It’s a typical Tuesday evening, there’s nothing going on on your street, the usual two drunks are standing outside the falafel shop and whistle after you. The falafel shop is open until two, and until two they won’t budge from the spot. Whatever the weather, those two drunks are always there.
Outside your front door Darian whacks you on the back of the head.
“Hey, pal, still there?”
“Yeah yeah.”
“You’ll get your pants back tomorrow. And keep your mouth shut.”
“Okay.”
“I mean it.”
“I know.”
He doesn’t want to go, he still wants something from you. You feel the tension in your shoulders, as if you are going to have to dodge another blow.
“Is everything okay between us?”
“Of course.”
“We stand up for each other, Mirko.”
“I know.”
He makes a fist, you make a fist, when your fists meet you look at each other and Darian says, “Glad we’ve sorted that out.”
“We did.”
“And think about tracksuit bottoms.”
“If I wear tracksuit bottoms I look like I’m on my way to play football.”
“You have a point there.”
“Thanks.”
“Say hi to your mom.”
“I will.”
“See you tomorrow, then.”
“See you tomorrow.”
After you’ve crept into the apartment, you creep on into the bathroom and wash your face. You turn on the shower and sit motionlessly on the edge of the tub, as if someone had removed your batteries. Every now and again you pass your hand through the running water. Your head is absolutely empty, the pain in your nose a dull thumping. The hiss of the shower calms you down. It’s like a movie that you can watch as often as you want. And if you stretch your hand out, it gets wet and you’re part of the movie.
You get into the shower. You scrub the panic off yourself and enjoy the water on your back. The hammering on the bathroom wall tears you from your thoughts. You turn the water off, rub yourself dry, and wrap the towel around your hips.
“Why do you have to shower so late?”
Your mother is lying on the sofa in the living room, romantic novel in her lap, cigarette in her left hand, right hand where her heart should be. Her question is one of those questions that don’t need an answer. You say hi from Darian and go into your room. You shut the door behind you, let the towel fall to the floor, and get dressed as if the day had only just begun. You are still disappointed in yourself. It was wrong to run away. Darian will never forget that. Lucky nobody else was there. Imagine one of the guys witnessing your cowardice. Whichever way you look at it, you know you have to make it good again.
Somehow.
The smell of falafel and cigarette smoke drifts in through the window, the voices of the two drunks are clearly distinguishable from each other and sound hoarse. Some nights your mother goes down and complains. You live on the second floor, you’re the only ones who complain. The drunks laugh at you.
You button your shirt; your hands are still dirty from the oil on the chain, it’ll take a few days to come off. It looks as if the cops have taken your fingerprints. You check your watch. Uncle Runa will kill you. If you don’t show up at the pizza stand before midnight, you might as well stay home. Your uncle was expecting you an hour and sixteen minutes ago. You wish you were Darian. The kind of person who doesn’t get bossed around. Apart from tonight, tonight he sure got bossed around, you think, and are immediately ashamed of the thought.
There are no customers about. Not even an exhausted taxi driver taking a break and giving his hemorrhoids a rest. The night buzzes with insects. On the other side of the street people are sitting outside the cafés. Laughter every now and again, the scrape of chairs when someone stands up. You wish you were on that side. The telephone booth next to the café is like a yellow eye that flickers irregularly, blinking nonsensical messages at you.
Uncle Runa leans against the battered freezer and stares across at the cafés as if they were his very private enemies. He doesn’t understand how four cafés can open up on one corner. There are lots of things your uncle doesn’t understand. He wears a white apron and a red T-shirt with a silver Cadillac on the front. The T-shirt is tucked into his trousers, his belly hangs over the belt. You have no idea why he can’t wear normal clothes. He isn’t twenty years old anymore, he’s in his mid-forties and acts like he knows what’s cool. He should ask you. You know what’s cool, because you’re the opposite of cool.
“What are you doing here?” your uncle asks and spits between his front teeth. When you were six he wanted to teach you how to do it. The brilliant art of spitting. You never got the hang of it, so he called you a loser. Uncle Runa likes to say that he feels guilty about your father, and that’s why you’re allowed to work for him. He’s doing you a favor. Which doesn’t stop him paying you only six euros an hour. From ten in the evening until four in the morning you take charge of the pizza stand, and then you fall into bed or you’re so wired that you stay up all night and fall asleep in class. It’s been going on for three months. You’d rather be roaming the clubs with Darian, selling grass and pills. But no one respects you yet. You’re still no one.
“Tell me, shitface, what are you doing here?”
Uncle Runa goes through the same routine every time you turn up late. There are no variations, always the same pissed-off face as if he’d stood in a pile of dog shit with your name on it. A train goes over the bridge. When it’s quiet again, you mumble, “Sorry I’m late.”
“What happened to your hands?”
You hide your filthy fingers behind your back.
“Your mother’s a good woman, you know that?”
“I know.”
Suddenly Uncle Runa explodes, as if you’d claimed the opposite.
“You never say a word against your mother, you hear me? Your mother’s an angel! Don’t you dare say anything against your mother! Your father is a son of a bitch! You can say whatever you like about him.”
“He’s also your brother—”
“That’s how come I know he is a son of a bitch!”
Uncle Runa falls silent again.
“How else do you think I know, eh?”
He looks over his shoulder at the clock. You know he has a thing going with your mother. The way he touches her and how they kiss when they meet, the way he’s sometimes sitting in your kitchen in the morning as if he’s been there all night. You’re sure your mother doesn’t hit the bathroom wall when Uncle Runa spends too much time in the shower. His dressing gown hangs on the inside of the door.
He’s probably glad my father disappeared.
Your uncle takes a deep breath as if to make an important decision. The Cadillac on his chest stretches. Someone starts a motorbike, a woman laughs.
“What am I to do with you, boy?”
You say nothing. Uncle Runa scratches his head and sighs. You know it’s all fine now.
“Get to work. Just get to work and we won’t mention it again.”
It’s fifteen minutes later and Uncle Runa raps on the back of your head as if someone lives there, and leaves you alone. You imagine him walking down the streets, nodding at the drunks, as if they were his very special guard dogs,