Hooligan Read online

  Jojo immediately inhales sharply. What lies at our feet looks very different from my best friend. The pants dirty and slipped down to his thighs. High-riding boxer shorts peek out. The Stone Island jacket hangs on only one arm. His shirt is ripped his undershirt visible. Bruises have formed on his collarbone, sticking out darkly against the white fabric like bullet holes. His eyes are closed. His eyelids shine blackly, as if a horde of Goths had forcibly applied makeup. His face is covered with bruises and deep rivulets. From wound to wound. They overflow, and the blood runs down the side of his head in tiger’s stripes, coagulating around his eyes, nostrils, and mouth. The tip of his nose has taken on the color and form of a swollen cock head and seems terribly out of place under the bridge of his nose, split by a horizontal cut. His lips look shredded. We roll him on his side. I open his mouth. Blood immediately flows out of the lower corner of his mouth. I push two fingers into his mouth cavity. Feel where his tongue is at. I come across loose teeth that feel like pebbles. I scrape them out of his mouth. Thick cords of blood and mucus stick to my fingers like cheese spread. Then I reach inside again and shift his tongue so it’s straight and can’t slip back into his throat. Jojo crouches next to me and stammers to himself, “Oh shit, oh shit.”

  Annoyed, I blurt out, “Knock that shit off! Call an ambulance, damn it!”

  My whole skull is glowing, and for a moment I picture how it steams in the cold night air. As if I’d just completed a long-distance race. I bend down over Kai’s mouth. He’s still breathing. Even if it’s so shallow I can’t even hear it when I hold my ear directly to his lips, but I can still feel the light draft against my skin.

  I kneel down in front of Kai’s stomach, which he still has protected with crossed arms. The sleeves have slipped over his hands. I can see that his fingers are moving. My hands are on his hips. I watch as they stroke him. As if he were an amped-up ox you need to speak soothing words to. I force my hands to stay calm. Then I look back up. The sky is brighter than before. The clouds have faded and are illuminated by the lights of the city. Their answer is that they slowly close their shutters. Drops of rain fall straight down on me. More and more. Till they can be heard splatting down against the stones and asphalt by the hundreds. Separated by milliseconds. It seems to me like the drops are actually small bubbles floating in the air that only come toward me because I’m flying swiftly toward the sky. Jojo’s panicked voice, yelling to the emergency response that he doesn’t know exactly where we’re at, just at the stadium, down by the riverbank, feels like it’s miles away for a split second. Kai suddenly coughs, spitting blood against my pant legs, and pulls me back.

  “Kai! Kai!”

  I grab his forehead and chin and turn his face slightly back toward me. As carefully as possible with shaking fingers, I pull his eyelids open. They’re also drenched in blood and swollen, making me immediately release them. I jump up and leap over Kai and Jojo. Run up the stairs. Two at a time. A streetcar rolls by. Illuminated faces from the inside stare fleetingly. The gang around the case of beer next to me is still singing their stupid victory songs. Otherwise no one else can be seen. No one I can give a flying kick to in the face. No one I can slam my pounding fists against. No one against whose teeth I could cut my finger open, only to keep on hitting till they were separated from the roots and the gums. And no one I could keep on beating till he choked on his own teeth. Instead, the rain is pounding against my shoulders and the crown of my skull and hammers the rage into every fiber of my body.

  ———

  Kai wolf-whistled at a group of women walking past Timpen with their designer handbags in the crook of their arms.

  “Dude, they were at least thirty or so,” Jojo said, laughing and bracing himself against the brick wall.

  “So what? Climbing into the saddle on an old horse is the best way to learn how to ride. I only hope you two’ll learn that lesson too.”

