Eternal Life by Wolf Haas Read Free Book Online

players make their way down to the other end, because every one of them, of course, goes down there after his shot. And it’s only just now that Brenner recognizes Vergolder Antretter. He was the Moar on the other team, i.e., not Gschwentner and Andi’s team but the opposite team, and he’d just taken his first shot and was making his way down to where Brenner’s standing now.
    Brenner was surprised that Vergolder shot stock with the common folk. Because normally he went with very different people. The German Bundespräsident had a house in the vicinity, or the head of the regional government would come for a visit, and those were Vergolder’s people. The mayor didn’t exactly go shooting stock, either—at most once a year, or when there was an election.
    Then, turns out that Vergolder’s first shot was so good—the whole opposing team, one shot, practically annihilated. Because he caught the pigeon with his stock—right, so, that’s the goal of curling, the pigeon, that’s just this littlewooden box—and with so much force that his stock took its target with it and left it lodged right between the stock and the bumper.
    Now, the other team was up, one after another giving it a go, but jinxed. The stocks got tossed into the air, either too hard and just went whistling right by, or too soft and just became obstacles blocking the way. So it was impossible for anybody to shoot away Vergolder’s stock.
    What can I say, all eight of them shot, and Vergolder’s stock, still stuck on the pigeon—you’d have thought it was frozen right onto it. Now the Haggl was up, he had a second chance to give it a go. Andi the Fox grabbed his stock, went back up and positioned himself for his second shot. At that moment, though, as he was sizing things up for the longest time and swinging his stock back and forth for the longest time, Vergolder yells out:
    “C’mon Andi, full-service, unleaded!”
    Now, you can imagine the kind of laughter that got. Because Andi, he’s a gas jockey, and then Vergolder goes and breaks his concentration, shouting out:
    “C’mon Andi, full-service, unleaded!”
    Brenner didn’t understand at first why everybody was laughing like that, because he couldn’t have knew that Andi was a gas jockey. Because Brenner didn’t have a car in Zell—he was more of a walker.
    But the other onlooker, who’d at first been standing way up on the other end of the asphalt court, had, by now, come over. But that was no spectator, rather a spectatress. An old woman with thick bifocals. But there was something elseabout her that was way more conspicuous. On account of her not having any hands.
    She was standing next to Brenner, and he asked her if she understood why the people were laughing like that.
    “The boy is a gas station attendant,” the woman said, and in High German.
    At first Brenner was surprised that a German would be out here watching Alpine curling. Because it’s more of a local matter. But he quickly got distracted because things were really throwing down now on the asphalt court.
    Because, meanwhile, the gas jockey had took his shot, but, way off. And now he’d stormed over, head completely red, and was threatening to give Vergolder the business. And you’ve just got to picture this: Vergolder, a snow-white, seventy-year-old millionaire, and Andi, who seemed more or less, well, not especially smart. He had his dirty gasstation pants on, he had his bald head, and he was running right at Vergolder now, asking him if perchance he’d like a piece of him.
    For the next game, new teams, and they didn’t need a Haggl anymore. They were an even number now, because Andi wasn’t playing anymore. He sulked over to the kiosk: “Beer,” he says to Gruntner Schorsch, who used to work for the train, and now, in his retirement, he runs this kiosk. But today just wasn’t Andi’s day, because Gruntner just says:
    “Hold on a sec.”
    This was on account of him having two other customers to serve. In