7
And after that, I’ve been called psycho. For a year long. Even in class. Even, when the teacher was there. “Go, psycho, play! You can do it, psycho! Nice catch!” And it finally stopped when Andre came into our class. Andre Langin. The beautiful Andre.
Andre was popular. He made a girlfriend in our class on the first day, and then he switched every single week, and now he’s with a Turkish girl, who looked like Salma Hayek, from the class next to us. He also got close to Tatjana for a bit, that, was different for me. They chatted with each other for a few days, in the hallway, in front of the school gate, even in classes. But I believe they didn’t get together after all. Because, from some point on, they didn’t talk to each other anymore, and then I heard, just like how Andre Patrick said, how men and women don’t fit together, really scientific stuff from the stone age. And I hated him because of it. I hated him from the very first moment, but it wasn’t easy. Because, he’s not the brightest candle right now, but he’s also not hollow. He can be nice, and there’s something laid-back about him, and his looks, just like I’ve said, are really good. But he’s still an asshole. He only lives a street away from us, in the Wald Street 15. Where only assholes live. The Langins have a huge house there. His father is a politician or something like that. And my dad said: Big man, this Langin! Because he’s also in the FDP right now.
But I actually wanted to say something else. When Andre first came to us, we went hiking somewhere south from Berlin. A practical trip to the woods. I was far behind everyone and enjoyed the nature. Because, we had a herbarium back then, and I was interested in nature for a while. In trees. I wanted to be a scientist or something. But not long, and then came the thing with the trip, where I wandered behind the others, and looked at the habitats and the environment in peace. Then I realized that I didn’t give a shit about leaves and habitats and stuff. Laughter came from the front, and I could tell the laugh of Tatjana Cosic apart, and two hundred meters behind them, Maik Klingenberg was studying a load of leaves in the nature. Wasn’t really nature, just some pathetic wood, with three warning signs every ten meters.
We eventually stopped at a three hundred year old white beech, which was planted by a Frederick the Great, and the teacher asked who knew what kind of a tree that was. And nobody knew. Except me of course. But I wasn’t really hyped that I knew it was a white beech out of all those people. I could’ve said it: My name is Psycho, and I have a problem. Simply the fact that we were standing around the tree and no one knew its name was depressing enough. And I’m getting to the point slowly. This Frederick the Great also was generous enough to set up a few benches under the tree, so you could sit there and have a picnic, and we did exactly that. I sat at the same table as Tatjana. I was across from Andre, the pretty Andre, both arms over the shoulders of Laura and Marie. As if they were great friends, but only as if. He’s only about a week in our class. But the two weren’t against it. On the other side, they were really honored and didn’t dare to move a milimeter, like they were afraid they could scare his arms away. And Andre said nothing for the whole time, only looked across with his sleepy look, and then he looked at me again and said this after thinking for a long time: “Why is he called psycho? He’s totally boring.” Laura and Marie laughed for the joke, and because that was such a success, he repeated it again: “Really, why is the sleeping pill psycho?” And after that I’m Maik again. And it’s even more horrible than before.