Angel Station by Jáchym Topol

Author:Jáchym Topol
Format: epub

Instead of petitions being passed around under the tables, now it was drugs. Nobody saw society as a monster anymore, now it was about fending off the monster in yourself. Sometimes by howling. There was nothing waiting for you at home except walls, and maybe the person you lived with. A scary movie on TV, there was always that. In the morning you might wake up here or someplace else, alone or with someone. Then it went back to being just you. But that moment could be postponed. This was one of the places to do it.

Once upon a time, the youngbloods of the underground had cut their teeth here; today young people were taking the measurements of their caskets for themselves. The former denizens of the underground who latched onto politics or wrote for culture sections just stopped in for a round or two every now and then, for old times’ sake. Hunched over the Formica with the ones who’d stayed behind, they could see more clearly how high they’d climbed.

The former allies from the psych wards, lockups, and protests traded phrases back and forth, drug dealers with ministers’ advisers, each testing out their own newspeak. They’d all had their world fall apart; they each had to rebuild it somewhere else. And the underground, playing its classic offstage role, returned to one of its oldest haunts and turned into the underworld.

In summer, fires flickered in the trash cans outside. Wax evaporating from paper cups. Syringes broiling, giving off a plastic stench. The flames dark blue, sometimes purple. You could watch the sun as it set. A dwindling blaze, an unknown planet. You could see the trees turn dark. The chairs were attached to the outdoor tables with rusty chains. When you stepped on a tube of pills or a glass syringe, it crunched under your shoe like sand.

Hooks had his first cautious beer. A few people came to say hello, he stood around the tap awhile. Checked out the new video slots, someone showed him how they worked. Shook a few right hands. Basically no big deal. It wasn’t that unusual here to run into someone after they’d been gone a long time. The fan hummed. Hooks surveyed the old walls. In summer they were crawling with flies.

Back at the nuthouse, in his dreams, he had only been able to see his friends from the waist up, talking shit and hoisting pints. He blinked as the memory swam before his eyes.

Someone smiled at Hooks from the doorway. It was Bugs. Dora and Dumb Babe were there too. Not Much settled onto his lap. It’s different now, right? she said. The nuthouse?

It was different. And everyone knew it. They were pretty happy sitting there, the members of their little gang, ever changing over the years. One went away, another died, a third disappeared. But there was always someone sitting here, telling stories, somehow you were one of them. The thirtysomethings who’d survived.

Not Much knew the system as well as anyone else.

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