The Wardrobe - 10. Mohammed

Mohammed

Hehe. You won't believe this.

Benni has earned my everlasting worship now. If he ever needs an accomplice for robbery, murder, a bombing, anything, I'll be there. I'll lie for him now, give him a kidney, a lung, half my liver, blood, marrow, anything. I'll foster his children, cover for him, jump between him and an army of armed hooligans. Thanks to him, Mohammed is sitting at my desk right now and checking the tram schedule.

"What are you writing?" He's looked up and is smiling curiously over his phone. I smirk back.

"Journal," I say.

Mohammed looks back down at his phone, then his face suddenly freezes and he quickly looks up again. "Diary? You mean what we -? Why do you have to – You have a sister!" He looks so nervous now. I turn the little folder around to show him the page.

"No details. I promise. But it does say your name."

"Can you not do that?" He looks a little worried.

"Your name's all over my notebook, and in most entries. If the wrong person sees it we're fucked anyway. Today won't make a difference." I shrug. That Mohammed's dad, brother, uncle, cousins, friends, or whoever, would off us or at least beat us into the ICU if they knew about us is a real possibility. We're not sure, but there's no safe way to make sure, so... we'll just keep it between us. And Benni.

Benni and I ran into Mohammed from school one Friday night, when he was out with some friends. Benni and I had nothing to do and were bored with everything we usually do. I had some gift money from easter left, so we just hopped a tram to the city center and walked around there to see what would happen. There were the usual bums and drunk assholes, and some obnoxious slag in a glittery dress who threw herself at us in the street. She tried to hit on both of us at the same time until her friends (also wasted) pulled her off of us and the group giggled their way far away from us. Benni moped a little when they left, but I'm pretty sure that was just for show. Those women were at least twice our age. And just between us, they smelled like booze, sweat, vomit and perfume, not a nice combination, I can tell you.

After we got bottled beer-pops from a kiosk and crossed a deserted playground onto a little plaza with lots of small bars, I made out Mohammed in a small gaggle of poloshirt guys with fake leather jackets and decided we should just join them. So we just sidled into their group and acted as if Mohammed and us were the bestest of old friends. Everybody just went with it, even Mohammed. We knew Mohammed from school, but we didn't really know him. And that night I got to know him. Not enough. There's much more to discover. But I got the smallest, vaguest hints that night that Mohammed may have something in common with me.

Apparently this Luna Bar they were going to was the hottest thing around or whatever. It was alright. The bar is actually a club, and it's small and probably new but it seems to be very popular. He bought me my drinks. I gave him the money, but he got them for me. Usually Benni does that, but he was off talking to someone in a corner, on a sofa with a low glass table in front of it that kept having empty glasses and bottles added to it as the night progressed. Nobody thought it was necessary to take their glass or bottle back to the bar as long as there was still room on the table. Over time, Benni and the people he 'talked' to – yelled at is more like it – huddled closer together and got into a heated debate that didn't end. Discussion never ends with Benni, it's his chosen way of life.

"Are they going to kick you out at midnight?" Mohammed asked when he gave me another beer mix bottle. I shook my head. He and I were near the dancefloor and actually paying attention to the music. It was a mixture of pop, hip hop and dubstep, I think. I really have no idea. Don't judge me, I just can't give a fuck about how music is labeled. There was rapping in it and it was pretty cool.

"They didn't check my ID." After midnight, minors can't be out without supervision. Before that, they can go into places like these, but they don't get served alcohol. Officially. Some clubs handle it like this, others like that... I didn't know this one, so it was better to have someone else get me my beer. Mohammed, like Benni, is eighteen. I'm still a few months shy of that.

"They don't ask for IDs at the bar either. You could get your own drinks," he said.

"But your service is too good to give up." I shrugged and managed to smile only a little, so he didn't have to feel laughed at. He just laughed.

"This isn't the best I can do," he said and grinned.

"How would you improve it?" I found an edge of some kind of decorative shelf zigzagging along the wall and put my bottle down there.

