Philipp Winkler - Hooligan

“Because it’s not possible! Enough said,” I say.

I have no clue where Arnim’s off to again and when he’ll come back. I have to get rid of them! As quickly as possible.

“We have to talk, Heiko,” Manuela says.

Her voice sounds brittle. Like just before losing consciousness. There’s thunder in the distance. I can see a storm brewing, past her hair, through the tips of the trees.

I hold up two fingers as a peace sign and say, “Two minutes. On the porch.”

I try to give my face an incredible resolve. We walk over to the steps of the porch.

I retrieve a cushion from a chair and place it on the stairs for Manuela. Doesn’t make any difference, because the cushion is dirty too and covered in dark stains. But the gesture counts. We sit down next to each other. Andreas remains standing in front of us with his arms crossed, scanning the porch derisively. I try to repress the urge to smack him. It smells like rain.

“Well, what’s up?” I ask.

Manuela looks at Andreas. Then me. She gulps.

“Dad. He fell down the stairs a couple of days ago. He’s in the hospital with a hip fracture.”

“Aha,” I say.

I can’t think of anything else to say, and for some reason I’m too exhausted to simulate a different reaction. Manuela looks at me with incomprehension.

“Did you understand what I said, Heiko?”

“Yeah. Broken hip. Isn’t that something senior citizens get usually?”

“Unfortunately, anyone can suffer a hip fracture,” Andreas says in a pedagogical tone.

I pull my cigarettes from the pocket of my jogging suit and light one up. I feel Manuela’s gaze resting on me as I smoke. She still appears to be waiting for more of a reaction from me.

“Heiko…”

“Drop it, dear. He doesn’t give a darn,” Andreas groans. I really have to try hard to ignore him. Otherwise he’ll catch one from me.

“Was he shitfaced again?”

“Is that all you can think of?” Manuela asks, and moves a bit away from me.

“What do you want from me?” I ask, my voice rising. “Am I supposed to cry a little? Yell at the sky: how in the world could that happen?”

“Heiko!” Her voice cracks in accusation, as if I’d farted at a funeral.

I scrape the ashes from the tip of my cigarette by rotating it on the stair step beneath me, and say they have to go now.

Manuela starts to sob quietly. I turn my head away in annoyance and lift myself up.

“How can you be this way?”

“How can I be this way?” I repeat, screaming at her. “Do you suffer from loss of memory? Did you forget what happened a month ago? How you sat in his kitchen, crying?!”

I was too loud. The dogs are barking from out back. Shit! Andreas takes a step forward. His facial features are furrowed by fear.

“What is that?” he asks harshly.

“What could it be?! Those are dogs.”

A growling can be heard between the barks. Oh God, please let that be thunder. But I picture the tiger is jumping from its darkened pit and touching the wooden lid with its paws.

“I think we’d better go now,” Andreas says and pulls out his car keys, jangling.

“No, wait,” Manuela says. She’s clearly struggling to keep her composure, and manages to mask the quavering of her voice beneath firmness. “Heiko, I know that everything is going terribly wrong, but we’re a family. Your father is in the hospital. And I would like… No, I demand that you visit him at least once. He’s so stubborn. We have to make the first step. And you in particular. If not for his sake, then do it for me.”

So she’s making a big scene of this now. I’m just about to say no and send her away. Then I would finally have my peace and quiet. Wouldn’t have to see them. But the image in my mind’s eye, of how she’s sitting in the kitchen and crying while Hans is raging in the bedroom, is suddenly covered over by other images. From before. When we were younger. And how she told Hans he should leave me alone. How she made me an extra evening meal after school—whether I was home yet or not—because I had silently refused to even touch Mie’s food. How she came into my room and asked if I had dirty clothes that needed to be washed. These are actually completely irrelevant things, but somehow they mean more to me. My head becomes clear and bright for a second. This means that there’s someone I mean something to. Not because she wanted it that way or because she considers me so sympathetic. We’re fundamentally different people. Instead, for the simple reason that I’m her brother. And because it’s easy for her. Maybe even as easy as always forgiving our father for his constant fuckups. Overlooking them.

“Sure,” I say, “I’ll visit him when I’m ready. But you really have to go now.”

She hugs me good-bye. Andreas is sitting behind the wheel, motor running. He honks. Then she starts to get in.

“Tell Damian hi from me,” I say and pat her on the back.

“He’s already asked about you. Kicks your ball around the garden every spare minute.”

“That’s fabulous,” I say and gently push her away.

A single topic has dominated all the conversations at Wotan Boxing Gym since the German Cup draw: the game against Braunschweig. Whether hooligan, martial artist, biker, bouncer, or right-wing extremist. Everyone is only talking about the match of the year. Suddenly, everyone’s an expert and offering analysis. Not just about the football match as such. Of course, much of the focus is on the trappings. The historic significance. That the last time they met, in 2003, it’d also been a Cup match and 96 had been sent home without a whimper with a 0–2 result is something everyone seems to have repressed.

The last couple of weeks haven’t been easy for the gym. After the raid, which everyone heard about, naturally, most of the customers stayed away to be on the safe side. Something resembling normal returned only slowly. Unfortunately, the right-wing guys were the first to come back on a regular basis. But since then, the Angels have come back, and Gaul has resumed his anabolic business in the locker-room. Axel now has a visit almost every day from the bikers, who come into his office without bidding and without knocking. He doesn’t make them go back out and knock, “as you’re supposed to do.” I can hear sharp words now and then when I go by. Axel snorts more than ever. Talks to himself the whole time while he’s stomping through the rooms. His normally reddish, seemingly enflamed skin color is duller than usual.

I’m standing at the back door when he pokes his blocky head out the office door and bellows my name without realizing I’m a couple meters down the hall.

“Come over here. Need to help me with something.”

I carefully step on the tip of a cigarette I’d just lit and put it back in the pack so I can go on smoking it later. When I enter his office, he’s standing on top of his massive desk, in his socks. His head disappears into the ceiling. He’s removed one of the drop-down ceiling tiles from its frame.

“Need you to hand a couple of things to me here.” His voice is muffled from up there, as if coming from another room.

He points a finger at the new stack of paper with lists that’s lying on the desktop next to his feet.

“Don’t mess them up!” he says threateningly as I’m passing him stack after stack.

He accepts them and pushes them around in the dead space. You can hear the dry sliding of the paper over the ceiling panels. A fine cloud of dust floats down. I’m supposed to hand him a bag from a desk drawer. The translucent baggie is three-quarters full of pills. Beneath it in the drawer is a bush knife at least eight inches long with a black rubber handle. The blade side sparkles sharply. The other is equipped with nasty teeth. After stowing the bag in the ceiling, he retrieves the missing tile from somewhere and maneuvers it into the appropriate spot.