Waiting for Trouble near Westkreuz

He stood at his doorway on this winter night, the light from his apartment sending out shadows creeping towards me, a dangerous menacing figure with an eerie halo, staring in my direction, legs apart and mean-looking, like one of those spaghetti-Western villains.


But, he was the sheriff and I the villain. I had waited for the moon to hide behind clouds, for total darkness to provide cover for my crime.


I broke the law every week, every Sunday, and I did not even try to learn how to put the right rubbish in the right bin. Biodegradable, cans, paper, glass...aye, that’s where I erred this time...glass. I realized that after my pack of bottles fell with a loud crash into the bin for metal.


That disturbance brought him to his door. If I could have seen his face, I would have seen the anger in his eyes, the spit foaming at the side of his mouth, veins jutting out on his neck and forehead, livid face red and quivering. He is the janitor of my apartment block near Westkreuz. He lives on the ground floor.


I hoped that the cold darkness would save me. He must have seen me. In a loud guttural voice, he said something sharply in German to me which I could not understand. I walked away from the scene of the crime, sticking to the shadows, never showing my back to him.


I reached my apartment, breathing heavily and sweating in that freezing air, locked and bolted the door, waiting for him, waiting for certain trouble.


I could not resuscitate appetite for dinner, poked at my frugal meal, if not to kill hunger, at least to kill time. I saw my blood in the ketchup and my battered face in the mashed potato.


I was washing the vessels when the door-bell rang. Strangely, I felt calm, then. The waiting was over. I walked slowly to the door. My mind was blank. I was not even thinking about how to tackle the situation.


My breathing was steady. I remember correcting a few wrinkles in the carpet on my way to the door. The life I knew was going to change forever, listening to BBC Radio on FM, waiting for the world to end and writing silly things, all that will have to go, I knew. But I did not think that then. I just walked to the door, calmly. I unlocked, unbolted and opened it. I stared at the person standing in front of my door.


She looked very attractive with a nose-ring, young taut body and a marvelous smile. She said, “Enschuldigung...” and I knew that it only meant “Excuse me...” She said other things too which I did not have to understand. I stepped aside and let her enter. She went to my balcony and returned holding a piece of clothing. She lives in the apartment above mine. That clothing must be hers and it must have fallen by design, I hoped, or by mistake, I allowed. I let her do whatever she wanted. I let her say “Bye”. By the time I said “Bye” she had disappeared from my life.


In a moment of uncertainty, she had come and gone. I was left waiting for the sheriff, that janitor, the mean one.


There are too many mean guys and attractive girls. They come and go. I keep waiting for trouble in my apartment near Westkreuz.