“There we were again, another night out, literally a couple of weeks after the post-booze cruse. This time, there was no excuse. I made sure that we met at my place because I wanted. In fact, I insisted on being the driver. So I ordered Kopo and Uglich to come to my house, because I did not want to end up again like last time, when we went to his place and then we got legless. He does not care; he will drive regardless of the condition he finds himself in. Fair enough to an extent. It is his decision, his car, and his responsibility, but it is our life too, which he puts into danger. When someone is so irresponsible, bordering on stupidity when drunk, I had no choice but to intervene and correct the situation. He was an intelligent man, no question about that, but he found himself in very bad situations throughout his life. Most of the time, it was all of his own making. He never went into great detail about his upbringing, but I seem to remember that he mentioned something down the line that his mother walked out on him and he stuck with his dad, who was quite busy as a sales agent or consultant and not much of a role model either. So I believe he had a rather troubled childhood.
Anyway, as he pulled up at my house, Uglich was already present, and we drove off. This time we drove to a different county, called Lower Austria. I knew this bar/club/venue that served food. It had a couple of bar sections, and sometimes a live band performed there too. On this very night, there was no live entertainment of any kind, but it was a packed place. I drank nothing at all before we left, because I was due to drive. Kopo had a few shots of the beverage we had liquidated a couple of weeks ago in Burgenland. I would not put money on it, but I am pretty sure that before he arrived at my place, he had a few drinks already in his system, because he was desperate for a top-up and went to hit the bar upon our arrival. There was nothing unusual in that. Knowing his standards, it was business as usual. I did not join him, because there was absolutely no point. I knew I would not be drinking and he would try to convince me.
Another reason that I hardly ever drank on those occasions, besides being the driver, was that I could never justify the amount of money that they were charging for drinks in bars and clubs. I was quite happy to nurse a pint for four hours, but I am struggling to recall whether I had any drink on this particular night in question. I was walking around alone to see what was on the market. When I go out, then I am on the pull, as I already admitted above. I’m not sure where Uglich was, but I am pretty sure he did not stand with Kopo at the bar because he always had a lean purse. I told him frequently that the difficult thing is not to earn money! Most humans can earn money because everyone has some sort of skill or power to lift something, and so forth. The difficult bit is to keep the money. He never understood where I was coming from and wasted his money on useless things like a self-made speaker set. He paid a fortune to a guy who painted them in glossy black piano varnish, and after he turned them up a few times, the paint started cracking and breaking off, because he chose the wrong kind of wood, which was not capable of taking the resonance or the subwoofer.
On another unfortunate occasion, he rented a garage to tune a Volkswagen GTI MK2, pumping in thousands of Schillings, which were all wasted because he didn’t pay the landlord, who got cheesed off and took the garage back, and he had no place to put that dismantled car, so he had to sell it quickly. The landlord was chasing him physically around town for the rent arrears. All these idiotic and pointless exercises leave people out of pocket! Around a half hour after our arrival, I suddenly bumped into Kopo. He looked completely soaked in sweat and looked like someone who had just escaped a heavily flooded area. He was holding onto something under his jacket, something big and something that seemed quite heavy too. At first, I laughed and asked him, “Did you take a shower?” He told me, “Please help me out of here, because I’ve been running with this item for the past ten minutes throughout the club, between the people, and I cannot find the exit.” I did not know what he was disguising under his jacket, but as I pulled the jacket to the side, a huge lens became visible, and I immediately knew that we needed to hit the exit, but yesterday. I had never seen a lens like this in my life before. I put my hands up. I didn’t have a clue what it was, but it must have been something expensive, because the size of that optic was humongous
. I said, “Okay, follow me quickly! The place was a bit labyrinth-like; a lot of steps up and down, narrow pathways, people standing on the left and right. It was not a traditional pub where everybody could see everything, and it was completely packed with partygoers. I didn’t know exactly where the exit was because it was my first time there, too, and I wasn’t looking forward to walking around with him and his booty. After a few turns, I found a door leading to the outside. Thank God, because obviously they had been bouncers, because using the main entrance would not have turned out well. Whatever equipment that might be, we will be doing time if they catch us. We found ourselves in the pedestrian area, and then I told him to follow me quickly, as quickly as he physically could. Obviously, I did not want to take the projector off of him, because if someone had run after us, he would have had the item on him, so I would have gotten away with it. Now I’m not here to let my buddy down, but in this kind of scenario, I think he completely overstepped the line. Yes, the booze loot from a fortnight ago was regrettable, but not comparable value-wise to that item whatsoever. Whatever he had under his jacket had to be worth several thousand Schillings, as I estimated based on the size of the lens.
The car was quite a distance away, because only delivery vans and lorries could drive into the pedestrian area during the day. Eventually, we arrived at the car, and I told him to put that into the boot, lock the doors, flatten the seat and lie there until I went and grabbed Uglich. I rushed back to the club and found Uglich a few minutes later and told him we needed to go. He was chatting with some people, and he said he did not really want to go yet, because we had just come and he was enjoying himself. Listen, it’s no problem, but we are off. Make your way back home on public transport or get a taxi, because we need to hit the road sharpish. He started explaining that public transport was not possible because it was almost midnight and he did not have any money for the taxi, but I did not have any time to keep listening to him either. If you’re coming, that’s great; if not, you’ll have to deal with your situation on your own later. He finished his drink and came with me, nagging me through the pedestrian area, “Why the hell do we have to leave, and this is idiotic, because we had just literally arrived.” I had to prioritize, and it was a simple decision.
