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two crimestories
exclusively of punk rock,
metal and indie music,
which the girls didn’t
like anyway. Cem was an
amazing chess and skat
player, but nobody except
us thought that was cool.
A guy from our class
had found out that after
school he read the Turkish
newspaper out loud to his
father, who couldn’t read
it for himself. The others
laughed themselves sick
over that one. And I was
simply the freak, because
I was too tall, too skinny,
too lanky, too pale, and
too red-haired. Ever since
elementary school, they’d
called me “Feuerlöscher”
- “Fire Extinguisher” -
which they shortened to
Löschi. At some point,
my father even started
to call me this whenever
he wanted to get on my
nerves.
Anyway, this was the
coolest birthday of my
life, because everyone I
had invited actually came.
Silvana had made me a
mixtape, since she knew
I liked to listen to music.
Unfortunately, it was all
commercial crap, but I
didn’t say anything. She
had even made a little
cover for the cassette
case, on which she had
very neatly written out
all the songs. She really
thought I loved INXS and
Simply Red.
This was the first time
we’d ever had beer. We
stayed up at the hut until
eleven o’clock, and then
the parents who had
agreed to drive us back
home started to show up.
They also had some beer,
stood around gossiping
for a while, and after
polishing off a large share
of the potato salad, set off
for home. Cem’s parents