PARADIES DOSENBIER
Love is subjective. So is this far-fetched concept of “true love.” What is the standard for what is TRUE and what isn’t? For me, it might mean the love for my girlfriend; for the desolate drunkard on the gray, grayer, grayest of train station plazas, it might be the bland canned beer. It is the canned beer. “Crack!” echoes across the plaza. Surprised old ladies look in his direction, startled, because in their advanced dementia they’ve already forgotten that the guy sits there every day, vegetating, rotting away, and that, because of his aggressive, one-armed beer-opening, they drop their freshly bought bread on the ground, just like every day. And with each daily opening of that hopeless swill, a certain social outrage arises against this guy, the alcoholic, and his miserable drinking, the cracking of the canned beer, and, well, everything that could shake the perfect ambiance of an illusory suburban reality. We can’t stand failed “personalities” here.
The women who have to pass this creature on their weekly shopping trips look away in disgust. This man doesn’t deserve to be looked at. And if this outcast does happen to catch a glance from the unattainable, it’s only to slap undeniable revulsion in his face. Glances that don’t just say, “How could anyone sink so low?!”, but also imply that his existence, his life, his very being brings enough, if not far too much, into the comfortable atmosphere of this place. He should be ashamed of himself.
The stroller-pushing, mid-thirties fathers are on a different track. They look, no, they stare, glare, trying to intimidate the man. Alpha male behavior of the finest kind. This place isn’t big enough for both of us. Can’t you pull yourselves together? Poor little Justus shouldn’t see that failure is possible, that such a thing even exists. He can just shut himself up at home, destroy himself, preferably kill himself, then he won’t have to endure his miserable misery on the pitch anymore. At the same time, it’s this alpha-male posturing, perhaps even the simple “I have a penis,” that connects men there in an absurd way. The glances contain not only disgust, fear, revulsion, and the like, but also a great deal of information. Because when the generic, run-of-the-mill dad pushes his €1000 stroller past, his gaze falls on the can, then on the desolate face, the sad, drooping eyes, and the guy looks back with an intense stare, the dad’s knees wobble and it hits him like a shot of gold into the Korsakoff syndrome-ravaged brain of a drunkard—it’s the women’s fault! His heart is broken. First the wife, then the job. Of all things, the job too! The very thing that grants a man the right to participate in society. The A-38 permit. The employment contract as proof of functioning. I want to, I can, I’m in. But without the permit, there’s no improvement. Without the permit, there’s no point in not taking the canned beer as a wife. Support, love, security, improvement – all for 69 cents, excluding deposit. And with these thoughts, Dad sneaks by, staring bewildered at his babbling Justus, realizing that perhaps everything depends on this child – what if I lose everything? The cobbled-together framework of security, of a comfortable, middle-class life, begins to tremble, to wobble, the silken thread frays.
So later, sitting together at supper, the father and his wife look into each other’s eyes, talk about the old, lost drunkard in the square, the one who does nothing but drink all day long, and, full of doubt and fear of this threat, unanimously decide to bury this societal dregs, to banish him from their oh-so-pure world of thought: “One can only feel sorry for him.”
And just like that, he’s gone.
Image: Ivan Radic, https://www.flickr.com/photos/26344495@N05/51050865408