Prose_Retro: The business. I'm too much of a stalk for the First League (Fragment 2009)

VBefore me, Bahnhofstrasse is already quite deserted and disembowelled in the pale yellow light of the street lamps. I stop and read under the shelter of the Dürr cigars: “The special tobacco blend and that cultivated especially for Davidoff in Ecuador, Darker wrapper leaves ripened in the sun give these cigars a flavor full of character. ”Dürr's cigars are wrapped in mother-of-pearl foil and lean against finely carved wooden boxes.

On the other side of the cigar shop, the letters of a hotel with the name Schweizerhof glow. The name encloses the round facade of the building like a glove, only the letter "h" from the final syllable "hof" hangs down at an angle. A jewelery shop is located in the basement of the hotel. Your showcase shows an entirely black surface, in the middle of which there is something like the peephole of a ship's cabin. Sitting in it, slightly elevated and surrounded by a puristic planetary atmosphere, a single jewel the size of a fingerberry. To study the effect of such decorative sophistication from a distance, I take a step back, and my eyes fall on a mangy shepherd, who not far from me sniffed the wall of the gold woodpecker intensively. Goldspecht does not resort to spiritual means, to present his top-class. Traditional gold hangs over the neck of styrofoam busts, which give the piece of jewelery a slight hint of cheap trash, which, by the way, does not escape the dog either. Obviously lice, equipped with a sensitive sense of smell, he trots on quickly, so, as if he wanted to say: "Bad, Goldspecht, bad! I prefer to lift my leg one station ahead, sleeps bei Louis Vouitton!“Situation Vouitton: Supported by cardboard corsets, lie a, two carefully placed men's shirts in the shop window display as if they had just been thrown there, while a water lily creeps up from the case of a pinstripe suit in the background, terribly obscene. Now I am counting on fifteen generous steps: Gübelin, Rolex, Omega, Swatch, Montblanc atrium, Chopard, Gübelin, the yellow sting …

The jewelry- and luxury boutiques stretch along Bahnhofstrasse down to the lake. In between, cheap chains and trendy shops like Mango or Tally have established themselves. The Lollipopgirl is a trend shop for school girls, and a poster unrolls over its outer facade, which shows a young girl in a pink lace lingerie and clunky western boots leaning against a pitchfork. A church clock is striking half past six, when three thickly packed Lollypop customers cross the sidewalk right in front of me and eagerly head for a kind of Renaissance palace, the Sacré Coeur fashion house adorned with magnificent columns.

The ceiling arches high and ribs, soft oriental sounds peck the cool, pleasant, oppressive silence. And as with a church wedding or prayer, this atmosphere demands something palatial from me, acute feeling.

Highly concentrated, I let my gaze wander to the narrow niches, where shirts and skirts lie motley and tightly pressed together like packaged wafer-thin salami. With shaky hands I loosen a few pegs, clip jeans off the hanger and feel their silhouettes. My fingers brush against all the silk tops, as if they were on an aimless stroll through the wind. The wind, this is the fan, the whirring ventilation system, the eraser tender, greasy belly rings of the young saleswoman in the gold-covered wall mirror caressed like a pine tree on a mountain lake. The greasy one, Delicate folds a sweater, as if she had sunk into a deep prayer and then threw it carelessly on a table, on the bikini, Panties and sunglasses form a towering bargain pile, like seafood in the fish market.

Perhaps the question arises here, how fashion is created, and I want to start at the bottom. Before the cotton fiber becomes a thread and therefore a fabric, it has to be detached from its plant stem, unreeled the silk from her cocoon, your pest can be destroyed with insecticide. The cotton looks like a huge one when picked, soft snow globe, into which one would like to plop down into. Indian farming families, who hand pick these balls, saddle them on their heads and carry them to the nearest factory. For processing, bleaching, Refining, Sanforisieren, Shine and stretch with caustic soda, want to be called, treat with a lot of chemistry! Ideally, such a factory located in a small village is located directly on a body of water. But before the big fashion houses from Paris and London can send their models onto the catwalk, the possible trend of the substances must be determined, must cross zebra crossing, Cat paws, little leg or cold line to be matched. Only after the yarn has been twisted, designed the fabrics at a feverish pace, mass production of the dresses, mainly overseas, can begin.

