Golden Biker Read online

  “All right, you didn’t see him then.” Schmitt sighed and turned to his partner. “Let’s just go, there is no point...”

  Unnerved they stomped up to the fourth floor, loud curses following them.

  “Always treading on the little man, that’s right, in cahoots with the criminal elements, pah!!!”

  Without lowering his voice, he turned around and yelled into his apartment, “and I’m not finished with you, either...!” The door slammed.

  “Know what?” Lehmann sighed. “I don’t think I’ve finished a single sentence today!”

  “Pffffffff....!” Sliding along the inner doorframe, Arthur’s backside slowly touched the floor.

  Dieter, peeking around into the hallway, gave him a thankful look.

  “Arthur, you’re a genius!”

  Disgusted, Arthur shoved the beer bottle away from him. “...And you’re an asshole!”

  “But, I had no choice. They almost had me and than I saw your house and I thought... well, I thought...”

  Arthur gave Dieter a crushing look: “You thought, well, my pal Arthur’s got nothing better to do than to save my neck. And if we both get busted, we just go to jail together, splendid idea really, Dieter, thanks a lot.”

  “But it worked, didn’t it, I mean, it went well!”

  Arthur jumped to his feet. “Went well? You ruin my sacred afternoon, make me drink beer before 5 o’clock, mess around with my stereo—I do hate that—make me act like a buffoon in front of two policemen to avoid being charged for aiding and abetting. It went well...?”

  He tossed Dieter the half drunk bottle and went into the bathroom to brush the taste of beer from his teeth. He carelessly dumped the bathrobe on to the floor. Arthur’s grandfather had died in this bathrobe and he had kept it solely for nostalgic reasons. He had liked his grandfather very, very much...

  Arthur’s adoration for cherished objects was bordering on fetishism. Like grandpa’s old bathrobe for example, which after his death had acquired a putrid smell and was usually kept in a cardboard box. Its appointment with the trashcan was long overdue but Arthur did not have the heart to do so. Then there was his fixation for classic symphonies and requiems on vinyl records. Placing the record on the turntable was a sacred ritual. The careful pulling out of the cover, the static crackle when he removed the vinyl from the inner sleeve. Every time he felt a tingling down his spine. With a clean lint-free cloth the record was wiped with the utmost caution. The magic moment when the needle was lowered onto the first groove, a short thud and the first notes of a requiem rose from the speakers. No CD player in the world could come close to this experience.

  All in all Arthur led a frugal life. During the day he stayed in his apartment smoking his old pipe that had once belonged to his grandfather, like the bathrobe. The pipe’s head was carved into a gnarly old Tyrolean mountain farmer, smoke curling from his mouth.

  As he smoked, Arthur contemplated the meaning of life to the sounds of chorales, hymns and requiems

  To support his lifestyle he delivered newspapers at night. His daily routines were strictly regulated, no conversation with others before 7:00 pm, no alcohol before 5:00 pm and the consumption of red gummy bears at precisely 12:30 pm, just to put you in the picture...

  He kept to this strict timetable to allow himself to ponder the really important things, for example what important things were ‘really important’. Laying in his bathtub for four hours, smoking his pipe, listening to Gustav Mahler’s ‘Kinder-Toten-Lieder’... now that was really important.

  Some said Arthur was a connoisseur of the art of living, a bohemian, someone going about his life in a leisurely, non-conformist way. But to most people he was a paranoid, pedantic idiot.

  “How di´ you ge’ inno all of dschis, anyway?” he mumbled as he brushed his teeth over the basin. (This, by the way, was in contradiction to his timetable. Brushing of teeth had to happen at 11:30 am and again after work at 4:00 am.)

  Dieter sat down on the edge of the bathtub, sipping the tepid beer. “I was chillin´, y´know, at the train station as always, these two dudes came over and asked me if I was selling. I asked them what they’re looking for. ‘Nose candy’ they said. I checked the street, looked around and got the coke out. They start yelling and screaming pulling out their badges and shit. I tore myself away and took off!”

