6
And I still haven’t explained why they called me psycho. Because, just like I’ve said, I’ve been called psycho for a bit. No idea what that’s supposed to mean. But one thing is clear: It means I didn’t get along with all of them. But in my opinion, there are some that could also be called that. Frank could’ve, or Stöbcke with his lighter, they’re definitely a lot more disturbing than me. Or the Nazi. But the Nazi is already Nazi, they don’t really need another name. And of course there’s a special reason for me to have this nickname. This reason was from Schuermann during German essays in the sixth class. The theme was keyword-prompted essay. Just in case someone doesn’t know what that is, these essays go like this: you get four words, for example “zoo”, “monkey”, “waiter” and “hat”, and then you have to write something with these four words. Very original. All that stuff. The words that Schuermann came up with were “vacation”, “water”, “rescue” and “god”. It’s definitely doubled in difficulty compared to the zoo and the monkey, and the main difficulty was obviously god. Aside from Ethik, and sixteen atheists including me, and also those who protested, they didn’t really believe god. At least I believe. At least not in the way people who believed in god believed it is, who couldn’t hurt an ant and are really happy when one dies because they’ll go to heaven. Or those who drive a plane and crash it into the World Trade Center. They really believed god. So this task was extremely hard. Most people started with the word vacation. Small families going to Côte d’Azur, surprisingly meets a horrible storm face to face and scream “oh god” and get saved and stuff. I could’ve also written something of the kind. But when I sat there fore this task, I felt, in the first hand, that we didn’t go on holidays for the last three years, because my dad’s always planning his bank robs. It didn’t disturb me a bit, I really don’t want to go on vacation with my parents either.
I chose to stay in the basement and carve boomerangs. A teacher of mine from the primary school taught me how to do it. He’s a total expert in the field of boomerangs. His name was Bretfeld. Wilhelm Bretfeld. He even wrote a book about it. Maybe two. But I only found that out when I was out of primary school. But after that, I met good old Bretfeld on the lawn again. He was practically standing on the cow lawn behind our house and was throwing his boomerangs, hand-carved boomerangs – and that was something I didn’t know worked. I only thought it would appear on screen. But Bretfeld was the total professional, and then he showed me all about it. I found that somehow exciting. Also because he carved and painted that all by himself. “Everything that’s round on the fornt and sharp in the back can fly.”,he said, and then he looked at me through his glasses and asked: “What’s your name again? I don’t remember you.” What surprised me the most, was this long-flying-boomerang. That was one of his own creations, they could fly for minutes, and he founded that. Across the world, when someone throws a long-flying-boomerang and it keeps flying for five minutes in the air, then a picture will be taken, and on it: based on a design by Wilhelm Bretfeld. He is therefore practically world famous, this Bretfeld. And he was standing behind out house last summer and showing me all about that. Really a good teacher. I didn’t notice it when I was in primary school.
So, I sat in the basement for the whole summer and carved boomerangs. And that was a great summer vacation, a lot better than going on a holiday. My parents were almost never at home. My dad was busy going from creditors to creditors, and my mom was on the beauty farm. And I wrote about that in my essay: my mom and the beauty farm. Keyword-prompted essay from Maik Klingenberg.
I was allowed to read on during the next hour. or I had to. I didn’t want to. Svenja was first, and he read all this shit with the Côte d’Azur, which Schuermann found really great, and then Kevin read the same thing but with the North See, and then came me. My mom on the beauty farm. It wasn’t really a beauty farm. Even though my mom did look better every time she came back. But it’s a clinic. She’s alcoholic. She’s been drinking for as long as I can remember, but the difference is, it was a fun thing before. Alcohol made everyone funnier, but when you pass a certain border, people turn tired or aggressive, and when my mom ran across the apartment with the kitchen knife again, I stood on the steps with my dad, and he asked: “How about the beauty farm again?” And then the summer began, when I was in year six. I love my mom. I have to say that, because, what’s about to come, might throw shade on hre. But I’ve always loved her, and I still love her. She’s not a typical mom. That’s what I like most about her. She can be, for instance, very humourous, most moms can’t do that. And the name beauty farm was a joke my mom made up.
Earlier on, my mom played a lot of tennis. My dad also, but not so good. When my mom was still fit, she won the club championship every year. And she also won them with a bottle of vodka drunken, but that’s another story. Every time I, at that time a kid, was on field with my mom, she would always sit on the club terrasse and drink cocktails with miss Weber and Mrs. Osterthun and Mr. Schuback and the others. And I sat under the table and played with cars, and the sun shined brightly. In my memories, it was always sunshine at the tennis club. I saw five pairs of white tennis shoes, I saw the underwear under the short tennis skirts, and I collected the corks that fell from above. I was allowed five ice-creams, ten colas per day. And then Miss Weber says from above: “Next week at seven again, miss Klingenberg?”
And my mom: “Of course.” And miss Weber: “I’ll bring the balls.”
And my mom: “Of course.”
And so on. Always the same conversation.
But here and there, there was another entertainment. It went like this:
“Next week on Saturday, miss Klingenberg?”
