Kai wants to start in with his Facebook spiel, but I get up and say, “Gotta take a leak.”
“Think about it,” he yells behind me. Startled, I glance quickly over at the regulars’ table, but Axel’s engrossed in a conversation. I go to the ladies’ room. I can have peace there. Not that Kai would follow me to the crapper with his harebrained scheme. Since women never come into Timpen, Skipper summarily declared the ladies’ room as his second storage room. The crapper still works, of course. You just have to make sure there’s tp. Otherwise you can scoot your unwiped tush over to the other stall. And if both stalls are occupied, then cheers. The old farts here need ages to take a dump. Not to mention the stench of old-man shit. I luck out, and there’s still half a roll next to the bowl. And because I’m not in a hurry, I choose a nice bottle of suds for the toilet. I can open the door to the stall and reach into a case and pull out a beer without lifting a cheek. Skipper’s not opposed to people taking advantage in here. After finishing my business, I slip the bottle back into the case and tug my jogging pants back into place. In the hallway to the facilities, I hear a loud hubbub from the taproom and the sound of a chair or stool being knocked over. I open the door and see Kai in the middle of the room, holding a skinhead firmly by the scruff of his neck. The skin is slightly smaller than Kai, and his head has half disappeared into the collar of his Lonsdale jacket Kai’s holding him by. Ulf is standing behind Kai. I know that face. It’s his “you’re in deep shit” face.
“What’s goin’ on here?” I ask, and several heads turn toward me.
“I just told that son of a bitch and his buddies they have no business here,” Kai reported and pushed the skinhead away. The guy slips back a step and bumps against the table in the middle of the room, under which a chair lies on its side. Only now do I notice the other two Nazis. One of them is standing behind his buddy, the other next to the regulars’ table.
The one Kai just manhandled says to me, “You’re Heiko Kolbe, right?”
He clucks his tongue against his yellowed teeth.
“You wanna have my address, you cocksucker? You guys have no business here. So get lost already.”
The Nazi at the regulars’ table, the biggest of them, with a wrinkly, fat face and hamster cheeks, takes a hesitant step toward me and tries to put on a scary grimace. I just glance and blow some air through my lips. They make a pfff sound.
Kai’s adversary says, “We for sure aren’t getting lost, dude. We were invited.”
“Then you must have gotten the wrong door, you idiots,” Ulf said, his deep bass echoing in the beer glasses.
I nod. “Fo’ sho’. I’m certain no one here invited you.”
Then I walk toward Ratface with the yellow teeth, fists full of rage and all out of patience.
“Which isn’t completely true,” Axel says, loudly but completely relaxed.
I turn toward the regulars’ table and look at him, dumbfounded, as he calmly sits there. One arm resting on the table. The other spread, his hand on his thigh.
“I invited them.”
Ratface walks past me, knocking aside Kai’s hand that halfheartedly tried to hold him back, and grins at me stupidly in a challenge. Then he pulls the chair from under the table, deposits it opposite Axel, and plants his dirty rat ass on it. The two other skins reveal teeth no less yellow. Hee, hee, hee. You dirty little bitches! Then I recognize them. They’re the same ones who were sitting in Axel’s office recently. And what’s more, they’re part of a group of Nazis from Hannover’s Langenhagen district known for causing trouble.
“What do you have do to get a fuckin’ beer around here?” Ratface said without turning around.
My feet are bolted to the floor. I look at Axel and simply can’t close my jaw. He catches me with a stern look. Then he gradually releases the clamp of his stare and groans briefly. But not in a relieved way, more like he’s annoyed. As if we were little boys who were annoying the shit out of their dad.
“Three beers, Skipper,” Axel says soberly.
I feel the rage radiate out from my fists and temples, spreading across my body. I wouldn’t have thought it possible to do what I do next: I extend my index finger and say, “Skipper, they don’t get nothin’ here!”
He takes his hand from the tap and mutters, “Too right.”
Before the Nazis or Axel or anyone can react, I grab Ratface by the shoulders, yank him up from the chair, and throw him at the middle table. His back slams against the edge of the table, and the table slides sideways. It was all too fast for him, and before he’s back on his feet I grab him again, pull him close to me, and give it to him. Straight to his crooked fucking nose, immediately producing a cut to the bridge. Falls over limply. I register chair and table legs scraping over the floor tiles through what feels like a down duvet wrapped around my head. Then Fatface is coming at me. Lumbering and uncertain what he even wants to do, I’m able to deftly step aside and smack him. He grunts in pain as my fist slams into the side of his belly. Ulf’s already there and grabs his neck with both hands, pulls him away, and throws him to the floor as if he were made of marshmallow. The third Nazi runs at Kai, but Kai doesn’t mess around. He takes his beer glass from the counter and knocks it over the dude’s dome with a crash. He yells, and the blood flows down his forehead and over his face so he has to pinch his eyes shut. We grab the three assholes. Töller, who’s standing close to the door, holds it open for us with a broad grin. We throw the Nazis from Langenhagen out on their ear. Stay in front of the door and watch how they check out all their individual parts and disappear with their tails tucked between their legs. However, Kai doesn’t pass up the opportunity to hawk a loogie from way deep down.
“Yeah, fuck off, you fucktards!” I yell after them, middle finger extended.
We go back inside.
Kai jokingly slams his fist against my bicep and says, “Ah, man, what a beautiful thing. Now time for a beer.”
I shake my head, don’t say a word, and walk past him. Then I push the tables and chairs back in place and apologize to Skipper, who waves me off.
My uncle. Sitting there at the regulars’ table. Still sitting there. Like Jesus on one of those paintings of the Last Supper. I just look at my uncle. My skull feels electric. My cheekbones are almost bursting out from the pressure. Then I grab my phone and wallet from the counter and leave Timpen without a word.
After spending the evening not answering my phone and stalking through Hannover, cursing to myself silently, I calmed down somewhat and was sitting with Kai on the roof of his house. We bought a chunk of hash from his roommate and smoked one doobie after another, and I was just venting to him, with him adding “exactly” and “hmm” and “fo’ sho’” at precisely the right moment. He didn’t have to do anything else. I didn’t ask for anything more. Just being able to rant about what a crock of shit, and what the fuck was my uncle thinking when he decided he could invite in anyone and everyone he wanted, what was the point of the whole Sun King act, and why, of all people, this particular group of brown-assed Nazi sons of bitches, as if he wasn’t aware of what kind of example that would set, as if he’s from the fucking moon, as if he wants a situation like they have in Aachen or Rostock or even Braunschweig, and then I tell him we’re gonna do that thing with Braunschweig, that we’re gonna drive over there and really kick their asses, and if we do it, then we’ll do it right, and do it my way, you’re goddamn fucking right we are!