  Arthur spat noisily into the basin. He turned towards Dieter, giving him a look reserved for complete morons. “Dieter, did you notice anything particular about those two guys, eh?”

  Dieter slumped visibly ashamed, drawing embarrassed circles around the neck of the bottle.

  “No, nothing, they looked totally normal...” he mumbled sheepishly.

  “Dieter, what—have—I—been—telling—you?” Arthur asked severely.

  Dieter lowered his gaze. “No moustaches...” he grumbled faintly.

  “Exactly! Read my lips: no moustaches! And moustaches with leather jackets, no way, José! They may as well be wearing neon signs saying ‘undercover cops—top secret’? You’re such a jackass!”

  “But I...”

  “A moronic jackass twerp, that’s what you are! No wait, even a moronic jackass twerp would find the comparison offensive!”

  Angrily Arthur went into the living room and turned the music back on. “I had to let you touch my stereo, I’ll never forgive you for that. I had to break almost all of my rules today because of you! The only thing that could somehow sweeten my day would be hearing the door slam shut behind you!”

  Head bent down, Dieter shuffled out of the bathroom. “You think, the cops have gone?”

  “Dunno, but if you don’t scram, I’ll call ém back!”

  Arthur went to the bookshelf and idly picked out a volume from the row of more or less highbrow literature, well organised according to size, author, publication date and ISBN number.

  Dieter said ruefully, “You just saved my life. Can’t I return the favour somehow?”

  “Yep, just bugger off!” Arthur snarled back, deeply immersed in the pages of a six-year-old Kinder Egg catalogue, which he had grabbed by mistake.

  Suddenly Dieter seemed to find inspiration, and as usual whenever there is a moment of historic importance happening, none of the attendees are aware of it. “There would be something special, very special though...” he whispered awestruck by his own inspiration a strange twinkle in his eyes. “Something saved to be cherished at a special moment in my life!”

  “And what peculiar moment of your life would that be, eh? Getting up one morning and getting dressed by yourself? Yippee... let’s celebrate!” Arthur commented sarcastically, totally missing the importance of this sublime moment.

  Dieter touched his neck, pulling out a heavy chain. There was a phallic silver pendant dangling from it. “This is an Indian lingam, with a quarter gram of the best grass in the world inside. I saved it for a special occasion!”

  “Marihuana... inside a silver cock. Brilliant.” Arthur muttered unenthusiastically. “You and your damned drugs. I get it; you want to slip me some homegrown weed to thank me! Forget it, keep your Skunk and piss off!”

  “This here...” Dieter swung the chain in front of Arthur’s nose like a sacred pendulum, “is no ordinary grass, not that teenager schoolyard shit. This is much more. It is the answer to all grass questions, the king—no what am I saying? The God of all things intoxicating...”

  “Hold on” interrupted Arthur, slightly intrigued by now, “just what is it exactly?”

  “This...” (A short dramatic pause where you the reader might want to solemnly raise from your chair) “... this is true... Golden Biker!”

  Silence. (You can sit down again, thank you.)

  “I see...” Arthur remarked dryly, “and what is Golden Biker?”

  “The question is not what, but who is the Golden Biker?” Diete
r continued mysteriously.

  “There is this myth or rather this legend—whatever—of a mysterious biker living in the Himalayas. He wears a golden suit of armour and his bike is made of pure gold.”

  “Bullshit, no way is there a motorbike made out of gold, it’s much too soft. If the motor gets hot it would melt away under your ass!”

  “It’s only a legend, Jesus! Can I go on now?”

  “I’m just saying...”

  “Anyway, he’s been living there for centuries...” Arthur began to object again but was silenced with a swipe of Dieter’s hand. “... a legend Arthur, only a legend! Anyway, he’s been living in the Himalayas for centuries and if you’re in trouble he appears and helps you out. And he grows weed, the best and rarest weed in the world. There’s a guy in Goa, he saw him once, and he gave me a little bit of Golden Biker.”

  “I’d say the guy cooked up a nice story to sell his cheap grass to simpletons like you. You don’t believe any of that bullshit, do you?”

