Philipp Winkler - Hooligan

“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.