  Kai still swore he’d done it with the hot MILF who lived next to his parents and him. And we still didn’t believe him. Next time I’ll take pictures, he always said, but the next time never came. And once, when I’d skipped class again to visit him at his school in Hannover and we went to his place afterward, we met her on the stairs. She didn’t even give Kai the time of day when he said hello, but when we’d gone inside he claimed it’d been my fault. Because I’d always make such a face, so I shouldn’t be surprised. Also, that I was still a virgin at the age of sixteen. Which wasn’t true, either, because I’d already done it with Lisa in the school bathroom stalls the year before. But I hadn’t told anyone. Not even Kai. Wanted to wait and see if things would get serious with Lisa, because I really liked her. And then just a week later I’d gone to the bathroom during biology to smoke, and I heard her in the stall next to mine, heard her moaning. That sounded just like with me, and then I’d stood on the toilet and looked over the wall and saw she was screwing some son of a bitch from the parallel class. And then I knew she was just another fucking slut.

  A goal celebration burst out of Timpen’s slanted window and immediately after that the sound of beer glasses clinking.

  Jojo couldn’t control himself. He ran to the door and pushed it open.

  “What? Who?” he yelled inside.

  The answer came in the form of a chorus of loud curses and that he should close the blinds again, otherwise something else would happen. I asked Jojo what he’d seen.

  “Couldn’t see the television because all the old farts were standing in the way,” he said and pulled the pack out of Ulf’s hand so he could light a cigarette.

  “I mean inside. Not the game.”

  It was clear enough that Hannover had scored a goal. Why else would Axel and the rest cheer? Not for the opponent.

  “What? Um, no clue. They’re just sitting there. Or standing. Drinking. Watching the game.”

  “And my uncle?” I asked and slapped Jojo’s shoulder with the back of my hand.

  “Yeah, him too. What’s your deal, Heiko? He’s sitting there and drinking,” he said, rolling his eyes in annoyance and taking a seat on the cobblestones, “like all the others. It’s just we have to stand out here like bouncers and not see anything.”

  He rested his face in his hands, pushing up his cheeks and making his eyes into slits. All at once, the door opened and Töller burst out. He was still holding onto the door with one hand and bending his upper body over. He was pale as a corpse. His back bent over and he took a couple loud breaths. I’d already seen the neighbor’s cat do that before barfing up a wet hairball. Töller’s blond hair fell in his eyes, and he spewed directly in front of the main entrance.

  Jojo, who’d been sitting right next to it, jumped up and yelled, “Fucking hell, dude!”

  “Well, Töller,” Kai said loudly and cracked up, “couple pints of horse piss too many, right?”

  Töller had already been knocking back beer when we’d arrived at noon. I’d seen him at the bar when I’d tentatively poked my head into the barroom, being careful not to let the tips of my toes go beyond the doorframe, and ordered four Cokes from the boss. So we at least had something to drink out in front of the door.

  “Come on over here, you,” Töller slurred and tried to grab Kai, but he was standing too far away. Töller swung his arm around and lost what little balance he had left. If Ulf hadn’t have been in the right spot and held him tight, he’d have fallen face-first in his own barf. Tomek came out of Timpen to help and pulled Töller back inside, depositing him on the chair next to him like a trophy and tugging at him over and over till Töller sat there on his own with a dead gaze, without his arm slipping from the edge of the table. We choked down our laughter when Axel came and stood in the doorway, Tomek behind him, holding open the door so it wouldn’t hit my uncle’s ass. Axel was holding out a mop and pressed it in Jojo’s hands because he was unlucky enough to be standing closest.

  “Here, wipe up the mess,” he hissed through his fangs and went back inside without another word.

  Jojo tried to fob t
he task off on us, but Ulf and I politely declined.

  “Hey, come on, I’ll do it already,” Kai said and was already grinning so I knew what he was planning. He wiped around in the puddle of vomit, whistling away. I took a couple steps back in prudent foresight. Kai looked to the side over to us and grinned like a shark that’d discovered a surfer who’d fallen off his board. Then he cocked back the mop, dragged it through the puddle, and swung it around and whipped the vomit toward us, laughing like a maniac. I was able to dodge away in time, but I think Ulf or at least Jojo caught a couple of drops and screamed like little girls. And Kai loudly laughed his ass off, and Jojo and Ulf ran at him to disarm him. I stood by, hands on my hips, and laughed and watched as the three of them fought and pushed each other into the remaining barf. Then Axel poked his head out the door one last time. His brows covered his eyes and his chin was mostly out of the door. He glanced briefly at the tussling rug rats. Then he turned his head to me and said, “Make sure you get a grip on the dipshits, okay, Heiko?”

