Hooligan Read online

  ———

  “Here it is. In there,” Kai says, following the Google Maps route on his display.

  Everything had to go superfast. Kai called me right after he spotted the Braunschweig son of a bitch’s Facebook post. I was sitting on the crapper, and as always when you have to take a dump in a hurry, the shit turns out messy and horrible, not one of those nice, slick turds that glide out your anus just like that, so all you have to do is wipe and you’re good. Nope, of course, first I had to rip off what felt like fifty sheets’ worth of paper from the roll. Then I got up to speed. Packed my mouth guard, jumped into a comfortable jogging suit. While I was doing that, Kai called Jojo and Ulf. Ulf had to cancel because he was eating with Saskia and her parents. Jojo immediately said yes. I picked him up and we drove over to Kai in Hannover. Only then did I realize that under no circumstance did I want to drive into Braunschweig with my own beater. Hannover tags. We might as well have sprayed a big fat 96 on the hood. So I went back and forth on it. Taxis are too expensive and unreliable. Trains unreliable and have set departure times. Stealing a car would have taken too long because none of us knew how to get into one of those new things with electronic locks. And then I thought of the VW van from my uncle’s gym, which we also use to drive to the battles. A simple, black thing. Can’t be pegged. Besides, it didn’t have Hannover plates because Axel had it registered with some loser stooge because of some illegal shit he’d done with it. So we go to the gym and thank God the van was parked there. Grabbed the keys and race off.

  We’re on the west expressway from the Braunschweig North interchange, and now take a left from the highway into an industrial area. A garden allotment area emerges behind the yellow glow of the streetlights.

  “Still can’t believe you stole the van from the gym,” Jojo says and grabs my backrest again.

  “Jojo, man, get your paw off right now before I hack it off. I just told you it makes me nervous”—he pulls his hand back—“and I didn’t steal it, of course. Just borrowed it.”

  Kai giggles. “Yeah, for extra-ordinary off-duty activities.”

  “So to speak.”

  “Shouldn’t we at least let him know we—”

  “Are you nuts, Jojo?! Then we should just climb right into the casket. Axel can’t know anything about it. At least not right away.”

  “Okay, okay, drive a little slower,” Kai says and licks his upper lip. “We should be there any minute. Over on the left.”

  I take my foot off the gas, letting us putter along without being too slow. After all, we aren’t here for some damn drive-by shooting. We look anxiously out the side window. There’s a small gap on the sidewalk where the pink neon light of a sign between two long factory or storage buildings reflects in the puddles on the street. It slowly glides into view. The neon sign shines in cursive writing: Lucky Luke.

  “What do you want to bet they didn’t get permission from the copyright holders?” Kai whispers.

  I say, “Shhhh!”

  There are only a couple of cars in the gravel lot, which is also covered in puddles. A bouncer is standing under an aluminum awning. Next to him is a group of girls in miniskirts and little leather jackets, huddled together. I ask myself what kind of ho you have to be to wear a miniskirt in this weather. There’s a broad window in the wall behind the bouncer that’s covered from the inside.

  “They must already be inside,” Kai whispered when we rolled past Lucky Luke, and the wall of a warehouse pushes into our field of vision. The weakly illuminated street opens onto a three-way stop. I turn the bus around and park on the side of the street. Luckily, the streetlamps overhead don’t work, and we’re sitting fairly safe in the dark.

  “I feel like one of those private eyes from a black-and-white movie,” Jojo says and pokes his head into the front.

  “What now?” Kai asks and tosses his phone in the air. It does a few flips and he casually catches it. The next time he throws it, I grab it out of the air.

  “Hey!”

  “Wait a sec. Let me look at the post again.”

  He reaches over and fingers the Braunschweig profile on the display. I set the brightness to the lowest level.

  The fucker had posted: “Pre-game waaaarm-up at Lucky Luke!!!” Then linked a couple of names that told me nothing.

  “You wanna take a look inside?”

  “Shut it, please.”

  There’s even a link to Lucky Luke. I tap on it and the bar’s profile appears. I scroll down through stupid party pictures from random theme nights, ladies’ nights, and all-you-can-drink vodka parties. Then I find what I was looking for: in one of the posts the owner announces a separate smoking lounge.

