Hooligan Read online

  “Are you crazy, Töller? He’s had enough!”

  He pushed against me halfheartedly. “The piece of shit hit me in the balls!”

  I pull him back out of the bushes. Several people come over, want to see what’s going on here, but I raise my hands. Everything’s fine. Everything sorted out. I use both hands to shove Töller, who wants to get past me.

  “Take it easy, man! It had to be an accident. Even if it wasn’t, just fuck it.” Then I raise my finger. Hold it up close to my face, point at him.

  “If I catch you punching someone on the ground one more time …”

  “What then, Mr. Kolbe?”

  He turns away before I can answer, waving me off.

  “Hey!” Axel’s voice booms through the trees. His shirt looks almost freshly washed. He spreads his arms in a question, his hands open. I show him that everything’s okay. Ulf comes over. His collar is torn. The skin underneath is scratched and red. He congratulates me. I ask him why, but then I notice. Most of the people on the ground are wearing white T-shirts. The reds are standing. They’re chanting: “Hann-o-ver! Hann-o-ver!” My shoulders feel lighter than they have for a long time. My stomach is as though filled with lead and crashes to the bottom of my torso. I crouch down next to Ulf’s massive legs, rest my forearms on my knees, and try to breathe. My ribcage feels constricted. The collarbone flickers with numbness. My left arm is heavy. I spit my mouth guard into my hand. It covers my palm with blood. My face pulses with hot pain. I look up at Ulf. “Hope there’s a second round.”

  When I slunk off at the rest stop just after putting the Ruhr Valley behind us, spreading the individual parts of the burner phone on the adjacent field, Kai and Töller got into it with a group of Polish truck drivers over some ridiculous shit. But Tomek was able to defuse the situation and shortly after that, when I came back, they were standing there together and passing around an unlabeled bottle of booze. Axel was just about to rip into Kai and Töller, them nodding in unison, asking what that shit was about, starting something after a match, and who the fuck had put that shit in their heads. But Axel didn’t really sound all that into it—after all, we still had the fresh taste of victory on our lips.

  So we arrived back in Hannover just before midnight. Every-one climbed back into his car. Even Ulf had to go, otherwise Saskia would bitch him out at home.

  Kai and me drive back to the main train station together. I just want to go to bed. He still wants to head to Raschplatz and party; in other words, go out and find someone to bone.

  We guzzle a quick pilsner at our local. Then I take the last regional train out to Wunstorf. Kai kept trying to convince me to come along, but I had no interest in shitty tunes and Beck’s for the price of a used car. Even though he doesn’t like being dissed downtown either, when you’re looking for someone easy to screw, your best chances are there. But you should demand to see the ID of the person you go off with, to be on the safe side.

  It actually happened to Kai once. He went home with a sweet little piece. ’Cause the parents were on vacation. And then there was a class schedule hanging in the kitchen, tenth grade, on the fridge. He claims he’s never gotten his pants back on quicker. I think he went to a brothel that same night, got himself a professional significantly older than the girl. As an ethical correction, more or less.

  As far as I’m concerned, there’s only two ways you can drag me into the dives on Raschplatz: either it’s Kai’s birthday, or I’m so sloshed I don’t understand a thing.

  ———

  Arnim’s farm is just over a half mile away from the train station in Wunstorf, where I’d parked my VW Polo hatchback from the eighties. When you’re heading on the county road toward the autobahn on-ramp in Luthe, there’s a field lane you have to follow till you hit the small patch of woods that surrounds the house. At night, I need almost half an hour, ’cause Armin hammered into me immediately after I moved in with him, you have to switch off the lights as soon as you leave the county road. If there’s something he can’t stand, it’s unwelcome guests. Especially law enforcement.

  I turn off the long, tree-lined lane into the driveway. In the pale, indirect light I can make out Jojo’s Volvo next to Arnim’s old pickup.

  I climb up the peeling porch steps mumbling to myself, “Please don’t let him be blown away. Please don’t let him be blown away.” All the while, I imagine Arnim standing over Jojo’s corpse with his gun in his hand, one foot resting on the perforated belly like Captain Morgan, and looking at me and asking, “What? Unlawful entry, my boy.”

  Standing outside the front door, which is actually made up of two doors, the normal one and a screen door, I listen to the darkness for a moment. When I hear Jojo’s voice, my prayer, which I didn’t believe in anyway, evaporates.

  I open the screen door. It hits the doorbell mounted above: Arnim’s “alarm system.” The familiar yapping starts up behind the house. A rectangular beam of light falls in my direction through the kitchen door. Then Arnim’s heavyset silhouette pushes through.

  “Who’s there?” he calls. I see he already has the gun in his hand.

  “It’s just me, you mad dog,” I answer and toss my duffel bag into the darkness of the living room. It hits the cushions of the old sofa with a thump. I hear Jojo call my name. The dogs are still yapping away excitedly. You can hear the clatter of the pen when they jump up against it.

