1
First, there was the smell of blood and coffee. The coffee machine is there on the desk, and the blood is in my shoe. To be honest, it’s not only blood. When the elderly said “fourteen”, I peed my pants. I sat diagonally on the stool without moving the whole time. I was dizzy. I tried to think about how Tschick would be like when a “fourteen” hit him in the face, and then I peed my pants out of fear. Maik Klingenberg, the hero. I don’t really know where the hype came from. It was clear that the whole thing came to an end. Tschick definitely wouldn’t piss himself.
Where is Tschick? I didn’t see him on the road, like him with one leg bouncing into a bush, but once I think about it, he has to fight against it. You can’t go far with only one leg. I definitely couldn’t ask the police. Because, if they didn’t see him, it is logically better to not even mention the thing. Maybe they didn’t see him after all. And they’re not gonna get a word out of me. Then they can torture me. Although the German police, I believe, aren’t allowed to torture people. That can only happen on TV or in Turkey.
But sitting in the police station all dirty and blood-covered while answering question from others just isn’t it. Maybe torturing would be a bit better, then I would at least have an explanation for all this excitement.
The best thing to do is keep your mouth shut, Tschick said taht. And I see the same. Now, where everything is pointless. And I don’t care about a single thing. Well, almost. Tatjana Cosic, for example, isn’t “a single thing”. Even though I haven’t thought of her for a really long time. But when I sit on this very stool and look at the road outside and with the older police standing by the coffee machine back there for five minutes, filling water and dumping it out, reaching under the counter and trying to see what’s wrong when every literal dumbass can clearly tell that the plug of the extension cable isn’t plugged, I have to think about Tatjana again. Because, if it weren’t for her, I wouldn’t be here. Although she has nothing to do with the whole thing. Am I speaking a bit unclear? Sorry for that. I’m gonna try later. Tatjana doesn’t come up in the whole story. The most beautiful girl in the whole world has no role in this. On the whole trip, I always imagined that she could see us. How we stomped through the corn field. How we stood on the rubbish pile with a bunch of hoses in our hands like the last two fools in the world… I always imagined that Tatjana was behind us, and she was seeing everything we saw, and she felt excited just like we did. But now, I’m only glad that was something I made up.
The police took a piece of green tissue from the tissue box and gave it to me. What should I do with it? Mop the floor? He squeezes his nose with two fingers and look at me. Oh, nose sneezing. I sneezed my nose, and he smiled. That, I could tell apart from torture. I look around the floor. The whole station was laid out with green linoleum, just like the entrance hall in our school. It smells a bit like that. Piss, sweat and linoleum. I can see our PE teacher, Wolkow, in a training suit, springing across the hall, seventy years old, and training: Let’s go, boys! Hop, Hop! The noise from his smacking steps on the ground, and the giggling straight out of the girl’s toilet. I can see the high windows, the benches, the rings on the ceiling. I can see Natalie and Lena and Kimberley enter the hall from the side entrance. And Tatjana in her green training suit. I see her reflection on the hall floor, The glittering pants that girls always wear, and the upper piece. And that half of them do gymnastics with wool pullovers on and at least three have a medical certificate. Hagecius-Middle-School Berlin, eighth class.
“I thought, fifteen?” I said, and the police shaked his head.
“No, fourteen. Fourteen. What’s up with the coffee, Horst?”
“The machine’s broken.” Horst said.
I want to speak to my lawyer.
That was the sentence, that I had to somehow say. That’s the right sentence in the right situation, just like how everyone knew from the TV. But it’s so easy: I want to speak to my lawyer. They’re gonna laugh their heads out. The problem is: I don’t know what this sentence menas. When I say, I want to speak to my lawyer, and they ask: “To whom you want to speak? Your lawyer?“ What should I answer then? I haven’t seen a single lawyer in my life, and I also don’t know, why would I be needing one. I don’t know what’s the difference between an attorney, a lawyer and a prosecutor. I’ll just take that it’s something similar to a judge, but he stands on my side and knows more about laws than me. But practically everybody in the room knows more about laws than me. And I could naturally ask them. But I know, if I ask the younger one, whether I need such a lawyer right now, he’ll just call out to his colleagues: “Hey, Horst! Horshi! Come over here! Our hero wants to know whether he needs a lawyer or not! Look at him. Blood shed all over the floor, pissed himself just like a world champion and – want’s to speak to his lawyer!” Hahaha. Then they’re gonna laugh until they’re broken. And I find my experience already horrible enough, I really don’t need myself insulted. What happened, happened. And nothing more. The lawyer can’t do anyting about that either. Because only a psycho could try to deny that we’ve been crap. What should I say? That I stayed at home, in our pool the whole week, you can ask the janitor? That pork sides fell from the sky like crazy? I really can’t do much know. I can still pray to Mecca and shit myself in the pants, other than that, options really are limited.
The younger, who actually seemed nice at first, shook his head again and repeated: “Fifteen is nonsense. Fourteen. You’re responsible for crime from fourteen.”
Somehow, I should feel guilty and remorseful and stuff like that, but, to be honest, I don’t feel anything. I’m just crazily dizzy. I’m scratching myself by my calf. Only there, where my calf was, isn’t anymore. A red stripe is across my hand. That’s not my blood, I said earlier, when they asked me. There are random shit laying on the street ready for people to mess around with, and I really thought that wasn’t my blood. But if it isn’t my blood, where is my calf?
I roll up my pants and look at what’s under me. I had just a second to stare at the scene. If I saw that in a movie, I’m gonna feel horrible, and in fact, I am kinda nasty right now, in this surprisingly quiet road police station. I saw my reflection on the linoleum, and then it banged, and I’m going.