Philipp Winkler - Hooligan

“And anyway, it wasn’t the same at all. Without you guys, it just doesn’t rock. Just make sure that you get back in line soon, you fart.”

He nods to himself, nipping at his beer, and, lost in thought, watches the DJ on the stage who’s turning knobs on his mixing console as though bored. I look at him, and suddenly have to laugh.

Irritated, he looks at me and asks, “What’s wrong?”

“You have your undershirt on wrong, boy.”

Kai pulls his chin into his throat, looking down at himself. He reaches into his open shirt and pulls the label of the undershirt from the collar.

“Oh, crap. I was asking myself the whole time why my throat was itching so much.”

He puts down his glass and say he’s going to pop over to the toilet to pull the thing around right.

I order us two more overpriced kiddie beers and look at my smartphone to see when the draw is for the next round of the German Cup. Then I check my emails. Tomek had sent me a temporary link to the pics from the Frankfurt match. I download it and scroll through. Terrible quality. Shaky. Raindrops on the lens. You couldn’t recognize next to nothing. I roll my eyes, drink the beer, and order myself one more. At some point, I look at the clock. Kai’s been in the bathroom for almost fifteen minutes. I can’t help thinking of Leipzig and how Jojo and I waited and Kai didn’t come back, and an uncomfortable feeling gathers inside me. Such bullshit. We’re here in Hannover. What could happen to him here? It’s completely ridiculous to think stuff like that now. My phone rings. Kai’s number.

“Dude, what’s up? Did you fall in?”

I immediately notice from his voice that something’s not right. It has such a disturbing tone: “Almost. But. Can you just come?“

I cross the dance floor and dodge a couple people jumping around who are clearly tripping and have their heads pointed toward the ceiling.

“Kai?” I call as I come into the bathroom.

The smell of piss is already pungent, even though it’s still pretty early in the evening.

“Here,” a voice responds, “second stall.”

I want to push it open, but the door is locked.

“What’s up?”

“Wait,” he says, and I hear how his hand rubs over the surface of the door. “Wait a sec. Shit.” Then the lock clicks open. “So, it’s open.”

He sits on the closed lid. Holds his iPhone with both hands and fidgets with his legs.

“Close the door, all right?”

I do it and ask, “What’s up? Should I call a nurse who helps you wipe your ass?”

“Knock that shit off for a sec,” he says and sucks the snot up his nose. Had he’d already done some blow?

Then he looks up at me. I can immediately see that something’s not right. His eyes are tear-stained. The pupils dart from left to right but don’t appear to look anywhere really, don’t respond to my gaze although I’m standing right in front of him.

“I…” He swallows, his shoes tapping a fast rhythm on the tiles. “I can’t see anything.”

“What, you can’t see anything?”

“Heiko! I. Can. Not. See.”

His voice is unsteady, as if he’d just cried.

“What happened?”

I crouch down in front of him. His gaze briefly stays up. Then he appears to notice that I’ve changed my position, and sinks his head slightly. I wave my palm in front of his eyes.

“Knock that shit off,” he says.

“So you do see something.”

“Yeah.” He exhales. Stutters. Searches for the right words. “No. A little. Changed my clothes, and then. First there was some kind of spark. From outside my field of vision. Thought at first I’d accidentally looked at the light too long. Went over to the sink and washed my eyes. Then I went over here because it didn’t get any better.” His throat produces gurgling sounds. “Then the curtain closed.”

“The curtain?”

Because his jittering was also driving me completely crazy, I placed my hands on his knee and he finally went still.

“Dude!” he exclaims, and the moisture of tears spills over his cheeks. He wipes it away. “Just black. Like a black curtain. I can see almost nothing anymore. You get it now?”

“Fuck. Okay. Wait. I’ll call an ambulance. Should I call an ambulance?”

I get up and open the door.

“Heiko?”

I turn around again. He looks to the ground, turning his smartphone in his hands and once more tapping with his feet.

“I’m fucking scared.”

We waited in front of the club for the ambulance. He insisted I check if anyone was hanging around in the foyer because he didn’t want anyone to see him that way. When the coast was clear, he walked arm in arm with me, and I led him to the door with small, retired-people steps. Then I placed him by the street on a box for road salt and went back inside to fetch our jackets.

After we’d explained as well as possible what was wrong and Kai lay down, the EMTs started dabbing at his eyes. Bandages were placed over them while we drove to the hospital. They had no idea what it could be, and said we should wait for what the doctors would say.

All of that took forever. I spent half the night waiting in front of various examination rooms. Every time a doctor went by, I jumped up expectantly, but most of them stared at me with a mix of boredom and exasperation and passed on. I planted myself back on my ass.

The double doors open. Kai is led out, a doctor and a nurse on either side. I explode out of the chair, go to them. Kai has two round white flaps of fabric over his eyes, attached with transparent adhesive strips. He looks like an enormous fly.

“Well? What’s he got?”

The doctor, a blond guy, at most a couple years older than us, takes Kai’s arm and says with a Dutch accent, “Are you a member of the family or a friend?”

“Bud,” I answer.

He considers briefly, but then he remembers the meaning of the word. “Ah, okay. It looks like a detached retina. Caused by a rhegmatogene amotio retinae.” I look at him with incomprehension. “Retinal tear. He’s not just had it since today.”

“Hell if I know?” I say and throw up my arms, “And what does that mean? Does he have to stay here?”

The doctor sighs and looks like he was forced to talk to a kid who’s slow on the uptake, and says: “Take a look at your friend. Of course he has to stay here. Additional tests tomorrow. But I can tell you this much: because it was protracted and apparently not diagnosed or not diagnosed thoroughly enough, there’s some danger of an irreparable loss of function for the areas affected. And in this case we’re talking about damage on both sides. How could this not be recognized? I’m going to take another look in his file and perhaps speak with the colleagues who are responsible. A serious talk.”

“And irreparable, that means…” I start, but for some reason my mouth just stays open instead of continuing talking.

“Heiko,” Kai says wearily, “that means that I might stay blind.”

His head hangs low, as if someone had shot a tranquilizing dart into his neck.

“Partially,” the Dutch doctor chimes in once again. “At least there’s the partial danger.”

They lead him past me. I stand there. Have to process it first. When they reach the elevator and it opens up with a ding , I follow them.

“Irresponsible,” the doctor mumbles when he hands Kai’s arm over to me and remains in the hallway, “irresponsible.”

“Heiko, you’re getting on my nerves! No. All right. For real. Go home. I’ll fend for myself. Thanks for everything you’ve taken care of and all, but hey, I really need some peace and quiet. You’re driving yourself crazy. And me too.”

That’s how Kai sent me home. His parents sat on the other side of the room on two chairs a nurse had brought in. They’d been pretty restrained toward me recently, then took it up a notch and didn’t look at me anymore. For them, I’m probably the embodiment of what happened to Kai. That’s the only way I can explain it. When we were still small, and my parents and I still lived in Hannover, they lived right next door. Just as my mother often watched over me and Kai, they frequently took me in. They were something like my replacement parents those first years. Before we moved to Wunstorf. And now they ignored me like a piece of shit. But somehow I can’t blame them. I should have never gone for Kai’s stupid idea. Then we wouldn’t have gone to Braunschweig. He wouldn’t be sinking in a paper hospital bed like the picture of misery. Half-blind. Ulf would still be one of ours. I mean really. I wouldn’t be out of favor with my uncle. All this fucked-up shit wouldn’t have ever happened if I’d just said no.