"I could buy you one. That would be even better service."

"You're offering, right? Because I'm really interested now." I scratched my chin and frowned at him. He laughed again, and nodded at my bottle.

"Drink that up first."

He even danced with me. I don't dance. But I did that night. I still have no idea how I managed to not feel like a total spaz. And maybe 'he danced with me' sounds like more than it actually was. We didn't touch or anything, you know, it was just the usual jumping around and making stupid faces and gestures at each other until everyone's laughing. Just messing around. He showed me some moves that looked slightly less embarrassing than what I was doing on my own. And he asked a lot of questions.

Eventually we both ended up not only thoroughly wasted and giddy, but also with each other's phone numbers. That's how Mohammed and I went from school colleagueship to friendly acquaintance.

~

On Danny's birthday we went lasertagging. She said instead of giving her presents we should all pay for our own game so it wouldn't get too expensive for any one of us and no one would have an excuse not to come. Except for Lena, who's in a wheelchair right now because of a knee operation and Stefan, who has MS and didn't feel up to it that weekend. His meds work well and he can usually do everything we do, but that Saturday he felt too exhausted to duck and run around in a bunker with a plastic gun for an hour. So both of them joined us later, when we were at Benni's house where the actual party was taking place. Danny lives in a tiny flat with her mum so Benni's parents allowed us to have the party in their house. They even went out and stayed in a hotel that night. Benni's parents are just cool like that.

For the first match I teamed up with Benni and Mario and we pretty much ruled the show that first round. Benni just waltzed through the corridors for everyone to see, like he didn't have a care in the world, and shot at everything that moved, while Mario and I stayed as hidden as possible behind him and covered him by snipering off anyone who tried to flank him and take him down from behind. That strategy didn't work all the time, of course, but the three of us ranked second, third and fourth of all fourteen players. Number one was Melissa, who somehow managed to stay invisible most of the time, didn't get shot even once, and hardly ever missed. According to her sheet she only fired 72 times and missed 23 times. That's 68% accuracy. So she's a natural. And she was very cocky about it, so, obviously her strategy didn't work that well in the second round, because everyone started looking for her and taking her down a dozen times. We made different teams for the second round and I ended up paired with Mohammed. We were amazingly bad. But it was hilarious. He acted like we were live action roleplayers and I just went with it until we got hit so often that we just crawled into a dark corner to pant and curse and nurse our imaginary wounds. We spent at least five of the fifteen match minutes sitting against that wall.

"So, how are the kids, sir?" I actually did have to catch my breath, so that wasn't acted.

"Happy and healthy, I hope. What about your family?" Mohammed asked after quickly peeking around the corner.

"Don't have one, sir."

"What about that girl on your locker door?"

"Defected. Decided an electrician was a safer choice of husband."

"Smart girl. Shame for you though."

"Yeah."

"Just keep your bleeding heart a metaphor. These guys are a match for any woman when it comes to cruelty," Mohammed said with a sideways nod at the wall. "I've lost too many men already."

"Yes, sir. I'll make sure to return you to your wife in one piece, sir."

"What wife?"

"Huh?" I studied Mohammed's face. Maybe he'd stopped playing? He was grinning wildly.

"I've seen enough bloodshed for a lifetime. Women are too cruel for me. I think I'm gonna stick with the boys for now."

I had to stare at him and laugh a little. "Did you just wink at me?"

"Maybe." He shrugged and stared forward at the dark wall, then just rolled to the side and around our wall to sneak out without looking at me.

We managed to be the worst, with only five hits between us and getting shot enough times that it's too embarrassing to tell you. But I'm pretty sure we also managed to be in the best mood afterwards. When the game was over I half carried him out of the basement parcours with one of his arms slung over my shoulders.

"We lost this battle, sir, but not the war," I said to him loudly when we joined the others in the dingy lounge where you could watch the matches on screens mounted on the walls and the result tables afterwards.

"The war's over," said Mario.