  I nodded. Well, I think I did. Still remember that somehow it felt more like I was drawing back my head and then pressing it forward. Like I was trying to swallow a whole sausage all at once.

  “I will,” I said.

  ———

  They kept Kai in the hospital in Leipzig for two days. While he lay hardly responsive in his room, I occupied the row of chairs in the hallway. It was almost impossible to sleep, but I didn’t let the doctors and nurses get rid of me either. Jojo and Ulf went ahead, leaving the next day because they had to work. I simply didn’t let Axel know. He didn’t call me to ask where I was at either. On the third day, Kai was transferred to Hannover, to the medical school. I wasn’t allowed to ride along. I’d made a ruckus in the ambulance on the way to the hospital, so the EMTs had stopped halfway there and kicked me out, despite the flashing lights and the whole nine yards. So I took the fast train to Hannover.

  Kai’s parents completely ignored me when they brought over some clothes. Shooting recriminations at me. I went to the clinic’s cafeteria and waited till they left again. I didn’t go home once. No show. Always the same clothes. I could already smell myself. My greasy clothes gradually fused with my skin. Kai had made progress the last few days. By now, he was able to eat some things that weren’t poured into him from a tube. Just stuff that had been through a blender, but still. He couldn’t even get his injured mouth open an inch. When he talked, it sounded like his teeth were glued together.

  I help him with all the motions he goes through with monotone groans. I stabilize his head. Pay attention so he doesn’t bump it climbing in. He muffles a groan, and I lift his legs into the car. He closes his eyes in pain. His face looks like he played with two ADD kids who couldn’t decide whether they wanted to play doctor or paint his face. The physicians insisted he should be kept there for several more days, if not a week. We ignored them and packed up his stuff. I close the trunk and climb in on the driver’s side. The chemical smell of his various bandages, Band-Aids, salves, and the general hospital stench—which by itself is enough to make you sick—spreads through the car. He rolls down his window a crack. Then he rolls his head toward me, past the headrest, while I’m backing out of the parking spot, and says, “You stink, pal.”

  I laugh, saying not everyone’s lucky enough to be bathed and washed by a hot nurse. He laughs too, then coughs and groans. Squints and groans even more because his eyes hurt so much.

  “The eyes are the worst,” he wheezes, “everything is so bright. A little like you’re looking into the sun, but instead of going away, it just stays that way. But keeping them shut almost hurts as much.”

  I say, “Hmm,” because I’d already run out of fitting comments to stuff like that in Leipzig. Instead, I look down at him and crank up the heat despite the open window. He’s still wearing his hospital gown. He would never have done that otherwise. Normally he’d have insisted, despite the pain, on getting dressed up before going out in public. But at least he kept the backside open during our short, sluggish walks down the hall. He wanted to offer the nurses something. No one can beat that out of him.

  We’re silent during the drive into the city. He has his face turned to the side window, and I don’t know if he’s looking out or sleeping. My phone rings in my pocket. I reach inside. Press End Call without looking. The city seems unusually calm. Cars, trains, street cars. Everything rolls past muffled by the windows. The sky looks like it’s covered in smoke. Gray streets below and people in colorless raincoats who silently push past each other.

  When I park in front of Kai’s house, I see his parents’ car. They get out and walk toward us. Must have spent the whole time waiting in the car. I get out quickly so I can be at the passenger side before them and help Kai out.

  “Bag’s in the trunk,” I say to his father, who walks around the car and takes it out. The single step before the front door is already a barrier, and I almost have to lift Kai so he makes it. The shaking of his legs is so severe it transfers to me.

  “Thanks,” he whispers while his mother holds the elevator door behind him.

  “Sure I shouldn’t come up with you?”

  “Go take a shower. You stink like a tiger cage.”