On the one hand, I had a completely drunken, heavy-breathing, clearly distressed nutter in my car, who could have been out of the car by the time I returned, naked in the middle of the road, hitchhiking in any direction with the loot worth several thousand in his hand.
On the other hand, I had a guy who had met some people and was having a chat. The decision was straight-forward for me. I said, “I have no time to explain this to you right now. We must go because Kopo put something hot into my car’s boot and there’s no business for us in this area anymore for a very long time. He stopped asking questions immediately thereafter and moved his feet as fast as he could. We jumped into the car. Kopo was still lying down but was more alert and vigilant than a chameleon disguised in a meerkat fur coat. After the engine preheater light darkened, I started up the car and took it toward the A2 motorway. Before we entered Baden, I pulled over onto the grass because both of them needed to release heavy pressure. While they minded their business, I popped the boot and examined the stolen goods, which seemed to be a projector. We arrived at Uglich’s house; he stayed, said thanks and good night, and I drove back to the motorway, heading in the direction of Graz. We talked a little with Kopo on the way to my house, but I could not fight my thoughts and desires off, thinking about ways I could make this item mine.
I was extremely keen to have it, but I understood the situation, and however I turned the story, my cunning calculations, and played scenarios in my head, I always ended up with the same outcome. It just made little sense for me to even mention to him that I was extremely keen to have it. Upon arrival at my house, I offered Kopo my place to stay, knowing that we would not take it on. He never really wanted to stay over at other people’s places. He was quite happy to drive home in any condition. He said I should keep the projector and he would come tomorrow to pick it up. I was completely sober and grabbed the projector from the boot and took it down to my basement and connected it to the mains. I did not know what it exactly was. I haven’t dealt with anything like this in my life before. After switching it on, nothing happened, but then, slowly, an extremely bright light appeared on my wall. It did not seem to show anything, so I took some extremely dark plastic glasses, which I used to see the solar eclipse, and I used those glasses to look into the sun, so I figured it couldn’t be much brighter than the sun.
I can clearly remember that I’d seen some sort of writing on the inside of the projector when I looked through the lens, but I could see nothing on the wall. When I looked into the light through the glasses, the light was not very strong, and I could see some sort of words like input, output, brightness return, and menu, but I could not really work out what it was exactly. I went to bed. The next morning, around 10:30, someone was knocking on my basement door. I grabbed the projector and put it under my bed. Carefully opening the door, it was Kopo. He said, “Where is the item I took yesterday?” I said, “Look, it’s right here” and pointed under my bed. Before I could take breath to actually tell him to give it to me or to cut some sort of deal, he said: “Look, to be perfectly honest, I don’t really need it. I’m just wondering if we could cut a deal or something. Again, a telepathic moment between two humans who liked, understood, and respected each other! It was a fantastic moment because I really wanted it. I had figured that it was expansive, even though I did not know what exactly it was.
I said, “Look, you always fancied my yellow Ibanez guitar because of its sound, and I also have this Roland D-10, which is temperamental but plays, and I top it up with 200 Schillings in cash. What do you think? He said, “OK, you’ve got a deal. The guitar is mine, and I take the keyboard too. I only paid 2000 Schillings for that guitar, which I picked up a couple of years back from a guy who sold it to me on the street next to Südbahnhof in Vienna.
Ozi, my ex-boss, gave me the keyboard. Apparently, it kept playing up at live performances on stage, so he didn’t have any use for it. He knew I might fix it since I studied electronics.
Leaving aside the fact that this was an absolutely ill-judged, idiotic action, putting ourselves in danger, I purchased the projector, which only God knew the exact value of, for 2200 Schillings. Kopo never had a large purse because he couldn’t keep money. It never made sense to him to save it. He earned it, he blew it. We cut crazy deals on many occasions during our rather short encounters, which always turned out in my favour. He always needed money desperately, and the items he had to offer were nice but not essential for me. Since he wanted to flog them at any price, I was negotiating the living hell out of him! In life, you never get what you deserve. You only get what you are negotiating. ” The best deals can only be cut with desperate souls. This is not to take advantage of people.
This is called business. Your feelings, soul, and heart you give to your family. Your balls and brains are used to negotiate.
I saved up those 200 Schillings the night before by not drinking anything in the club, while he had blown at least 300 in those 30 minutes. Suddenly, I had an unbelievable item in my possession, and he urinated the 300 on the wall. I did not use the projector once, but that’s beyond the point. This is a crash course in the power of saving up money. Hold it, don’t blow it unnecessarily–but when the right moment or offer comes along, take it out and splash it! ” After these two runs, I sat down with myself and my thoughts! I have agreed with myself that I will not continue those nights out, because they might seem fun at the time and beneficial too, but one should always quit while ahead. On those two occasions, it was nothing but robbery, and this was the right time for me to call it a day. That was literally the very last time the trio went out together. Kopo and I spent the remaining weeks staying in, drinking, making music, watching movies, and playing video games.
One thing I am extremely proud of is that I never drove under the influence. When I was the driver, I was sober and I never took shortcuts. No one could ever influence me. I had a maximum of two pints and I clocked out! The other two did not care too much. In fact, I don’t recall ever seeing Kopo drive completely sober. He paid a heavy price for his actions and his attitude towards things, because he refused to follow and understand simple rules and facts of life, but I will talk about his destiny in great detail later on as this story progresses.