Philipp Winkler - Hooligan

There’s a travel cage with thick bars against the wall of the shed that Arnim cleared out during the day. The dogs are slowly waking up. They’re pumped full of tranquilizers for the long trips from all those banana republics. Looks like things could get started soon. I walk over to Arnim, who’s pulling the lid over the pit again. Then one of his guests tests how much weight it can support by bouncing on it and gives a thumb’s up.

“Hey, Arnim, I’m about to head out. Just so you’re not looking for me.”

“What?! But things are about to get wild here, my boy!”

“Yeah, no, forget about it. I don’t need that.”

“Oh well, then get lost. Can’t make anything off you anyway.”

When I come back through the kitchen, the harelip and tittyarms are still sitting there. Harelip yells something. Doesn’t seem to be directed at me. I walk past him. Goatee man is in the living room and is bent over, probing the sofa cushions and the spaces between them. His shirt’s slipped up. The butt of a pistol pokes out of his waistband. He looks around, sees me, and pushes himself away from the sofa. We’re standing face to face. He smiles at me. Clearly trying to provoke.

“Me nothing,” he says with a shaky accent and holds up his hands.

Maybe to show me he doesn’t have anything or wasn’t looking for anything. Then he places his pointer in front of that nasty kisser and says, “Shhhh,” winking at me. I go upstairs. Then I toss a couple things into my duffel bag, call Kai, and ask if he can pick me up with his car from the train station in Wunstorf. There haven’t been any trains running for hours. I say he shouldn’t ask such stupid questions, and whether he’ll fucking pick me up or not. We agree to meet there in an hour. I leave the room, lock the door, and add the two padlocks I’ve installed extra for nights like these. Inside there are two more that you just have to click. On the outside you need keys, otherwise they don’t lock. I’m not so retarded that I’d let myself be locked inside my own room. Goatee man is back at it when I go down the stairs. Don’t give a fuck. And he could care less that I see him. I slam the porch door shut, but it immediately swings open again. Then I find my way to the country road with my flashlight and from there, on to the station.

“Just moved in and there’s already a ruckus! Unbelievable!”

“Shut your trap!” Kai bellowed at my new neighbor in the prefab high-rise, one door down, and called him an old geezer or something like that. I pulled him back into my place and yelled at him, wanting to know what it was about. He’d probably call the cops and they’d kick me out, but then I had to laugh anyway, and we laughed our asses off, cracking up about the old fucker with a stick up his ass. Kai had been nice enough to bring along something to celebrate with, and I’d already knocked back two ecstasy and blazed three blunts thick as my thumb. The whole apartment stank of weed and skunky beer. Ulf was rolling the next one. On my new couch, which we had found on the side of the street on the way here. We all pitched in, and it went in the elevator to the sixth floor. Everything was perfect. Just the way it was supposed to be. Summer vacation in my sights. But I hadn’t gone to school for a couple weeks anyway. Since I’d moved out. Just had to celebrate finally escaping Hans’s stinking cottage.

“Now put down the fucking phone for a sec and finish rolling that thing!” Kai bellowed at Ulf, who’d been exchanging messages the whole time with Saskia, his new flame. “It’s about time we listened to some nice Rotterdam tunes.”

Kai cranked up the volume on my stereo and ear-blasting Gabba techno boomed out of the speakers, which were having trouble dealing with the racket and were noticeably humming.

We were yelling over each other, and I flopped down on the couch next to Ulf, who had the grass fall out of his paper. His furious face protested, but I couldn’t understand a word through the hardcore noise. Then I saw my phone light up. The light from the display glistened through a page from an open porn mag. It was Jojo. I jumped over to the stereo and turned it down. Kai threw everything at me he could find. I fended off coins and cigarette butts with one hand and picked up.

“Jojo, where you at? We’ve already almost killed everything we have.”

“Heiko? Heiko, don’t yell so loud. We’re on the road. My dad is driving us. Me and the man of the day.”

His voice cracked a couple times.

I said, “Huh?” or something like that.

“You’ll see in a bit. We just turned onto Barne Street.”

The doorbell rang a couple minutes later and I pressed the buzzer on the intercom. Jojo, Joel, and their dad came into the apartment.

“Hey, Dieter! How’s it hanging?!” Kai shouted, sitting on the windowsill, and knocked back a can. One leg in the room, the other dangling out the sixth floor.

“Hello, boys. How’s it look in here?” Dieter laughed. As always, he was wearing his gray work coat, which almost reached the slight man’s feet.

“Tip top, right?” I asked.

“I don’t know. But to each his own, right?”

“Come in, get something to drink. There’s still some in the fridge,” I said and pushed everything off the table. Including the overflowing ashtrays. I didn’t care.

“That’s all right, I have to leave right away. Just wanted to drop off these two. Joel has something to tell you all.”

“Dad,” Jojo said, “I wanted to do it.”

“Well,” Dieter waved him off.

“What’s up, dude?” Kai asked and jumped from the window and into the room, staggering and only barely catching himself on the wall.

“Spit it out already,” I pressed Joel, who once again was standing there with his shoulders turned in, making himself seem even skinnier, shaking the part out of his hair. Maybe he just looked that way because of the two ecstasy pills, but I thought he would disappear into thin air any second.

“Got a call from Hannover two days ago. Yesterday we went there to look everything over and—”

“Guys, you should have seen it,” Jojo interrupted his little brother, “the best equipment, great setup, top league standards!”

Dieter pushed Jojo aside and said, “Let him tell it himself, Joachim.”

Joel continued. Squeakily. He was still in the middle of his voice change. Zits everywhere, the poor guy.

“We talked to the head coach. Didn’t need much time to think about it. This morning we were back and signed the contract.”

“Contract?” Ulf asked. I think he was trying to hide the grass from Dieter under the porno.

“Joel, out with it!” Jojo yelled.

And Joel reached into the tote bag he’d brought along and pulled out a red Hannover 96 home jersey and, holding it by the shoulders, turned it around. The back was covered with the team name, a big number seven, and finally the name Seidel underneath.

“I’m on the B-team,” he said.

I think it took Kai and Ulf just as long as it did me to process what we were seeing. When the realization wound its way through our drug-affected brains and arrived, we jumped up together and ran over to the three Seidels, screaming with joy and yelling, “96!” We gave each other high fives and fist bumps and grabbed our heads because we simply couldn’t believe it. One of us, a true Red. A player for Hannover 96. That’s the last thing I can remember about that day. And the two-day hangover that followed.

I think about going home but put it off till evening. Arnim can clean up all that crap himself. I don’t need to deal with wiping up animal blood. Besides, I’m honestly a little afraid of coming home and finding Poborsky or Bigfoot’s cage empty. Not that either of those killers is near and dear to me or anything. But I don’t want them to pass into the sweet hereafter either. At least not that way. I take the next bus to Luthe. Jojo called us in the morning and asked if we’d like to finally visit him at practice. Kai declined. He’d made a date with some girl from class to do a study group for the upcoming test. Of course, study group is just personal code for fuck buddy. But she doesn’t know that yet. Visiting Jojo is clearly the better alternative for me. The other would be having to listen to Arnim recount last night’s events.