  Dieter smiled. “Well, we’re gonna see about that!” He pulled out two papers, licked one of them, stuck them together and placed them on the table. Slowly he opened the lingam. Aghast Arthur took a step back. “That stuff radioactive, or what?”

  Suddenly the whole room was bathed in a gleaming light, which streamed from the little pendant. The tiny lump of marihuana shimmered like a golden sunset over the ocean.

  Dieter, unperturbed, crumbled some grass and mixed it with tobacco on the papers. With skilful fingers rolled a perfect looking joint. “Man of the house, go light up!”

  Warily Arthur took the golden shimmering joint. “I suppose this will instantly lead to severe organ failure, brain damage and me puking my guts out!”

  “Don’t know, never tried it myself!”

  “More probable though, this is nothing but dried sheep shit spiked with doper’s myth.”

  “Could be...” Dieter nodded.

  “I guess there’s only one way to find out!”

  Arthur put the joint between his lips, lit it and sucked in deeply. It did not taste strange, Arthur took a second toke, inhaled and let the smoke trickle out in a long stream dramatically illuminated by the incoming sunlight. He passed the joint to Dieter, “I think you been taken for a ride. I don’t feel anything at all!”

  When Arthur opened his eyes three hours later, with a chiselled grin on his face his apartment had been turned into a battle zone. Someone gifted with a remarkable meticulousness had written the words ‘wrapping foil sucks’ on his walls, about 10.000 times with a ballpoint pen, the bathtub was spilling over, there was a cosy little fire burning in the centre of the living room rug fed by his books, music was blaring but on half speed—and Dieter had been busy creating some spider web like construction out of bed sheets and was now lying in it five feet above the floor singing “It’s good to smoke the green, green grass of home...”

  Arthur crawled towards his record player and turned it off. Only now was he aware of the thumping on his door made by the entire neighbourhood. They were somehow used to noise, but not to the infernal kind that had been blasting through the house for the last three hours, resulting in visible cracks in the brickwork.

  “Dieter...” he screamed towards the spider web, “can you hear me?”

  “The universe is so fucking huge, man, I never thought it would be that big! But now I know.

  I’ve been there!” Dieter answered smiling blissfully.

  Arthur nodded knowingly: “... At the bottom of the seas and everywhere else... I know I have seen it too. I—excuse me for a second!”

  He got up laboriously and went to the front door still resounding with the incessant hammering of the neighbours.

  Arthur yanked the door open and screamed: “BE QUIET! GODDAMMIT!!!”

  He looked into the baffled faces of his neighbours who were about to say exactly the same thing, then slammed the door shut. Peace at last.

  Re-entering the living room, he found Dieter clambering from his net surveying the scene before him. “What happened?”

  Arthur shrugged. “Forget the apartment. The grass, the Golden Biker, tell me all about it!”

  “I’ve told you everything I know.”

  Arthur shook him by the collar: “Tell me again, everything there is to know! That was mind-blowing!!! The things I saw would fill books. I am a new man! Where in God’s name did you get that fantastic stuff?”

  And so Dieter told him about this guy Albert, also called ‘Bear’ whom he had met in Goa last winter. Bear had been living in India for many years and had been criss-crossing the country on his motorbike. He had apparently met the Golden Biker and had been given some grass of the same name.

  “Where is this Bear now?” Arthur wanted to know.

  “Still in Goa. He runs some sort of a beach shack down there.”

  Later that evening as Arthur was distributed his newspapers in bars and restaurants, he could not shake the thought of the Golden Biker. Indeed, his experience had really turned his life upside down. His existence would be now divided into before and after Golden Biker. Just a couple of hours ago he had been a pedantic self centred smartass with a bizarre taste in music, and now, now he was... what, really? ‘Enlightened’? Maybe. He realised that the life he had been living so far had to undergo a fundamental change. His quest for the really ‘important things’ had paled and become an end in itself. Now was time for action! Enough talking, enough thinking; life was much too short to spend in a room letting the days slip away.

  Golden Biker had been an eye opener. It had shown him the myriad of chances and possibilities in life. You just had to do it, get out and grab onto it... and until then he only had to sell some 150 more newspapers.

