whispered but must have been mistaken. I pull my hood over my head, drawing the elastic drawstrings tight so I can take the jacket collar in my mouth, and press my fist so deep in the pockets that two bulging balls press out from under the fabric of the windbreaker. I walk through the rain to my car with a numb humming in my chest, making all of my movements automated. I still have a couple of things to do, a couple scores to settle, before the day can start tomorrow.

  ———

  The lane to Arnim’s farm is soggy and soft. The car gets stuck halfway between the county road and the woods. I put it in neutral, open the door and push. It’s pouring like crazy, and a little puddle forms on the driver’s seat. At first the vehicle seems just to sink even deeper into the mire. I gather all my strength one last time and push almost horizontal against the frame between the door and the interior. The hatchback goes over a stone or something. Then it starts to roll and I’m able to push it out of the hollow. I make to jump back onto the seat, but my left shoe remains stuck in the mud. I pull and tug and my foot slips out. Fuck it. I climb in, close the door, and step on the clutch with my foot covered with muck and the sock only halfway on, while the seat of my pants soaks up the water.

  Arnim’s pickup truck is parked in front of the house. As if he’d come through the screen door any second and call out, My boy. With his gun in one hand and an Elephant beer in the other. I go inside. The house, still destroyed, is quiet all the way to the roof the rain is drumming against. I can hear the refrigerator humming out in the living room. The acrid stench of old blood rises in my nostrils. Even the sound of the doorbell didn’t rile the dogs. I curse myself for not having had the balls to come here sooner. Something rustles through the newspaper and the other stuff scattered everywhere. Probably a rat or a field mouse that’s found its way into the house. In the kitchen it stinks like a stale cellar and mold. Maggots wriggle in the leftovers in the sink. I walk out into the yard. One side of the camouflage netting has fallen over and a section as big as the clock in a clock tower snakes across the tiger cover. Nothing moves in the cages. The bowls inside are spread around and overturned. I put my middle and index fingers between my lips and let loose a shrill whistle. No reaction. I’m such a damn, cowardly asshole.

  “Bigfoot!” I call and make an effort to imitate the Russian accent of the previous owner. “Poborsky!” But neither dog comes storming out of its house as if snake-bit in the fruitless attempt to seize me by the throat. Even worse, when I walk around the cages, I see they’re both wide open. I hold tightly to the fencing, feeling my body go heavy and sluggish. It hangs numb, supported only by my fingers and my shaky legs, and all of it is so overwhelming. And by all of it, I mostly mean the guilt. The guilt that I didn’t do anything but hide upstairs behind Siegfried and waited for the coast to clear. The guilt that I also didn’t initiate anything later and postponed returning again and again. And even more than about Arnim’s possible fate, I feel bad about Bigfoot and Poborsky, who couldn’t do anything about being thrown into this miserable life, never had a choice except to play along or lie down and wait to starve to death. I’d like to cry right now. Really. Till my face dissolves and my body collapses in dehydration. I let go of the fence, but my wish doesn’t come true. I wipe the raindrops stuck to my fingers over my face and roll up my sleeves, trying to prepare myself for the worst, and pull the cover of the tiger’s pit to the side so I can look through the crack. There’s water in there, reaching halfway up the tiger’s legs. Its fur hangs down wet and limp. It immediately looks up at me and growls deeply, but it’s visibly weak. Too weak to try to jump up the walls. There’s something floating on the surface of the water that looks like bits of clothing. The shreds float on the water like water lilies and rock with every wave. A shiver runs down my spine, but I force myself to look a little longer and search for additional evidence. I don’t find anything. And right now, in this moment, a tiny glimmer of hope should be flowering within me, but there’s nothing. Nothing moves. Because for some reason I know I’ll never see Arnim again, even if I turn the damned Earth upside down. The tiger quickly loses interest in me. We didn’t even have time to give him a name. He turns away from me and wades through the knee-deep, slaggy water. Knowing full well it can’t expect anything from me. Except for one thing. A last service I can render the creature and that I have to do, as little as it pleases me. Because no one else is there. Should I call the zoo? Wouldn’t change a thing. I wouldn’t be doing the animal a favor because the result would be the same. I pull the cover closed again and go into the house. I dig through the chaos, push the sofas to the side, and lift the broken cabinets. But Arnim’s gun remains missing. The fucking losers must have taken it. I sit down in the trash, smoke a cigarette, putting my ashes wherever. And contemplate. I consider calling Gaul. He could surely provide me with something. But it’ll all take too long. I’d have to drive to Hannover first. Maybe it’d take a couple of days for the goods to arrive. No, all that is out of the question. I can’t leave till it’s done. Then I remember the gun Arnim pulled out from under the kitchen table. I jump up and slide over the greasy kitchen floor to under the table. There it is. Hangs flat in a holster made of layers of black duct tape. That wily bastard! I sit down at the table and pull it out. It’s so easy. I weigh it in my hand. It lies heavy there. I remember how everything works. The magazine is fully loaded. I push it back into the handle till it clicks, get up, release the safety, and pull back the slide. A round slips into the chamber and I release the slide. I go back outside. The heavy black thing dangles from my hand. Careful not to accidentally touch the trigger with a finger, I place it on the lid, pull the lid over again, and take up the pistol. Then I place my index finger on the trigger. The tiger has only a fleeting glance and a brief hiss for me. I check one more time if the safety is really off and aim into the pit.

