Philipp Winkler - Hooligan

I flip my cigarette away, blowing out the last cloud of smoke, which is immediately blown away, and say, “I’m gonna head out.”

We shake hands good-bye. He presses tight. My hand lies on his like a dead flounder. Then he goes back to the coaching bench and whistles at the players. I leave, mumbling, “Role model. For fuck’s sake, Jojo.”

I look around the parking lot and kick the side mirror of a white, highly polished X5 BMW. Feels good.

Leipzig is colder than the crotch of a one-legged, high-priced hooker. The night sky over Red Bull arena is still illuminated by the floodlights. We fall in line with the stream of people made up of families, groups of blond girls wearing Podolski and Hummels jerseys, and other fair-weather fans. The boys from Hamburg we’d spent the match drinking with had already left for the city center even before the end of the match to see whether anything might still happen with the Slovakians. We’re waiting for the streetcar.

“Fuck, it’s cold,” Jojo says, rubbing his paws and blowing into them.

If only he’d joined in the drinking, he wouldn’t be freezing his ass off like a fucking pussy right now. But no, instead he just alternated back and forth between shandy and Coke.

“I gotta piss this place full again,” Kai says and mentions to Jojo, “In case they’re selling hot chocolate somewhere, I’ll bring your faggy ass one, okay?”

Jojo laughs ironically and flips off Kai, who moves away from us toward the river. Ulf is just standing there passively in our group, checking his phone and looking for the city center bar where he’ll be waiting for us. Can’t resist throwing him a blatantly disapproving look, but he doesn’t even notice.

The minutes till the next streetcar arrives fly past and Kai still hasn’t shown up. The doors open.

“Where the fuck’s that tard?”

“Maybe he got the runs or fell in the river drunk,” Ulf says and positions himself in the door of the streetcar. “I’m going to go ahead. Let me know when you’re done.”

Yeah, sure, we say. A bell rings. The doors close, and the street car drives off.

“Later,” I mumble.

“What?” Jojo asks.

“It’s okay.”

My ears gradually start to feel like they’re wrapped in ice packs, and I pull up my hood. Of course, I don’t say I’m feeling cold. The next streetcar toward the city center slowly moves down the digital clock.

“What’s going on? Where’s he at?”

Jojo shrugs. My neck’s starting to hurt from looking around. Kai is nowhere to be seen.

“Maybe something’s happened,” says Jojo.

“Come on, what can have happened?” I answer, remove my phone from my pocket, and call Kai.

It rings until the answering machine beeps. I hang up and try it again. Same exact thing.

“Fuck. Okay, let’s go find him.”

We go across the street and reach the wide bridge over the river. A park along the water on the other side makes a dark shadow reflected on the river’s surface. There are groups of people in German national team paraphernalia where the sidewalk widens in front of the bridge, sitting around cases of beer they’ve brought and half-blocking the bike lane, making the bicycles ride slalom. They’re singing “ Deutschland, Deutschland über alles !” I yell that they should shut up. They look over and fall silent. They start singing again once we’ve moved past. Jojo was on the other side of the bridge and now returns, shaking his head at me. I’m standing at the railing and looking down at the footpath that runs parallel to the river and is only slightly lit. No sign.

“Maybe he went into the park and got lost,” Jojo says.

I press the red End Call button on my phone when just Kai’s answering machine picks up, and say, “The hell if I know, man.” The next streetcar rumbles by. “Okay, I’ll try it one more time. When he doesn’t pick up, I’ll yell at him so bad his ears’ll fall off when he listens to the message.”

My fingertips are cold. I can hardly feel the smooth surface of the display beneath them. It rings again. Nothing. I get ready to yell into the phone when the beep comes, but Jojo grabs my arm and says, “Listen.” I hang up and ask what I’m supposed to hear.

Jojo looks at the street. There aren’t any cars coming at the moment. He says I should call again because he thinks he heard Kai’s ring tone. “Fix Up, Look Sharp” by Dizzee Rascal. I press to repeat the call. After I’ve made sure it was ringing, I take the phone off my ear and bend my torso over the massive stone railing and listen down into the cold. Jojo, next to me, does the same.

“There,” he whispers, “do you hear it?”

And now I actually do hear it. The normally pounding base of the “Fix Up” beat, very low.

“Sounds like it’s echoing,” Jojo says.

“What the…?”

I scan the path and the bank below, meter for meter, till I’m staring straight down. The answering machine kicks in again and I immediately press Repeat Call. Then I bend even further, making my crotch rub on the cold, rough stone. The base and the bark of the grime rapper disappears briefly under the roar of passing cars. I have to concentrate to grab the sound. Yes, definitely!

“The underpass!” I say and run around the railing. A wide, stone staircase leads down to the riverbank. I take it in several leaps and am by the river when Jojo’s still only halfway down the stairs. The tunnel is a black frame where only the rounded silhouette of the other side is visible. Jojo bumps into me from behind when he rushes down the stairs. He bends past me.

“There’s nothing there,” he says, but I hold my hand up to tell him he should wait a sec. Then my index finger goes taut and I point into the tunnel.

“There’s something,” I say. My cheeks suddenly feel really flushed. Without looking, I press Repeat once again. A couple seconds later, the connection is made and something blinks in the middle of the tunnel. Accompanied by the rhythmic, pounding beat. I’m about to put my first steps into the tunnel when someone yells the Braunschweig chant: “BTSV! BTSV!”

I instinctively look up. The silhouette of a person can be recognized above the railing. He looks like he’s cut out of black paper, with the glow of the streetlamps behind him. The figure grabs at his head and pulls something down. Then something falls to our feet. Jojo bends over to pick it up. It’s a coarse balaclava. Mouth and eye holes are outlined in red. The mask is half blue and half yellow. Jojo holds it out to me. I look back up, but the shadow has disappeared. I look up at the dark blue, almost black starry sky. My brain seems to have dissolved into hot wax and run down my throat into my stomach. I sprint into the darkness. Something in front of me glows. Kai’s phone. There’s something next to it, leaning against the wall. Crumpled. I crouch down and reach for it. Feel clothing that gives way under my fingers till they hit against the resistance of an arm. I grab it and provoke a weak groan. I yell at Jojo he should move his ass. He slips out of his frozen state and together we pull Kai out of the tunnel. Into the light.

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.”