  He entered a crowded bar droning out his routine; “EXPRESS—breaking news—lock up in union talks!—Read all about it in tomorrows ‘EXPRESS!’”

  Naturally with this kind of headline there was little demand for his papers. Without having sold a single issue he left the bar and went to the next one.

  He just had to find this Bear guy; he had to find out what was going on with this Golden Biker stuff. Furthermore, he thought in a totally un-enlightened way, by selling a big enough amount of that grass you could live on easy street for the rest of your life. Even a minuscule amount would fetch a fortune on the street. He would quit his job; he would sell his stereo and fly to Goa. He would dig up Bear; he would find the Golden Biker. All that was left for him to do was to sell this stack of newspapers. He opened the door.

  “EXPRESS—breaking news—cabinet resigns over sex scandal! Read all about it on page four!”

  One and half minutes later his whole stack had been sold and Arthur had disappeared round the block.

  2. Secret training camp for Nazi-SS officers, Leipzig, winter 1943

  SS-Obersturmbannfuehrer Wolfgang Rosselmann’s bladder felt as if he could piss his name, rank, plus the maiden name of his mother into the snow without any problems. Of course as a top ranking commander and instructor of one of the toughest training camps belonging to the SS, he was entitled to his own toilet. But he much preferred an old adopted tradition, somehow precious to him, to favour the big chestnut tree on the barrack grounds for his nocturnal urination. Not even the icy snowstorm that had been slanting down all afternoon could keep him, a highly decorated German officer, away from this ritual. Tucking up the collar of his coat, he single-mindedly stomped across the glazed-over courtyard, his head bent down to defy the cutting wind and cold. Stopping only to spread his legs in front of the barracks, he pulled out his ‘kleinen Fuehrer’ as he secretly called it, and relieved himself with a steaming stream.

  Contented, he tucked everything back into his uniform pants, turned around—and froze. He was not alone! A snowman was standing in the middle of the courtyard! Rosselmann gaped in astonishment. What kind of idiot had
the audacity to built something so childish as a snowman in the middle of an elite SS training camp? He paced angrily towards it with the intention of turning the figure to slush. This kind of nonsense could under no circumstances be tolerated in a tightly run institution such as his.

  “Hatschi!”

  Rosselmann stiffened. The figure had sneezed audibly, which seemed peculiar behaviour for a snowman and it took the commander an instant to digest the surprise.

  “Ah, is there someone inside?” he asked, feeling at the same time both irritated and slightly stupid to be talking to a snowman.

  “At your co-co-command, Herr O-Oberst-hu-hurmbannfuehrer,” answered the snowman.

  Its quivering voice sounded slightly familiar.

  “Come to attention, man. Rank?”

  “U-Unterscharf-fue-h-hrer Herrmann H-H-Heinrich reporting for d-duty, sir!”

  Rosselmann’s jaw dropped. “Hermann? Are you out of your mind? What are you doing in there?”

  “Got sn-sn-owed in, Herr O-O-Oberst...stuh...!!”

  Rosselmann interrupted him impatiently. “We’re both going to freeze to death out here, get inside the barracks—on the double!”

  An eerie silence hung over the dormitory in which SS Unterscharfuehrer Hermann Heinrich and his fellow soldiers had been quartered. There was a slight, sour smell in the air, which stemmed from 50 men in their prime who had, after months of rigorous training, also been living in total sexual deprivation.

  Some blankets and hot coffee had helped Hermann to get his body back to a nearly normal operating temperature. Brooding, sombre, he lay in his pyjamas on top of his bunk bed staring at the ceiling. All his comrades were gone, off on heroic adventures and murderous combat missions, all but him, lying here alone suffering from frostbite. Today should have been the most important day of his training—his last. In the afternoon he and his comrades had gathered for muster in the courtyard where an envoy of the High Command was waiting to give each one of them their mission briefing.

  The soldiers’ names were called out, echoing over the frozen courtyard. Stepping forward, each one was given a sealed envelope by a small, bespectacled man dressed in an expensive grey suit.