"You're all dead!" announced Melissa, pointing to her top spot on the statistic on one of the screens. Mohammed looked at me and shrugged. I shrugged back.

"Well, sir. We still have each other."

He laughed.

Some bought drinks before we agreed to leave and meet up with Stefan and Lena to go to Benni's house for the rest of the party.

~

"You're so obvious it's painful to watch," Benni told me in the kitchen. "You wanna watch that."

"What, why?" I scratched at the moist label of my beer bottle.

We were sitting on either side of the little kitchen table, leaning against the wall. Most of the food laid out in here had been polished off by now and everyone else was crowding the garden terrace and living room, where the music and ashtrays were.

Benni knew I liked guys, along with... no one else, really, that I was aware of. He was probably referring to how well I got along with Mohammed.

He shrugged. "Honour killing," he just said after a while.

"I'm not coming on to him," I protested. I'm not stupid. I'm not going to openly announce my suspected gayness to a Moroccan teenager I barely know. A guy who observes the ramadan and stays away from alcohol and cigarettes even though he just turned eighteen.

Benni snorted. "You so are. So hard." He giggled. "Him too."

I grinned.

"I have an idea," he said, smirking at the fridge door drunkenly.

~

I swear, I wasn't nearly as drunk as I probably looked. It was pretty scary, but I felt sort of stoned in an excited way, similar to that one time I went to Venlo with Benni and Tuczky, but this time I didn't have to fight a sore throat and roll around on the floor trying not to throw up. I was just dizzy and tingly all through my head, hands and feet, while sitting there on the carpet waiting for Mohammed.

I messed around with the stereo in the bookshelf in front of me and tried out some of the CDs Benni's parents kept next to it. This was their bedroom.

And this was Benni's idea.

It was a brilliant idea, and not even really dangerous. It was a good opportunity.

Normally I would just sleep in Benni's room, but now I had to be alone with Mohammed, that was the grand plan. Everybody stayed over anyway and it hadn't been hard to slip him the super secret suggestion of the parents' double bed. Super secret, because this room was usually off limits. When I told him that in private, I also asked him not to tell anyone else. And that Benni had sanctioned this - so it would be easier for him to agree.

And he did. His secretive grin was amazing. I could swear he winked at me again.

Hours later, well after midnight, I excused myself to go sleep "somewhere other than the sofa," and made sure Benni noticed so he would remember to tell Mohammed where to go.

So now I was looking through their music. They had some nineties' diva music, some ABBA – which I kind of liked, but I wasn't going to pop them in now. I didn't want to be that obvious. There was a generous amount of terrible German party music from very polished people grinning like maniacs on their album covers, and a gaudy looking Best Of album from a band called Puhdys. It said they were from East Germany and I had no idea what to expect from that, but I was curious so I played them. They sounded old alright, with those scraggly guitar and synth sounds and hoarse singing. It was sort of nice. I let the band explain life and the world to me while reading along in their booklet, and I kind of got lost in this friendship song of theirs so I missed the door opening and closing behind me. I only noticed Mohammed when he was sitting down next to me and leaning over to look at the lyrics I was reading. I admit it made me jump a little.

"Jesusmary."

Mohammed laughed a little. He never drinks alcohol and I didn't see him have any that night, but he looked intoxicated somehow. Not as much as I felt, though. I'd had some beer, of course, but not enough to be out of control and even more stupid than I usually am. So it definitely wasn't my imagination when I felt a little patch of warmth settle on my leg just above the knee. When I looked down and saw that it was his hand, I had no idea how to react. It was brilliant. But I didn't know what to do.

I looked back into the booklet but couldn't focus on the words anymore. Of course he pulled his hand back. What else was he going to do. He was trying to come on to me and I didn't react, so there you have it. Out of reflex I looked up and at him, and the look that I think I saw there made me feel sorry and awed and turned on all at the same time. With a little smile that I hoped looked like a confident smirk, I took his hand and placed it back on my thigh.