  “Aha,” I say triumphantly and not entirely unsatisfied with myself and show the post to Kai and Jojo.

  “What’s that supposed to tell us?” Jojo asks.

  “It tells us, dear Joachim, that the curmudgeon to my left is a damn Columbo,” Kai replies.

  “Sure, but why exactly?”

  “They have a smoking lounge, Jojo. That meeeeans: the only chance we have to catch those sons of bitches is when they come out from their pre-game”—I point over the bar—“to go to some random club. But that could take some time because the post from that guy is only two hours old.”

  “I get it, because there’s a smoking lounge they won’t come outside to smoke.”

  I tap the tip of my nose and grin at Jojo and Kai.

  “Shit, fuck. If only I’d brought along my hemorrhoid cushion,” Kai jokes.

  “Naw, you know what? I have better things to do than hang out here in the dark the whole night.” I quickly brush aside the thought of how I sat all night in my car in front of Yvonne’s apartment. “Much less in Braunschweig. Here, I’ve got an idea.”

  “You’re full of surprises, buddy,” Kai says and flashes his pearl-white teeth.

  I pull two thin rubber gloves out of the driver-side door that Tomek and I had stuffed in there at some point. Kai’s facial expression vanishes and his mouth became a straight line.

  “Let me rephrase that: you’re full of shit!” he yells at me. “What do you need those for? You want to tell me? You want to do a prostate on the motherfucker?”

  “With the tip of my shoe at most. Kidding aside, buddy. There’s a smoking lounge.”

  I nod at him encouragingly.

  “Yeah,” he says and nods along.

  “And we can’t hang out here in the van for hours on end. At some point someone will notice the black rape van. Not an option. So …”

  “So?”

  “So the only chance for us to catch those fags is if they come out to take a piss.”

  Kai nods, attempting to follow my line of thinking. I continue: “Which won’t happen if the toilets in there are in working order. Understand now?”

  A grin slowly slides over his face, becoming wider and wider.

  “Yeah, fucking hell, look at you, you old mastermind!”

  I hiss at him and look around, but there’s no one close to the vehicle that could have heard anything.

  “You don’t really want to march in there and clog the toilets, right? What if they recognize you?” Jojo asks skeptically.

  “Bullshit, they’re sitting around at some random table and drinking themselves blind. It’ll take five minutes tops. Maybe ten. In, stuff ’em, and out.”

  “Guerilla style.”

  I don’t know if Kai’s comparison really fits, but I let it slide because it sounds damn cool to me.

  “It’s their turn, boys. When they come out and they’re holding their tiny dicks in their hands, then they’ll catch it.”

  I stuff the gloves in my jacket pockets and place my hand on the door handle. And because Kai can be convincing with his nonsense, I add: “If I don’t come back in twenty, call Steven Seagal.”

  “He’s not available, but Michael fucking Dudikoff is on call,” Kai says, pushing his hand against my back as I get out. I close the door and flip him off through the window. Then I
put on a poker face, stuff my hands in my pocket, and walk away. Hundreds of questions shoot through my brain, slam against the sides of my skull, and wedge against each other. What if he recognizes me after all? If he just happens to be in the restroom when I come in? What if the bouncer doesn’t even let me into the bar because I don’t fit the desired dress code with black windbreaker, black jogging pants, and jogging shoes to top it off? What if there’s someone in the restroom the whole time, so I don’t have a chance to carry out my plan?

  I take a first step onto the gravel in front of Lucky Luke and suddenly all those questions vanish. My hands calmly remain in their pockets, the thin rubber of the gloves between my fingers. The nervous eye twitch feeling I’d just had has disappeared. Peace and calm descend over my face like a Buddha mask. The group of bitches just walks past the bouncer, who holds the door open with a smile. Then he sees me coming and the corners of his mouth head south. A wide puddle blocks my path. Plywood has been placed over it as a makeshift gangplank. I walk carefully over it. Water seeps over the boards on the sides.

  “Evening,” I say as I approach the entrance. The bouncer had the typical standard black rain jacket, with security probably printed on the back. His carefully shaved boxer cut rises toward his forehead like the peak of a roof. He has a slim face and chubby, coarse-pored cheeks. Lousy roids, I’m guessing. He holds his hands in front of his nads. Rocks his shoulders slightly back and forth.