“I can’t, I’m out of town.”
“But your husband has a game?”
“Yeah, he won’t leave. I’m going.”
“Ah, where are you going then?”
“To the beauty farm.”
And then always, always, always, someone who didn’t know that would come to the table and say this deliberately: “That’s obviously not necessary for you, miss Klingenberg!” and my mom would tilt her Brandy Alexander and say: “Good joke, Mr. Schuback. It’s an alcoholic clinic.”
Then we would return home hand in hand, because my mom couldn’t drive the car anymore. I carried her heavy sport bag, and she said to me: “You can’t learn a lot from your mother. But you can learn these from her. First, you can talk about anything here. And second, don’t give a fuck about what others think.” That excited me. Freedom of speech. And crap on everyone.
Arguments came later. Not really an argument principally. But an argument about whether my mom really gave a fuck about it.
This beauty farm. How it works exactly, I don’t know. Because I’m not allowed to visit my mom, she doesn’t want that. But when she’s back from it, she always said some crazy things. Therapy mainly consisted of zero alcohol and talking. And water treading. Sometimes also gymnastics. But gymnastics can’t do much. They just chatted most of the time and threw a ball of thread all over the place. Because, who had the ball, had the permission to speak. I had to ask five times, whether I heard correctly or is that some sort of a joke with the ball. But that’s no joke. My mom didn’t find it funny or exciting, but I found it, to be honest, surprisingly exciting. You’d have to imagine it: Ten grown-ups sitting in a circle and throwing a ball of thread. Behind them, the room was full of wool, but that wasn’t the point. The idea was to create a network of conversations. From this you can see that my mother wasn’t the craziest person in the institution. There must have been much crazier people.
And if someone thinks that wool balls are not crazy enough, then they’ve definitely heard nothing about paper boxes. Everyone in the clinic had a paper box in their rooms. It hanged under the ceiling, with the opening faced up, and you had to throw notes in like a basketball hoop. Notes, on which you’ve written wishes, stuff you want to say, intents and such. When my mom had wishes or intents, she basically wrote them on a piece of paper and went practically Dirk Nowitzki: dunking. And the bizarre thing was, nobody reads those stuff. That’s not the point of it. The point was, you write them out and then they’re there and you can see them: My wishes and problems and the whole thing is in this box up there. And because there box was so important, you also had to name it. It’s written on the box with a marker, and then almost everyone had a box with “god” written on it hanging in their rooms. Because, therapists recommended that. But you could call it however you want. An old lady called hers “Osiris” and someone else “Big Ideas”.
My mom’s box was “Karl-Heinz”, and then the therapist came to her. At first, he wanted to know whether that was her father. “Who?” My mom asked, and the therapist pointed to the box. My mom shaked her head. And then, the therapist asked who that should’ve been, this Karl-Heinz, and my mom said: “The box there.” And then the therapist wanted to know what was my mom’s father’s name. “Gottlieb”, my mom answered, and the therapist went “Aha!”.
And I wrote all of that in my essay. In order to bring up the word “rescue”, I added the thing with the kitchen knife, and because I was in the mood, I also included the part where she mistook me for my dad on the next day. That was the longest essay I’ve ever written, at least eight pages, and I could’ve written part two and part three and part four if I wanted to, but looking at how it came out, part one was more than enough.
The class was filled with excitement during reading. Schuermann asked for silence and said: “Ok. Ok. How long do you have left? Ah, that long? It’s already enough, I would say.” And then I didn’t need to read the rest. During recess, Schuermann made me stay so he could finish reading my essay, and I stood next to him especially proud, because that was such an amazing success and because Schuermann wanted to read it to the end personally. Maik Klingenberg, the writer. And then Schuermann flipped my work upside-down, looked at me and shook his head, and I thought that was an approving headshake, kinda like “how can a sixth-grader write such great essays?” But then, he said: “Why are you grinning so much like that? Do you still think it’s funny?” And then it became clear to me, that it wasn’t such a success. At least, not with Schuermann.
He stood up and went to the window and looked outside. “Maik”, he said, and then he turned to me again. “That’s your mother. Have you thought of that?”
Obviously I made a huge mistake. But I didn’t know which one. But it’s clear to Schuermann, that I’ve made a big mistake with this story. And it was also somehow clear that he thought it was the most embarrassing essay in the history of the world. But I didn’t know why that was, he didn’t tell me, and to be honest, I still don’t know to this day. He just kept repeating that it was my mother, and I said that it was clear to me that my mother was my mother, and then he suddenly got loud and said that this essay was the most disgusting and repulsive and shameless thing he had come across in fifteen years of teaching and so on, and that I should immediately tear out these ten pages from my notebook. I was completely devastated and of course immediately grabbed my notebook like a complete idiot to tear out the pages, but Schürmann held my hand and shouted: “You shouldn’t really tear it out. Don’t you understand anything? You should think. Think!” I thought for a minute, and to be honest, I didn’t get it. I still don’t get it to this day. I mean, I didn’t invent anything or anything.