  “Shut up!” Arnim’s bellowing turns into a phlegm-coated cough. He grabs the rifle by the barrel, sits back down at the table, and bangs several times on the windowpane with the gunstock. I expect the glass to break any second. But nothing happens except for the thundering frame.

  Jojo jumps up. His short, tight curls bounce. We give each other a five and pat each other on the shoulder. I immediately feel my collarbone, which seems to stretch across the whole shoulder. Jojo’s nose is still completely swollen and glows like a grow light. I grab a can of Elephant beer from the cooler and sit down at the kitchen table with the two of them.

  “Well? What?” Jojo wants to know. I tell him about the successful trip to Cologne, and how Axel once again didn’t want to hand over the reins, despite our agreement. Jojo greedily took in every little bit. Every now and then he groans and says how he fucking wished he could have been there, etc. Arnim gazes emptily into the darkness lurking outside the yellow-shaded windows. His lungs wheeze strenuously, doing everything they can so he doesn’t suffocate right here and now. I look at him, amused. He doesn’t usually get it anyway. I don’t even want to know what kind of crazy things are shooting through his head again. Jojo squeezes his beer can, producing a rhythmic clacking sound.

  “Have some good news.”

  “Spit it out,” I say, and have difficulty detaching from the hypnotic up and down of Arnim’s paunch.

  “I got the position!” Jojo’s voice did loops from the happiness.

  I ask what position he’s talking about: “What?”

  “Well, not a position. I mean, because it’s not a paid job. It’s a volunteer position.”

  I stare at him, not understanding.

  “He’s now a coach with the football here,” Arnim says, takes a sip, and looks away again. Maybe the old dude understands more than I gave him credit for.

  “How? What?”

  “Yeah. No. So. The coach of the B team had to quit. Stroke. And Gerti’s filling in. Yes, and I have his position now. Coach of the C youth team.”

  “Fuck yeah, man,” I say and hold my can out for Jojo to clink. “Cheers.” We knock cans and drain the elephant piss.

  Jojo had started a couple years ago. It was back when he was going through a really rough time. After the thing with Joel, which was hell for all of us. But that Jojo’s father would really fuck things up a couple months later, truly no one could have seen that coming. We were already afraid we wouldn’t ever be able to get Jojo out of his deep hole. No one wanted to leave him alone, and we divided up shifts. Then, on some random day, Jojo got up, finally took a shower, and went to
the practice field in Luthe. Not a word to anyone. And would you look at that, co-trainer of the under-fifteen U15 development team. That had gotten him on track again. Even to the extent he went back to his old boss at the retirement home and apologized for drinking on the job. And once again, look at that, Jojo had his janitor’s job back.

  “I thought to myself, I’ll change a couple things. Regarding the practice program. Do things different than Gerti did,” circling the top of his beer can with his fingertip, “maybe integrate a couple of things we practiced with Joel, back when. I was meaning to ask you. Maybe you have the sketches we made back then. You remember? With the drills on them and all that.”

  I nod to myself and sigh. My gaze repeatedly drifts down to the surface of the table.

  “It’s been an eternity. Not sure I have them with my stuff anymore.”

  “Yeah, not here, but maybe back at your dad’s place.”

  “Jojo, hey, seriously …” My mouth tastes like Styrofoam again.

  “Yeah, just check the next time you’re there.”

  He thanks me and drinks. A stream of beer misses his mouth and flows through his stubble and over his chin. He wipes at it with the sleeve of Joel’s old Hannover 96 warm-up jacket. Only then does he realize what he’d just done.

  “Well, shit,” he mumbles and tries to rub the tiny beer spot dry with his bare hand. I kill my can and slam it on the table.

  “Well, I’m so fucking tired. Think I’m gonna hit the hay now.”

  Jojo downed what was left and ground out his burned-down cigarette, which he’d forgotten in the ashtray.

  “I’ll head off then,” he said.

  We hugged, patting each other on the back. We don’t actually do hugs, but for some odd reason we’re in sync in the exact same moment, making it an honest hug and no embarrassed spreading of arms and leaning back and forth and end up just shaking hands.

  We go to the door. I wanted to turn the porch light on, but nothing happened. I yell over to the kitchen that the damn outside light is already broken again and hold the door open for Jojo. The bell rings and riles up the dogs again. In the kitchen Arnim yells I should shut my trap.

  “And congrats again,” I say and hold open the porch door, ’cause it’d bang shut otherwise.

  “Come over to practice sometime or something. I haven’t told Ulf and Kai yet. And,” he balls up his fist, “awesome how you guys smashed Cologne.”

  Jojo climbed into the Volvo, turned around, and putted down the drive. I raise my hand in parting. Then the car disappears behind the birches and willows arching over the driveway.