  “Evening,” he answers.

  I ask if things had been calm this evening. He’s still busy checking me out. Come on, pal, you’re not guarding an exclusive club here, just wave the jogging shoes and sweatpants through!

  “Yep. Till now,” he says.

  His voice is oddly high pitched. His nose squeaks a little when he talks. Just get outta my way, you asshole! But he doesn’t move. So plan B. Buddy strategy. I pull out my cigarettes and stand next to him. Shoulder to shoulder. As if I were a colleague who’d just gotten back from his rounds. I offer him one. He hesitates briefly and I tap the bottom of the pack so that a couple of cigarettes slide up. He takes one and thanks me.

  “Light?” he says.

  I pull out my Zippo, work the wheel, and hold out the gas-scented flame. He bends over with the cig in his mouth, takes a drag, and thanks me again. I light one up and am just about to put the lighter away again when he says, “Wait a sec.”

  “Huh?”

  “What kinda lighter you got? Show it to me.”

  Fuck! I’m such a damn idiot.

  “Why?” I ask, and he says I should just show him.

  There’s a skyline engraved on the Zippo and “Hannover” in old German script underneath. I’m a fucking idiot!

  I show it to him. Hold it up, the side with the letters toward him. He’s already seen it, after all. I have to resist the urge to thrust the corner of the Zippo into his eye.

  “What’s this? Why d’you have this?”

  “Oh, that? ’Cause of the picture? That …”—now think for once, Heiko—“I swiped it off a super fanboy prick from Peine-West after a match between the U23 reserve teams”—using the derogatory nickname Braunschweig has given Hannover—“a kind of war trophy.”

  I smile stupidly and try to scowl, though I’d like to barf because I’m denying my hometown. He looks at me, probably checking to see if he can really believe me.

  I double down: “He got on my nerves. I smacked him one and pocketed this here.”

  “Right on,” he finally says and can’t hold back his shit-eating grin.

  I put the Zippo away and shrug my shoulders. Like it was pretty damn easy. Nothing special.

  We smoke a while next to each other. I flick the cig into the huge puddle and say, “I’ll go then.”

  He steps aside so I can pass. Got lucky, worst case I’d have had to knock out the fucker or something.

  “Have fun,” he wishes me, “and thanks for the cigarette.”

  “No problem,” I say and push open the door.

  There’s amped-up pop music booming from the loudspeakers in the bar. On the left is the counter lined with imitation bamboo, with two greasy barkeepers standing behind the bar and mixing cocktails in the neon light. Probably made up purely of knock-off products from big box stores. Gallon canisters and such. At any rate, the bottles with the good stuff are lined up behind them on the mirrored shelves. None of these cocktail bars can offer drinks on the cheap without using lower-quality ingredients. Straight through the room. Low round tables with wooden chairs spread around like groups of islands. Most of them are taken. In the back and to the left, I can see the glassed-in smoking lounge, which is full of people willing to put up with smoking while packed in like sardines instead of just stepping outside. I can’t see the guy with the wart. I look around some more and to the right, on the wall covered with thick, black fabric, I spot an arrow pointing to the toilets. There’s a guy washing his hands just as I enter the men’s room. He leaves, and I’m left alone. Finally get lucky for once. There’s just a single stall. There are three urinals attached to the wall behind it. I slip the gloves on, grab the back-up roll of toilet paper from the stall, rip off a wad of paper, and stuff it into the drains of the urinals as fast and as deep as I can. Then I flush repeatedly so the urinals are full to the brim. Go into the stall and lock up. Lift the lid off the tank and try to remember how exactly Ulf and I always ruined the toilets at school. Just about to flush when the music gets louder for a second. Quickly check if I really locked up. Okay. I hear footfalls heading for the urinals. Then hear a “Shit, what the hell is this?” The footfalls come closer, and he knocks on the door. Faster than I can think, I’m bending over the open toilet bowl, pulling off a glove, accidently ripping it, and sticking two fingers down my throat. My gagging echoes in the bowl.

  “Finish puking already, man. Need to piss,” I hear from outside. Come on! I stick my finger as deep as it’ll go down my throat. Dry gagging. He knocks again.

