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wouldn’t have understood. So it was us two, and I had such a great time. Usually I was the only guy. And unlike other guys, I got on with the girls. I didn’t stink, didn’t booze, didn’t belch, and I didn’t indulge in “rituals of humiliation designed to degrade women.” I could stay. Sometimes the whole night. Then my sister would bring me home. She was the heroine of the evening. Everyone liked her. Everyone thought she was beautiful. But she’s really small, maybe five feet two inches. She always wears her brown shoulder-length hair in a ponytail. She has an open, unlined face. Expressionless. Almost never cries. Or laughs. Always a blank. Shit, I love her.
    “So what about the women?” says Janosch.
    “So what about them?” says Florian.
    “Well, are we going to go visit or not?” Janosch sounds pissed off.
    “So what are we gonna do when we get there?” asks skinny Felix. “I bet it’s gonna be a replay of the mug thing—”
    “The mug thing was
crazy,
” Janosch interrupts.
    He’s always saying
crazy.
Anything excites him, he says
crazy.
He loves the word. “That thing was crazy?” says Fat Felix in amazement. “So was it crazy to call me a big fat chunk of dog food?”
    “No. That wasn’t crazy, that was an accident.” Janosch laughs.
    “I’ll land a couple right on your nose, then we’ll talk about a real accident,” says Felix.
    “Does that mean you’re not coming with us?”
    Glob throws a croissant at him.
    Janosch turns around, still laughing. “So what about you guys? Glob’s in.”
    There’s a general mumble of
We’re in.
I mumble along with them. That’s what you’re supposed to do.
    “Good,” says Janosch. “I’ll take care of the girls— you take care of the beer. Meet Lebert and me in our room at twelve-fifty a.m.”
    It must be around ten o’clock. I don’t know exactly. It’s pitch black outside. I sit on the windowsill and look out.
    Janosch sits next to me and smokes.
    “Can you tell me something, Janosch?” I ask.
    “I can tell you lots of things.”
    “I’m not interested in lots of things. Just one thing—what’s it like not to be disabled? Not weak? Not empty? What’s it feel like to run your left hand across a table? Does it feel alive?”
    Janosch thinks. He runs his left hand across the windowsill.
    “Yes, it feels alive.” He swallows and pulls on his cigarette. A red dot glows in the middle of his face.
    “And how does that feel?”
    “It feels like life,” he says. “No different really from when you run your right hand across it.”
    “But it feels great, doesn’t it?”
    “Never thought about it. But that’s the thing: life’s something like
never having to think about it.
”
    “Never having to think about it?” I’m furious. “Do you really believe nobody ever thinks about what we’re doing?”
    “Not down here, for sure,” says Janosch. “If anywhere, up there. And who knows, maybe our good friend Glob’s right about his big bearded guy in the sky.”
    “Would you repeat that to him later?”
    “Of course not,” says Janosch. We don’t say any more. Outside it starts to snow again.
    “I don’t want to be disabled,” I whisper. “Not like this.”
    “So how?” Janosch looks over at me questioningly.
    “I want to know who I am. Everyone knows that much: a blind man can say he’s blind, a deaf man can say he’s deaf, and a cripple can damn well say he’s a cripple. I can’t. All I can say is I’m partially disabled or partially spastic. What does that sound like? Most people just think I’m a cripple. But the few left over think I’m perfectly normal. And I can tell you that somehow causes even more problems.”
    “Don’t shit in your pants,” says Janosch. “As far as I can see you’re not disabled and you’re not normal. Far as I can see, you’re crazy.” He laughs. “Uhhuh—you’re not disabled, you’re crazy.”
    “Crazy?”
    “Crazy!”
    Now we’re both laughing. It feels good,