  I get another beer from the kitchen. Arnim’s chin is resting a couple inches above his paunch and trembling from the snoring. I take the rifle with me, placing it on the sofa on my way upstairs, and grab my duffel bag. The stairs creak like the bones of an old man.

  As I walk through the dark hallway, I hear wings beating behind the first door on the left. It sounds dry. Like sandpaper rubbed together. The pungent smell of bird crap is pervasive. I unlock my room. The piece of hard rubber stapled at the bottom of my door scrapes over the old wooden flooring. I have to use my knee just under the lock to push the door shut. Then I turn on the light. Duffel bag to the corner. Open the beer. There’s still a pack of cigs on the table. I stay standing in the middle of the room for a moment. Alternate between drinking and taking a drag. Feel my body. Feels like it’s been wrung out. Has been, actually. I smile to myself, contented, then the pain shoots through my jaw again, and I dim it with more beer. Already half-empty again. Only now do I notice I haven’t eaten anything since this morning. Was too nervous. While standing, I take off my shoes with some effort. Then I undress completely. My clothes make a small pile among many in the room. Need to go to the laundromat again. Fuck it, turning it inside-out works, too. My real phone is still on the power cord attached to the outlet next to the door. I pull it out. It sparks, but it doesn’t catch me. Three messages, five missed calls. All five over the course of the day. All of them from Manuela. Then a MMS from Kai, which makes me laugh. He took a selfie, shirtless and thumbs up. Behind him there’s some bimbo, legs together and bent over on the bedspread, pointing her naked ass toward him. Her head can’t be seen. Behind it I recognize Kai’s bedroom.

  “That was fast,” I write, “new record?”

  A text from Uncle Axel: “Good job. See you at work.” I don’t write back. The third message is from Manuela. Sent a couple hours ago: “Heiko, where are you at?? Please call me back, but not so late. We go to bed around 10. It’s about dad. Finally were able to get a spot in rehab. Hugs and kisses, your big sister. PS. Greetings from Andreas.”

  Of course, her retard fucktard husband sends his regards. I read the text again and press my thumb to the power button until the screen goes black.

  I stand in the bathroom and study myself in the mirror. My face is distorted by the cracks in the glass, and I have to concentrate to fit the pieces in my head like in a puzzle. Otherwise I look like a mutant or something. But I’m not too far from that either. The left side of my face is a little swollen on the cheek and glimmers red to purple. On my mouth, there are two globs of congealed blood, which I leave where they are. Got off okay this time.

  Even the collarbone appears to be okay. Though it may hurt like hell now, that’ll be gone in two or three days, max. I rest the beer on the lip of the sink. Next to it, some damp dust rolls into something that looks like a delicate gray maggot. I hold my hands up in front of me, turning and examining them directly and in the reflection. Blood has collected under the skin on all the joints and who knows where else. There’s a remnant of blood I must have missed at the sink in the rest stop toilet. Not my blood. Here and there scratches, with dirt in the furrows. I look at myself again. Not the mutant reflection, but rather the composite, true puzzle-me. As I’m standing here in the flickering light, surrounded by tiles that don’t even look white by day anymore.

  “Good job,” I repeat, and try to look myself in the eye, as if there was a real person standing behind the mirror, someone who should be praised.

  I climb into the shower. A family of silverfish scurries into the cracks between the tiles.

  Damp footprints follow me into my room. I lock the door, slip into some boxers, which immediately absorb the shower water I hadn’t dried off, and lie down on the mattress. The water covers my stubbly hair like a blanket of mist and cools my scalp. I cross my arms behind my head. Close my eyes. I think about Yvonne. About her pretty face and her eyebrows, which are as free as a cloudless sky.

  ———

  It was after the match between the under-23 reserve teams of Hannover and Braunschweig. I think people still called them amateurs or second-string back then, though it wasn’t very long ago at all. Today the team is officially called the U23. That was in Eilenriede Stadium’s good old curves. Normally, I can’t take the ultras seriously. They get so excited they piss in their pants, but you have to give it to them, they really fired up the old cauldron that day.

  We were supposed to meet afterward in Hannover’s city forest. In the central fir section, I think. At any rate, it had to be as far as possible from the street and, of course, the cops. Eight against ten, because we couldn’t raise more people. Young crew against young crew. Young Dogs against the Cool Hogs. It sounds stupid if you say one after the other. The bit about the Young Dogs was my idea. Supposed to be a kind of play on words. There are the Red Wolves, and so we were the Young Dogs. When Kai found out what I wanted to call us, first he burst out laughing and then he threw a fit.

  “You can’t call yourselves that! Sounds like a group of fag Boy Scouts,” he tossed at me.

  I just shrugged my shoulders and said it doesn’t make a rat’s ass bit of difference what we call ourselves.

  “Y’could at least have made it Young Dogz! With a z at the end.”