The Shadow Tycoon (eBook)
210 Seiten
epubli (Verlag)
9783819747052 (ISBN)
Pseudonym
Pseudonym
Chapter 1.2 The first realization - "I am different"
It didn't start with a big moment. No thunderclap, no outcry inside him. No movie that suddenly mirrored his life, no sentence that shook him up.
It was a quiet suspicion,
over months
spread through him like fog.
A suspicion that came at first,
when the others laughed
and he didn't know why.
He stayed when he was alone
and the images in his head did not go away.
It was the looks.
Not to the girls in the class,
who wore make-up, who wore glittery lips and fake laughter
passed by his table
like a ritual that they didn't even understand.
He saw her,
but he felt nothing.
They were like backdrops. Movable. Beautiful.
But hollow.
His gaze remained elsewhere.
In the changing room after training,
when the others tore the jersey off their bodies
and he had the feeling that he was seeing something,
that he was not allowed to see.
It was the body of a teammate -
the fine curve of his shoulder line,
the sweat that collected on his collarbone.
Drying off. Looking in the mirror.
The naturalness with which he was naked.
And he - stared. Just a second too long.
Long enough for it to burn inside him.
Long enough to know:
This is not curiosity.
That is longing.
He tried to push it away.
Told himself it was just interest.
Compared herself. Searched for confirmation.
But it stayed.
Whenever this one classmate approached him in class
and briefly put her hand on his shoulder,
it was as if someone had put a wire in his stomach,
that vibrated.
A tingling sensation that had nothing to do with fear.
Nothing to do with shame.
Not yet.
It was simply there.
Like a silent secret,
that could no longer be suppressed.
---
And then came this one moment.
A warm early summer's day.
The classroom windows were wide open.
Outside, the high-pitched chirping of the mowers could be heard,
the smell of fresh grass filled the corridors.
It was the last Friday before the Whitsun break.
These days had something floating about them.
After PE, a few boys stayed longer in the changing room.
They joked and laughed,
drank apple spritzer straight from the bottle
and made jokes about the girls from the parallel class.
They stood there in their boxer shorts,
as if her body were open terrain,
that nobody has to guard.
One of them - big,
with broad shoulders
and a voice that only recently began to sound deeper -
threw him a towel and grinned.
"Not finished watching yet?"
The others laughed.
Loud, shrill, as if on command.
He laughed too.
Too loud.
Too fake.
But inside -
collapsed somewhat.
Like a house of cards that had been kept upright for too long.
---
That evening, he lay down on his bed.
The curtains barely moved.
The sky was clear.
Through the window that looked out onto the street,
he heard the roar of a moped,
the soft call of a neighbor's child.
A doorbell, somewhere.
The world went on.
But inside him - everything had gone quiet.
He stared at the ceiling,
and for the first time he said it out loud -
very quietly, like a confession.
"I'm not like them."
---
This realization was a break.
Not just being different,
but an otherness that was dangerous.
Because in his world -
in the conservative working-class milieu,
between toolboxes, trade union regulars' tables
and the leaden silence of male closeness -
was no place for his feelings.
It was a time,
in which homosexuality was no longer punishable everywhere,
but not visible for a long time yet.
Not permitted.
Not protected.
It meant:
Isolation.
Fear.
Perhaps even violence.
He didn't talk to anyone about it.
Not with his parents - his mother,
who took him in her arms in the evening and thought,
she would know what was going on inside him.
Not with his father,
whose quiet view beyond the horizon
could mean everything and nothing.
Not with a teacher,
not with a friend.
Because he knew:
It would bring nothing but pain.
---
So he began to disguise himself.
His voice became more controlled.
Every syllable was checked,
before it left his lips.
His eyes became more trained.
Never too long, never too soft.
Never where you could notice it.
His closeness to other boys -
became more distant.
He learned not to feel the skin of others.
Not to be smelled.
Not wanting to.
He became aware.
For codes. For dangers.
He listened carefully,
when the word "faggot" was used in the playground
and nobody said anything.
He observed,
how quickly people turned away
of those who fell off the grid.
How looks became cold.
How friendships broke up in seconds.
---
He now knew what was at stake.
And a sentence grew inside him,
which was to accompany him into old age:
"If you want to survive, no one must know your inner self."
---
Forbidden longing - sexuality in the post-war period
"It wasn't just a feeling. It was a risk."
The pressure increased with every year he grew older.
Not just the inner one, which consisted of longing and confusion,
but also the outer -
the pressure of society, the norms, the language on the street,
at school, at the kitchen table.
The world in which he grew up was not neutral.
It was a system of glances, half-sentences and clear fronts.
They knew what a boy had to be.
They knew how a man should behave.
It was West Germany in the late 1950s.
Homosexuality was still a punishable offense.
**Paragraph 175** of the penal code stood like a threatening shadow over all those who loved differently.
The laws were not simply letters -
they were a reality,
that could destroy lives.
Secretly.
Efficient.
Noiseless.
---
Classmates were mocked at school,
if they moved too softly
or her voice sounded too bright.
"What are you?" some shouted.
"Did you file your fingernails, you girl?"
The teachers made no effort to stop this -
On the contrary.
Mockery became an instrument of discipline.
Exclusion was part of the education.
It was not spoken -
it has been marked.
Who once stood out,
carried the stain forever.
He learned quickly:
If you desire the wrong one, you will be destroyed.
Not physically. Not directly.
But socially. Psychological.
Existential.
And yet, despite all the danger,
he couldn't change anything at his...
| Erscheint lt. Verlag | 24.6.2025 |
|---|---|
| Verlagsort | Berlin |
| Sprache | englisch |
| Themenwelt | Literatur ► Lyrik / Dramatik ► Dramatik / Theater |
| Schlagworte | History • Mauerfall • Poltik • SatoshiNakamoto • Thriller • TrueCrime |
| ISBN-13 | 9783819747052 / 9783819747052 |
| Informationen gemäß Produktsicherheitsverordnung (GPSR) | |
| Haben Sie eine Frage zum Produkt? |
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