  “Hold still,” I whisper, “please hold still.”

  I’m shaking. This isn’t working. Then I remember how detectives on the crime show always hold their pistols, and I support the gun under the grip with my free hand. I squint my left eye and aim again. I try to breathe calmly and bring the notch and bead into line under the tiger’s head. Then I finally pull the trigger. You always have the image or know from the movies that something crazy happens then. But no way. It just bangs. The bullet enters the head of the tiger. The gun’s kick makes my arm flip back. And the tiger sags into the water. At first I think that I didn’t hit it properly, and I’m already cursing myself, but when the slight waves subside, the body of the dead tiger is also still. I collapse to the ground in relief and my knee sinks in the moist earth. My breathing is loud and hoarse. I wait till all the raindrops have slid from my face. I need a second. Just a second. Then I pull the cover over and go back in the house. The rain has taken a break, and you can only hear the dripping of the gutter. I put the warm pistol on the kitchen table as I go past, maneuver around the trash in the living room, and climb the stairs. My legs work as if on automatic. Don’t need my brain any more to make them move. I turn the handle to Siegfried’s room and open the door. Pale light falls through the window missing curtains. As usual, old Siegfried is sitting on the back of the chair. He’s made himself small. Well, as small as possible for an oversized vulture. The wings are folded flat against his body. Handfuls of his feathers are standing up on end. His breast is plucked bare. There’s a tattered pile of feathers lying on the chair in front of him. I walk to the window. Don’t make the effort to encourage him or me. I turn the handle on the window. Old, rotten wood creaks in the window frame. I rip it wide open. Fresh, cool air streams inside. Siegfried shakes his feathers and they fly aro
und as though from a torn down pillow and slowly float to the ground. I hope he’s not too overwhelmed. He’s had to breathe the stale, dusty air in this room for years.

  I step back from the window to give him some space, and say, “That’s it, old boy. You’re free. We want to see if you can still fly, right?“

  Nothing happens. He moves his talons in one place, as if his feet are cold.

  “Hey!” I call out and bang against the wall with my closed hand, “Wake up! You can finally get out of here.”

  The stupid fucking bird remains motionless. Just hides his head deeper behind his wing.

  “Now fly away already, you old shit! Get lost before I get other ideas!” My voice gives way, with only the crumbs of words in my mouth.

  He doesn’t make a move. Doesn’t even look outside.

  “As you wish,” I say. “Then make sure you take care of yourself!”

  And I kick the door open, banging it against the wall. I pause one last time in the doorway. Then his eyes flash over the feathers and draw me in. His one good eye. Like with Kai. My lips quiver, and I have to clamp my mouth so it stops.

  “Take it easy, old boy,” I say, and close the door.

  ———

  It was so hot I ran around in underwear a couple sizes too large that my skinny legs poked out of like toothpicks from a piece of cheese. I ate my coiled sausage, even though it was still real hot. I rested my feet on the arms of Manuela’s chair and sometimes I slipped a little farther down on the chair and held my feet against her nose and yelled, “Finger or toe? Finger or toe?” and then Mom or Grandma scolded me, saying I should leave my sister alone, because she got all whiny and waved her hands wildly and squeaked, “Gross!” And my grandpa laughed and his belly shook, and he turned the sausage and the meat on the grill. Sometimes my father would join him and douse the BBQ with his beer, and Grandpa would chase him off and say, “That’s enough, man! You’re drowning it.”

  And my uncle had his knee on Sabine’s knee. The girls were far from being born, and Manuela and I were the only kids in the family. When we were still something like a real family. Mam, Dad, Grandma, Grandpa, Uncle, and Aunt. Just like it’s supposed to be. As far as I can remember, this was the last time it’d been that way. And Uncle Axel coughed into his big ham of a fist and said, “Father, think about it, we have to talk about it again,” and Grandpa brushed him off and said, “Yeah, yeah. That’s the way it is for now. Everything in good time. We’re not six feet under yet.” Manuela unloaded the fat she’d surgically removed from her meat onto my paper plate, and I literally gulped it down and gnawed on the gristle. I like that it tasted like meat but could be chewed like gum, and Grandpa laughed and said, “Well, take a good look at that boy. He eats everything. That tickles me,” and I was happy and asked for more.