Ist sugar round, melancholy or gentle? Does he have room warmth, he wears a sun hat, his gaze is long? Confiserie Sprüngli is about to close, and just now I'm witnessing an exchange between a desperate saleswoman and her tidy customer. “Could you send me a chocolate mix to Palm Springs??" - "Of course, as always, we are happy to take over this service for you, Queen. As you know, we use special thermal bags for this. ”I can see through the open sliding door, how the wasp-like hand of the saleswoman, wrapped in white lace, slides into the glass cabinet. How she smiles, and her mouth more or less retains the rigid shape of a tiny building block. „Coconut Truffles, Truffes Baileys, Cappuccine truffles, Cognac-Stengeli, Pineapple, Vanilla Luxembourg or a bonbonnière with poppy flowers. Twelve eighty, and, With, not without, twelve eighty, I said twelve sixty? These misty ones, filled with champagne, correct, No, they can't melt, that's why we have the thermal bag, look, very convenient. Not handsome? Maybe not very handsome. Not handsome, do you think ...? Find?! Quark, Rüebli, Bee sting, Roulade. Almond cake, Baumkuchen, Schokkogugelhupf, classic, Raspberry tart or just a japonais, with umbrella, Sacks of one hundred grams twenty-one eighty, without twenty-two, the umbrella is the decoration, correct, eighty, I said sixty?" I have the impression, that the saleswoman knows almost too much about the range imposed on her and therefore too little in the information. At least the customer does not seem completely satisfied with the offer and leaves, the hair the color of the bloody eggplant, over to a rotating box. In it, the most individual and headstrong party rolls dawn like in a modern one, lucid skyscraper. Each bun has its own, dimly lit studio and is, like Snow White in a coffin, shielded from the other by an insulating glass wall: A round shrimp roll with a mayonnaise dab and the diameter of a slim bottle bottom. A salmon canapée on horseradish sauce covered with a single onion ring. A celery quarter toast with an orange wedge as well, keck, a single hazelnut on top.

I leave this well-measured layout of a high society of sugar tarts and notice, that the boutiques are becoming more museum-like. The last shop window shows a fox stole, still with a head attached and an ivory pipe. There between business buildings with golden locks, Insurance, Banks and law firms, a casino that waves down at me and a Crédit Suisse up to this one, I pull my banana box over my head by the string and put it on the floor. I have reached the richest spot in the country and have to rest for a while!

"You're sorry, do you have a stupid me??“Suddenly I see a walking skeleton. It has just spoken to a tourist on the other side of the street and then curtsied. “Don't you want to ask the rich?“, I ask, pointing down at myself with a nod of my head. "And, but the rich give nothing. That's why they're rich!“, For a moment I'm flabbergasted and don't even notice, how the skeleton tries to get away with it on long spider legs. Then it escapes me: „Hey, halt! Of, how do you actually do that, hit like that?“The junkie looks through me with two pin-eyes with great honesty. "You know, I always try to get in on general topics of conversation. I know people, they offend passers-by and make them insensitive to any feeling, by telling nonsense like: 'Maybe you could have a little help for me, for the emergency shelter, you know, I still have to go to Basel to see my grandmother, that would be great, very fond of, I haven't eaten anything today. ’I never say that. An elderly lady comes up to me, I ask you about the weather ", his fingers wriggle before my eyes like black mantelpiece, “We have a hair dryer, I hold my head and ask her quietly: ‚But, Madame, maybe we have bio-weather today?’The older women are always suspicious at first, but then they feel flattered and don't want to admit it. Finally I've got it, that they recognize their prodigal son in me. That's the moment, where I will go straight to: I am addicted, homeless, on the streets in Zurich for ten years, i have hepatitis, am driven and experienced prison, and what to do with the money, that you give me out of sympathy, I probably won't have to tie you up!"-" And then you curtsy?"-" I will do that, a curtsey?“We'll talk a while longer. He has a strong need to communicate, everything must Go. That he was originally a taxi driver, here in town, always in the winter months, had once been involved in an accident and ran over a young hedgehog. He ducks his head a little again, and i'm afraid, that he is about to curtsy again. “So in your opinion, the art of hitting is that, to pretend, as if you were grateful for a small donation, but in no way dependent on it ", I sum up, when I finally have my say. “You act very easily and exhilarated and subconsciously transfer your need and need for help to them, that you molested, because they suddenly feel disgruntled and guilty. Bravo!“