  Past my spit-covered fingers, I say he should fuck off and I’m gonna need a while. I try to sound as trashed and wasted as possible. Then a torrent of bile finally shoots out of my mouth and splashes into the toilet bowl. The guy laughs gleefully. I have half a mind to throw the door open and stuff the idiot’s face into the toilet, but then you could hear the music again and the door to the men’s room falls shut. I listen briefly. Then I peer underneath the stall. No feet visible. He gave up. I let myself close my eyes for a second. Give myself a breather. Spit sour left-over bile into the bowl. A trail of drool sticks to my lower lip, which I wipe with my bare arm. Come on! I encourage myself. I press down on the lever. The water circles down from the tank and into the bowl. Using my hand with the glove, I reach for the stopper in the tank and hold it up. Use my other hand to unroll some paper and quickly stuff it into the opening under the stopper. I press it down with two fingers. Calcium slime clings to the fingers. Have a sniff. Let go of the stopper. While the tank is filling, I yank at the bobber with all my strength. I drop it and kick it away. Then I put the lid back on the tank and wipe my hands with the remaining toilet paper, and throw that into the bowl.

  “Oh man, you smell like a mix of urinal deodorizer and crotch cheese,” Kai says as I climb back into the van and toss the gloves into the door pocket.

  Jojo asks impatiently how it went.

  “How do you think it went? Because I’m such a fucking idiot, I almost already gave myself away at the door, and I had to stick a finger down my throat in the men’s room, just to deliver an Oscar-worthy acting performance.”

  “I don’t understand a word,” Jojo says.

  So I give them all the details, the way it went down. Then we wait.

  Kai’s constantly lighting up his phone to check the time, till I tell him to knock it off.

  “What kind of steel-lined bladder does that dog have? Has to take a piss at some point.”

  “Maybe they’ve already fixed the toilets,” Jojo says.

  “I did a bang-up job. That’ll never happen—�
��

  Kai taps me on the shoulder, and I follow his gaze through the windshield.

  “Well, fuck my shit—is it him?” I ask.

  Kai and I slide down a little farther in our seat, and the trio just leaving the bar staggers onto the street and into view. My eyes have narrowed to slits. The three guys step into the glow of a light on the other side of the street.

  “It’s him,” Kai says and pounds on his thighs. “That’s the cocksucker.”

  I thought I spotted the wart on his cheek for a second. And the blond part.

  “Yeah,” I say, and my mouth starts to water, “okay. We’ll wait until they’ve finished pissing. Calmly get out. Don’t slam the doors, and then jump ’em.”

  Jojo and Kai nod. We lie in wait for our fucking prey. They walk up the street a bit so that they’re almost level with our van. Then they take position, close together and legs apart, next to the fence that separates off the factory grounds behind it. They appear to be conversing. Their heads move slightly up and down.

  “Let’s go,” I say and carefully open my door. Kai and Jojo follow my lead. I keep the handle cocked and close the door as quietly as possible. The click of the lock still feels like a hammer blow. The three guys are pinching it off.

  “Hey, you cunts!” I call out.

  We’re standing in the middle of the street. They turn around. No chance to react. Kai, of course, is the first there and jumps toward wart-face with his foot extended. The guy flies back against the fence, exactly where he’d just pissed. The two others have no idea what’s going on when Jojo and me run at them. I reach out with my left hand and grab the dude’s shirt, following it with a swinging right that lands full-force under his nose. I feel his rows of teeth through the skin and my fingers supposedly hurt. I pull my hand back. He pukes. Maybe from shock. Maybe from pain. I’ve split his upper lip and the thick scent of blood flowing wafts in my direction. The guy howls. Holds his face and goes down. He catches the blood in his palm and even in the dusky glow of the streetlamps, I can see that his hand quickly fills. I glance to the side. Kai’s pulled wart-face up and is pushing him against the fence. Landing one punch after another to his gut. Jojo’s having a harder time. His opponent has grabbed his arm and pulls him around. Jojo starts to stumble and runs right into his elbow. I run over and pull the guy off Jojo. Put him in a headlock and make my knee slam up like a spring, Muay Thai–style. He tries to raise his arms. But my knee still lands in his solar plexus and he releases air like a beanbag you’ve jumped on.