Philipp Winkler - Hooligan

Annoyed, I blurt out, “Knock that shit off! Call an ambulance, damn it!”

My whole skull is glowing, and for a moment I picture how it steams in the cold night air. As if I’d just completed a long-distance race. I bend down over Kai’s mouth. He’s still breathing. Even if it’s so shallow I can’t even hear it when I hold my ear directly to his lips, but I can still feel the light draft against my skin.

I kneel down in front of Kai’s stomach, which he still has protected with crossed arms. The sleeves have slipped over his hands. I can see that his fingers are moving. My hands are on his hips. I watch as they stroke him. As if he were an amped-up ox you need to speak soothing words to. I force my hands to stay calm. Then I look back up. The sky is brighter than before. The clouds have faded and are illuminated by the lights of the city. Their answer is that they slowly close their shutters. Drops of rain fall straight down on me. More and more. Till they can be heard splatting down against the stones and asphalt by the hundreds. Separated by milliseconds. It seems to me like the drops are actually small bubbles floating in the air that only come toward me because I’m flying swiftly toward the sky. Jojo’s panicked voice, yelling to the emergency response that he doesn’t know exactly where we’re at, just at the stadium, down by the riverbank, feels like it’s miles away for a split second. Kai suddenly coughs, spitting blood against my pant legs, and pulls me back.

“Kai! Kai!”

I grab his forehead and chin and turn his face slightly back toward me. As carefully as possible with shaking fingers, I pull his eyelids open. They’re also drenched in blood and swollen, making me immediately release them. I jump up and leap over Kai and Jojo. Run up the stairs. Two at a time. A streetcar rolls by. Illuminated faces from the inside stare fleetingly. The gang around the case of beer next to me is still singing their stupid victory songs. Otherwise no one else can be seen. No one I can give a flying kick to in the face. No one I can slam my pounding fists against. No one against whose teeth I could cut my finger open, only to keep on hitting till they were separated from the roots and the gums. And no one I could keep on beating till he choked on his own teeth. Instead, the rain is pounding against my shoulders and the crown of my skull and hammers the rage into every fiber of my body.

Kai wolf-whistled at a group of women walking past Timpen with their designer handbags in the crook of their arms.

“Dude, they were at least thirty or so,” Jojo said, laughing and bracing himself against the brick wall.

“So what? Climbing into the saddle on an old horse is the best way to learn how to ride. I only hope you two’ll learn that lesson too.”

Kai still swore he’d done it with the hot MILF who lived next to his parents and him. And we still didn’t believe him. Next time I’ll take pictures, he always said, but the next time never came. And once, when I’d skipped class again to visit him at his school in Hannover and we went to his place afterward, we met her on the stairs. She didn’t even give Kai the time of day when he said hello, but when we’d gone inside he claimed it’d been my fault. Because I’d always make such a face, so I shouldn’t be surprised. Also, that I was still a virgin at the age of sixteen. Which wasn’t true, either, because I’d already done it with Lisa in the school bathroom stalls the year before. But I hadn’t told anyone. Not even Kai. Wanted to wait and see if things would get serious with Lisa, because I really liked her. And then just a week later I’d gone to the bathroom during biology to smoke, and I heard her in the stall next to mine, heard her moaning. That sounded just like with me, and then I’d stood on the toilet and looked over the wall and saw she was screwing some son of a bitch from the parallel class. And then I knew she was just another fucking slut.

A goal celebration burst out of Timpen’s slanted window and immediately after that the sound of beer glasses clinking.

Jojo couldn’t control himself. He ran to the door and pushed it open.

“What? Who?” he yelled inside.

The answer came in the form of a chorus of loud curses and that he should close the blinds again, otherwise something else would happen. I asked Jojo what he’d seen.

“Couldn’t see the television because all the old farts were standing in the way,” he said and pulled the pack out of Ulf’s hand so he could light a cigarette.

“I mean inside. Not the game.”

It was clear enough that Hannover had scored a goal. Why else would Axel and the rest cheer? Not for the opponent.

“What? Um, no clue. They’re just sitting there. Or standing. Drinking. Watching the game.”

“And my uncle?” I asked and slapped Jojo’s shoulder with the back of my hand.

“Yeah, him too. What’s your deal, Heiko? He’s sitting there and drinking,” he said, rolling his eyes in annoyance and taking a seat on the cobblestones, “like all the others. It’s just we have to stand out here like bouncers and not see anything.”

He rested his face in his hands, pushing up his cheeks and making his eyes into slits. All at once, the door opened and Töller burst out. He was still holding onto the door with one hand and bending his upper body over. He was pale as a corpse. His back bent over and he took a couple loud breaths. I’d already seen the neighbor’s cat do that before barfing up a wet hairball. Töller’s blond hair fell in his eyes, and he spewed directly in front of the main entrance.

Jojo, who’d been sitting right next to it, jumped up and yelled, “Fucking hell, dude!”

“Well, Töller,” Kai said loudly and cracked up, “couple pints of horse piss too many, right?”

Töller had already been knocking back beer when we’d arrived at noon. I’d seen him at the bar when I’d tentatively poked my head into the barroom, being careful not to let the tips of my toes go beyond the doorframe, and ordered four Cokes from the boss. So we at least had something to drink out in front of the door.

“Come on over here, you,” Töller slurred and tried to grab Kai, but he was standing too far away. Töller swung his arm around and lost what little balance he had left. If Ulf hadn’t have been in the right spot and held him tight, he’d have fallen face-first in his own barf. Tomek came out of Timpen to help and pulled Töller back inside, depositing him on the chair next to him like a trophy and tugging at him over and over till Töller sat there on his own with a dead gaze, without his arm slipping from the edge of the table. We choked down our laughter when Axel came and stood in the doorway, Tomek behind him, holding open the door so it wouldn’t hit my uncle’s ass. Axel was holding out a mop and pressed it in Jojo’s hands because he was unlucky enough to be standing closest.

“Here, wipe up the mess,” he hissed through his fangs and went back inside without another word.

Jojo tried to fob the task off on us, but Ulf and I politely declined.

“Hey, come on, I’ll do it already,” Kai said and was already grinning so I knew what he was planning. He wiped around in the puddle of vomit, whistling away. I took a couple steps back in prudent foresight. Kai looked to the side over to us and grinned like a shark that’d discovered a surfer who’d fallen off his board. Then he cocked back the mop, dragged it through the puddle, and swung it around and whipped the vomit toward us, laughing like a maniac. I was able to dodge away in time, but I think Ulf or at least Jojo caught a couple of drops and screamed like little girls. And Kai loudly laughed his ass off, and Jojo and Ulf ran at him to disarm him. I stood by, hands on my hips, and laughed and watched as the three of them fought and pushed each other into the remaining barf. Then Axel poked his head out the door one last time. His brows covered his eyes and his chin was mostly out of the door. He glanced briefly at the tussling rug rats. Then he turned his head to me and said, “Make sure you get a grip on the dipshits, okay, Heiko?”