Philipp Winkler - Hooligan

The football-sized wad of paper sticks together pretty well with all the bird crap. I kick it out into the hallway, tell Siegfried to enjoy his meal and that he shouldn’t take everything so seriously. As if he has a swivel stuck in his craw, he turns his head at an angle impossible for humans and looks at me. I give him a thumbs-up, who knows why exactly, and say, “Keep your head up, bud.”

Then I close the door behind me.

A true football fan places great emphasis on tradition, on time-honored things. Nothing embodies this more than our local Hannover bar, the venerable Timpen in the old streets of the Calenberger Neustadt district. Surrounded by traffic-free cobblestone streets and half-timbered houses gussied up for the tourists, into which eye-wateringly expensive yuppie cafés had been dropped, the Skipper, with his, or rather our, Timpen, is one of the last bastions of true Hannover culture. And I swear, if it should ever cease to be, which isn’t unrealistic, then we can just climb into the casket. From time to time, my uncle makes some pronouncement about taking over the place to keep it afloat, but seriously. Once in a while, he bugs Skipper about the liquor license and the whole nine yards. There’ve also been efforts by Axel to shift the focus of our “company” to his gym. But that was met with such resistance not even he could bring it off. I’m telling you: hooligans and our customs. Try to cut us off, and we’ll hit the barricades. But Axel is basically just as much a traditionalist, and I don’t think he’d trade Timpen for anything. The old farts are still the ones who tell the best stories. Hinkel, more than any other. When he’s a little lit and starts to “spin,” there’s no holding back. About when all this was still a free country, which Kai, Ulf, Jojo, and me didn’t ever really experience. None of this constant surveillance with cameras on every corner, battalions of policemen with helicopters for every pitiful match that’s suddenly declared a problem game. And even outside the stadiums. Things must have been really hairy here. There were cases of bricks and benches flying through thick-barred windows.

Every time I sit here and nurse my pilsner, I feel a little like I’m in a museum. Listening to the talk of back when. Back when everything was better, la-di-da. But I did have some good times before Timpen. Back then we weren’t really accepted and had to wait outside. Except in fall and winter. That was fucking hell. But it always paid off. Skipper sometimes even sent us a spiked pot of coffee. We couldn’t have beer yet, but in a thermos like that you couldn’t see something’d been added.

Today I feel like I’m a part of that story. Whether that means our “company” or the football club. Or even the city. It just feels good to sit here in the middle of all these idiots and lift one glass after another.

Ulf, Kai, and I are perched there like roosting chickens receiving our next freshly poured beverages into our parched throats. Because the weekend and match day are ahead of us, Jojo’s doing an extra shift of coaching his youth squad.

“To you, Skipper”—Kai raises his glass—“and may the well never run dry!”

“Cheers!” We clink glasses with Skipper.

Axel, Tomek, and the rest of the crew are seated at the regulars’ table at the end of the taproom. Behind them, the pennants of various Hannover-based sports teams hang thickly, partially overlapping on the dark, chocolate-colored wood paneling. Of course, every second one is from 96. The adjacent wall, which you follow to the shitter, is covered with pictures and photos. Besides the photos of him at sea, Skipper’s particularly proud of the autographed team picture from the group that won the German Cup in ’92. Hannover was the first second-league team to ever win the Cup.

Kai wants to start in with his Facebook spiel, but I get up and say, “Gotta take a leak.”

“Think about it,” he yells behind me. Startled, I glance quickly over at the regulars’ table, but Axel’s engrossed in a conversation. I go to the ladies’ room. I can have peace there. Not that Kai would follow me to the crapper with his harebrained scheme. Since women never come into Timpen, Skipper summarily declared the ladies’ room as his second storage room. The crapper still works, of course. You just have to make sure there’s tp. Otherwise you can scoot your unwiped tush over to the other stall. And if both stalls are occupied, then cheers. The old farts here need ages to take a dump. Not to mention the stench of old-man shit. I luck out, and there’s still half a roll next to the bowl. And because I’m not in a hurry, I choose a nice bottle of suds for the toilet. I can open the door to the stall and reach into a case and pull out a beer without lifting a cheek. Skipper’s not opposed to people taking advantage in here. After finishing my business, I slip the bottle back into the case and tug my jogging pants back into place. In the hallway to the facilities, I hear a loud hubbub from the taproom and the sound of a chair or stool being knocked over. I open the door and see Kai in the middle of the room, holding a skinhead firmly by the scruff of his neck. The skin is slightly smaller than Kai, and his head has half disappeared into the collar of his Lonsdale jacket Kai’s holding him by. Ulf is standing behind Kai. I know that face. It’s his “you’re in deep shit” face.

“What’s goin’ on here?” I ask, and several heads turn toward me.

“I just told that son of a bitch and his buddies they have no business here,” Kai reported and pushed the skinhead away. The guy slips back a step and bumps against the table in the middle of the room, under which a chair lies on its side. Only now do I notice the other two Nazis. One of them is standing behind his buddy, the other next to the regulars’ table.

The one Kai just manhandled says to me, “You’re Heiko Kolbe, right?”

He clucks his tongue against his yellowed teeth.

“You wanna have my address, you cocksucker? You guys have no business here. So get lost already.”

The Nazi at the regulars’ table, the biggest of them, with a wrinkly, fat face and hamster cheeks, takes a hesitant step toward me and tries to put on a scary grimace. I just glance and blow some air through my lips. They make a pfff sound.

Kai’s adversary says, “We for sure aren’t getting lost, dude. We were invited.”

“Then you must have gotten the wrong door, you idiots,” Ulf said, his deep bass echoing in the beer glasses.

I nod. “Fo’ sho’. I’m certain no one here invited you.”

Then I walk toward Ratface with the yellow teeth, fists full of rage and all out of patience.

“Which isn’t completely true,” Axel says, loudly but completely relaxed.

I turn toward the regulars’ table and look at him, dumbfounded, as he calmly sits there. One arm resting on the table. The other spread, his hand on his thigh.

“I invited them.”

Ratface walks past me, knocking aside Kai’s hand that halfheartedly tried to hold him back, and grins at me stupidly in a challenge. Then he pulls the chair from under the table, deposits it opposite Axel, and plants his dirty rat ass on it. The two other skins reveal teeth no less yellow. Hee, hee, hee. You dirty little bitches! Then I recognize them. They’re the same ones who were sitting in Axel’s office recently. And what’s more, they’re part of a group of Nazis from Hannover’s Langenhagen district known for causing trouble.

“What do you have do to get a fuckin’ beer around here?” Ratface said without turning around.

My feet are bolted to the floor. I look at Axel and simply can’t close my jaw. He catches me with a stern look. Then he gradually releases the clamp of his stare and groans briefly. But not in a relieved way, more like he’s annoyed. As if we were little boys who were annoying the shit out of their dad.