JOn the side of Bahnhofstrasse, the shops are getting more colorful again, cheekier and sometimes a bit quirky. Almost a different reality! Everywhere between the squat house entrances are beautiful, black-haired men are busy shaving their lamb castles. Several veiled women and children crowd around a collection of cardboard boxes on the sidewalk. I can see right now, how a boy gets hold of a tiger slip and thus drives a fax with a shop window lizard in front of the Fressnapf - ’No more animal sales on Saturday after 4 p.m.’. The bright green animal clicked its flat feet on the glass of the cage like a plastic sticker, and it seems to me, that it reacts to certain stimuli from the neighboring hi-fi shop with a brief twitch of the neck muscles: The unleashed buttocks dance mocha-colored, female breeding horses. Over a dozen more splendid, light-flooded flat screens. A limousine has just been added, and the rap king emerges from the frescoed carriage, in hand a silver jug ​​with curdled chocolate, as you know from Coupe Denmark. I pass: a solarium, Monas Cosmeticoase - a fingernail court from a tribune filing its judgment - Christie’s first erotic liga. I did not know that, that the erotic activities now also play in leagues, I think and turn into a side street. A little later I bend my face over a glass case, in it are the pictures of strippers. The light of a street lamp falls on their pale ones, covered faces and illuminated their big ones, Moldovan eyes. I think so, to hear them speak of dreams, imbued with education, hard school desks, tricky studies and framed diplomas. I think, to read the desire to arrive in these eyes. How dark it is in this alley. Consistent expression of will! Right price! The right moment! Sales channels! Is it going through my head?, the four golden rules of sale, learned at business school twelve years ago! At that moment I hear a clanking noise in my back. A vigilante, just that Christie’s Erotic First Liga has left, rattles his key rings. "Good evening, may I ask you, what you are doing here? What do you have in your tray? Have a sales license?" - "Hello. And, No, I don't have that. But there are only perceptions in this banana box, which I communicated and printed on paper ... from that point of view it is not actually a commodity, if you understand, what I mean. At most, for one species ... "-" Then beg, in other words?“The policeman looks at me with a frown. "Beg? But no! Begging is love! No, I want to exchange my texts for anything, namely sheet metal ... very, very little sheet metal. ”I sigh. "So beg you then! I have to bring this to your attention, that begging is forbidden and that you are making yourself liable to prosecution! Please pull out your banana box!“The policeman pulls out a huge flashlight and uses it to scan the inside of my cloak, confiscating the bundle of papers. For a while he lets the beam of his lamp slide over the texts, and I am a little ashamed of its content. I am really relieved, when he hangs the empty banana box around my neck with a tolerable expression. "Okay. I see, that it is not heretical or inciting content, which is why I refrain from a fine for once. How much does that stuff cost?"-" How much would you like to give?"-" You must determine that! My God ... “Even though it's dark, I notice, that the man suddenly looks me from head to toe. “Two francs. That's not too much?“-„ But, I can barely afford that!“I hear a laugh. The uniformed man's voice has changed. “Thank you.” - “It's okay. But please don't do any more such stupid things now. I'll leave the box to you, because I don't want to be a monster!" - "Thank you, that's nice of you. ”-“ Don't worry. But, and by the way, You shouldn't hang around here… ”I can feel, the way a hand touches my jeans. The policeman apparently put his business card in my back pocket. "... if you should have a bit higher demands ... you are too much of a stalk for the First League ... but something can be done privately. You can certainly ask a little more from a customer! You just have to know, what you want from him! So, as you are now, do not seduce customers. you are, I'm telling you straight out, a lousy businesswoman!" - "I see! And, Thank you! Good to know! And, I thought so, that I'm not good at selling. Actually have absolutely no ideas about my customer and what he should be like, this is true. Just imagine, how he pulls my product out of the draw well. Like this. How he puts the product on his head and takes it home, like a head with a water jug ​​on top. Suddenly the product pounds off his head! Haha. He tries to prevent it from shattering. He presses it to his stomach. Haha, No. I do not care, whether my customer presses my product to their stomach or not, because such a belly of a customer is now slipping down my hump. Now, where my product is product! cellulose, filler, talc, a bit of glueing! Well I lied! My customer! Is a dear one, Softer! He doesn't even want to be a customer! Stubborn donkey! To oppose you like that! You don't want to be a customer! Do not resist to the point of white heat! Do you want to be a kind customer?!” I laugh hysterically. The policeman, who has already marched on, he turns around again. “Or do I have to register you at Burghölzli?" - "But no, No! I'm just shaking, because i'm freezing! My jacket is clearly too thin! Goodbye!“I wave to the graduate. “And thank you again! That's enough for a coffee from the machine!“

A couple of relevant lingerie shops close to the Barbarella, the temporarily closed workwear store Spielmann - Steel toe shoes and pilot jackets - as well as Balkan Travels ('Please use the entrance in the backyard'). How lonely and abandoned a sauerkraut bag in the candy-pink light of the nightly butcher's shop! The metal latches of naked mannequins, arthritically shiny!
We're one shit pack. ’Somebody sprayed neon yellow paint on a schoolhouse wall. Even dog poop got a spray blob. So now he's a neon poop, Waiting between beer bottles and deck chair legs at the foot of a gravel depot. I almost wanted to say, at the foot of the Himalayas!

(the business, 2004-2010)

(with the banana box in Bahnhofstrasse Zurich and in Zurich Niederdorf, sell the insatiable 2004. The manuscript emerged from me on that sales evening “the business”, a text, who let me down on the rope for almost eight years, he gave nothing. Hundreds of pages and about 30 Versions. Eventually I gave up and started the curriculum, Belief 2010. Only now have I deleted all the versions from the store. And this is the small yield, a mixture of short-term improvisation and long, diligent description work. At that time I read Günther Anders “the antiquity of man” and wanted to carry out an approximation of goods and people on the basis of a march through the whole of Zurich …I am aware, that the improvised, especially spoken parts and the statically fixed, almost technical….now the gap. After writing badly for a long time, technical, At the beginning of my thirties I suddenly had the right to claim, to write technically well. Unfortunately, this phase lasted far too long, until I'm finally free again, bad to write, which means so much, how, to write again, how I want, since I have now become me, to my memory or relief. It's a shame anyway: all the hours, which I invested in technical writing, instead of expanding my search for a relaxed bang partner on Sunday afternoons. One thing is certain, that I have over the years, in which I did not suffer, because nothing happened in them, stopped on the material and guarded its little money like a miser. Oh yes, I took out the Maslow hierarchy of needs and the business model from my old business administration book from the commercial school. Basic needs-choice needs-species purchase-generic purchase and so on.)