  I grin at him. The flushed corners of his mouth twitch like the wings of a dying bee.

  “I’ll be in touch,” he whispers.

  I wait in the doorway till the elevator door closes and swallows his parents, who are still looking grimly at me. We used to get along. I go back to my VW hatchback and yell at the meter cop who’s hard at it on the other side of the street that I’m on my way. My phone rings again. The meter cop bitch waves excitedly. As if there was nothing worse in her sad shitty life than a car that stops for a minute, double parked. I drive off and take my phone out of my pocket. No number. Without giving it much thought, I pick up.

  “Yeah?”

  “Heiko?”

  “Who’s there?”

  “Heiko?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Hans is here. Very drunk.” The barely audible female voice at the other end draws out the u unusually long. “Out of rehab. Is very drunk. Angry.”

  “Mie?” I ask.

  “Please come,” is the only answer I get, then she hangs up.

  I turn onto the driveway to my father’s house when Axel calls. Fuck! When it rains it pours, of course.

  “Hello?”

  “Heiko, come to the gym. We have to have a little talk.”

  I can’t produce an answer.

  “Heiko?”

  “Yeah. But I can’t right now. Something’s going on with Hans. Can’t leave,” I say.

  A pause follows. I look around. Manuela’s car is by the sidewalk in front.

  “Tomorrow,” my uncle says, and it sounds like a threat.

  I hang up, go to the front door, and ring the bell. The door is immediately ripped open. Mie is standing there. She’s wearing pajamas with a teddy bear pattern. Her long hair isn’t flowing down her back as usual but has formed a crazy nest on her head.

  “Please come. Your father. He is completely furious.”

  “What’s he doing here?” I ask, but she silently points past me. To the stairs.

  My foot bumps against a suitcase in the hallway. The commotion can be heard from above. Accompanied by some sort of incomprehensible swearing that rises and falls. I walk past the kitchen. In the corner of my eye, I see someone inside. I stop and turn around. Manuela had pulled a chair away from the table and is sitting on it. Face buried in her hands. Crumpled tissues on the kitchen table.

  “What’s going on here?” I ask.

  Above us, something heavy is pushed over and slams onto the floor with a thud. My sister doesn’t look up.

  “Manuela?”

  “Please leave me alone,” she says, sounding like she has a cold. “I can’t take it anymore.”

  Confused, I look to Mie, who pushes past me and sits down at the table behind Manuela, wrapping her toothpick arms around her uppe
r body. I walk up the stairs. Every stair squeaks like I’m stepping on a pile of cats. The white glazed door of the bedroom at the top of the stairs is ajar. Even when I come closer, I still can’t understand a single word of the mumbling. I push open the door, saying my father’s name. The bedroom is very small. There’s hardly any space to really move around next to the king-size bed that’s right behind the door. An armchair is lying on its side in front of the wardrobe. I step on the rug, which is as thick as a bear’s pelt, and every step is padded. I look around the door and close it. My father is sitting on the edge of the bed. Head thrown back. Urine-colored rivulets of beer flow out of the can, past his mouth and down his neck. They stain his wifebeater yellow. He lowers the can and lets loose a loud “Ahhh,” as if the long swig had been infinitely refreshing. There are empty cans spread over the rug in front of the bed, leaking backwash that soaks into the fabric of the rug. It smells like a recycling bin with flatulence. The nightstand has also been knocked over. The contents of the drawers dumped out. The sheets are covered with beer stains.

  “What’s going on? What are you doing here?” I ask Hans. He lifts his head. Searches the room for the source of my voice. The hairs of his mustache are standing up like wires. His pupils floating in a milky whiteness.

  “Pa?” I say and lift the chair onto its stubby wooden legs. Push it back onto its indentations in the carpet.

  “Yes. Heiko. My boy.” He belches.

  “Why are you here and not in rehab?”

  “Don’t give a shit anymore. All those fags! Was supposed to put my dreams in a wish box. Supposed to build something myself. Out of a shoe box. Fucking fairies. They’ll read through the scraps of paper when we’re off at lunch. Laugh their asses off.”