“Fuck this shit!” Then he tried the knob once more and spoke toward the door: “Who’s in there? Open up.”
Fucking idiot, I think, and push him aside. I can hear some kind of metallic click behind the door. Then Gaul’s voice: “Heiko? Heiko, what’s going on out there?”
Töller looks at me. His forehead is wrinkled and his nostrils, big as boreholes, flared.
“Nothing! Everything’s okay!” I call back. Then to Töller: “Now get lost. Go smoke a cigarette. I’ll let you know.”
He finally seemed to have caught on that he’d better knock it off with the macho act. He shoves the front door open as hard as he can and steps out for a smoke. But doesn’t take his eyes off of me and the locker-room.
A couple minutes later someone knocks on the door. I say I got the message and go around to the back door. I open the door. The Mulachos leave without a word and walk past me without a single glance, climbing into their van and revving around the curve.
Gaul and the other two, whose names I might know but can’t think of right now, come out with backpacks that hang low and heavy. Gaul keeps standing by me while the others are already in the back.
“What was that all about?!” Gaul hissed through tightly clenched teeth. I can actually feel how he’s pulling himself together so he stays peaceful.
“I’m sorry. To—” I just barely manage to shift it. “Someone came in and wanted to go into the locker-room.”
“That’s exactly why you were supposed to be standing there, so something like that doesn’t happen. The thing almost went to shit.”
“I’m really sorry, Gaul. Didn’t take my hands off the wheel.”
He stares deep into my eyes. Probably is trying to find out if I’m serious or if it happened because I didn’t give a fuck.
“All right, we’re good. After all, nothing happened.” He pats me on the shoulder. Then they drive out of the yard, machines producing a deep base gurgle. His hand left a faint sweaty palm print on my T-shirt.
I go into the locker-room and look around. Everything back to normal. I unlock the door to the gym and wave at Töller, who’s still standing outside, that he should come in. Then I go back to the back door. Ask myself if Axel’s even there or if he was sleeping the whole time in his big boss leather chair. I knock twice and push the door open. He is, in fact, sitting on his massive office chair made of black leather. The surface of the oak desk is cleared in the middle. Three lines of blow are lined up in a row.
“What’s up, Heiko?” he asks in a sharp tone of voice. The two skinheads with hollow faces turn in their chairs in front of his desk and toward me. A third is leaned over the desk, straw in hand. At the sight of me, he straightens up and interrupts his sniffing session.
“I’m busy right now. So if it’s nothing important…”
I forget to answer him and, one after the other, examine the bozos, whose faces I recognize from somewhere. I just can’t place it.
“Nah… um… it’s okay,” I say and want to move my body back into the hallway.
“Hey, Heiko, wait a sec,” Axel says and snorts the remaining coke that’s still hanging on his nostril. “Let’s chat about Cologne sometime soon. A little debriefing. Okay?”
He winks conspiratorially, which confuses me so much I only stupidly nod and leave an “um” hanging in the room. The drugged, wigged-out eyes of the three skinheads follow me out. I close the door.
It just wasn’t working anymore. Much as I wanted it to work, for us to work. It was equally clear I couldn’t change myself and she wouldn’t change. No question. That’s what we’d told ourselves from the beginning of our relationship. Sure, other people wouldn’t see it as real, but that’s what it was. Which was also fine by me. Me and my bros were just starting to learn to play the third half—as people rightly call it—and I wasn’t about to let something mess it up. Least of all a woman. On the other hand, it’s Yvonne and not just any girl.
At first I kept thinking how perfect it would be. She needed plenty of space too. I never thought it’d be possible to meet anyone so compatible with my lifestyle. And then it wasn’t as it seemed, but for reasons I couldn’t have imagined. Goddamn! It’s almost funny, but after a while I guessed she had another poker in the fire besides me. Poker… how fucking fitting. Always talking through everything took forever. I was never good at things like that. At least with words. And saying what’s going on inside yourself, and all that emotional crap. But the conversation always heads in that direction. Without me really being prepared for it. She said it wasn’t as bad as all that. That she just needed it. She has everything under control. I just have to leave her alone. After all, she accepted me just the way I was too. With the brawls and the “football crap,” as she called it. Such a goddamn fucking crock of shit!
She threw all my clothes she could gather into the hallway and locked the door. I didn’t even do anything about it. Like stick my foot between the door and the frame or yell she should cut it out. She said I should go, and I accepted it. I collected my clothes, went into the kitchen, and ate the meal we hadn’t finished that evening. Could have just left right when she said it, but I think I was trying to draw it out. Maybe she’d reconsider and come out of her room. But, of course, she didn’t. She never did. Never once in my experience did she change her mind when she’d made a decision. Not even with the smallest, least important things. I went into the living room, turned on the tube, and sat on the couch for a bit. Pet the cat next to me, which was having a hard time finding a comfortable sleeping position and was punishing the slipcover. I tidied up a bit. Put dishes in the dishwasher, carefully stacked her stupid magazines on the glass coffee table, and washed the backup utensils and hypodermic needles and syringes in the bathroom sink, returning them to their leather case. Then placed the case in its spot in the drawer in the living room cabinet. I would have preferred to slam the case against the wall. Actually, why not? For some reason, I was cleaning up like a zombie, with my head empty and stuck on straightening up. I took my things, pausing in the open doorway to the apartment, listening to Yvonne’s place one last time. Then I closed the door behind me. As I went down the stairs and ran my thumb over the jags of the key in my bag, our two-year relationship shrank with every step into a tiny, compressed ball.
Kai’s done with his classes. Even though that means he has to take an ass-load of finals on balance sheets, human resource management, and some other business crap, he still prefers to hang out with me all day at the gym and starts drinking around noon. I always skip a round of beer so I’m halfway able to do something when necessary. But there’s nothing to do. And Kai’s presence distracts me from the dull bits of conversation I overhear all day long. We’re just sitting next to the front door, smoking, drinking, and Kai shows me pictures from Aztec stadium in Mexico City. His big dream. Just once in that ginormous stadium which used to hold more than 110,000 people. These days it still has around 95,000 seats.
“Sure, but seats, dude,” I say, “it’s fucking lame.”
“You don’t really believe the hombres stay seated, resting on their asses. There’s a real fiesta!” he bellows and accidently knocks ash on his new, snow-white Le Coq shoes.
“Oh, fuck.”
He licks his thumb and tries to wipe away the ashes. Gaul comes around, greets us, and goes in. We watch him go. Inside, he’s approached by Latze, the six-foot-six bouncer who’s smiling like a fat kid in a candy shop, and they go into the locker-room together.
“If Latze swallows any more bull shark hormones his biceps will explode someday,” Kai says and giggles.