Charlie's Dollhouse

Charlie was small and cloddy. His gaze had something blistering and when he was angry with somebody or just pretending he looked as if he would say: ”I'll kill you.“ His hair was grey with an accurate side parting. He wore a walrus moustache which grew wildly downwards over the corners of his mouth with two grey hanks alongside the bottom lip, like gills.
Charlie always tried to smuggle a knife into the ”Monkey House“. When he came in the evening, more precisely limped in because he had a peg leg, and enlisted the night-watchman always had to remind him: ”Charlie, where's your tickle-cutlery?“ The night-watchman knew that Charlie sometimes dreamed about lying in a Foreign Legion's barrack. Charlie actually had been there, also in prison. Then he considered the others to be nasty and it could happened that he stabbed and only then remembered that he lay in the ”Monkey House“. ”Charlie, where's your tickle-cutlery?“ Charlie grumbled and made his blistering gaze and said: ”Watch out! Listen to me! This is a dangerous thing! I've learned to deal with it. Believe me! I'll won't give it to you, not at all!“ and with a wink to the others behind him on the floor: ”And anyway I want to shave myself now! Yes, yes, yes!“ and his mouth with this bearded hanks snatched just like a fish-mouth that had gorged a huge chunk. ”Here you have a disposable shaver,“ the night-watchman said. ”Huh, watch out! Listen to me! Who are you? Why are you talking big? You don't know Charlie, do you?“ ”Charlie, be kind!“ ”I see!“ he acknowledged and took the butterfly knife out of his leather jacket and let it slide over the writing desk. The night-watchman pulled the drawer and it fell into it. That was the way it happened every evening. Charlie also brought slingshots and broken rakes, and he fidgeted with them as if they were big claws.
Once on his way to the washing room he limped past the office with bare torso and a towel over his shoulder, and in his trouser waistband stuck a revolver. The boys gazed, mouth open. The night-watchman swiftly grabbed it. Charlie turned around, and before he could say ”Watch out! Listen to me!“ the night-watchman had the revolver directed at him: ”Charlie, be kind and go into the washing-room.“ ”Eh, it's loaded!“ Charlie said. ”Yes, that's why! Off you go!“ ”Huh!“ muttered Charlie and went. The night-watchman shut the piece into the drawer. A police patrol came and checked it later that night and identified it as a starter pistol. Charlie got it back the next morning.
One day Charlie moved into a backyard. From time to time he paid a visit to the ”Monkey House“. For this occasion he came all dressed in black with a wide-brimmed hat, leather jacket, skintight leather trousers and bootees. He grasped into his pocket: ”You want to listen to Brahms?“ and retrieved his hamonica and played a scary tune. ”I know Beethoven as well. Here he comes,“ and he blew the tones up and down. ”You want to hear Bach as well?“ but the other fellows could envision Bach and went to their rooms. ”Hey, do you want to visit me in my dollhouse?“ ”Why not,“ the night-watchman answered. ”Yes, yes, yes!“ Charlie looked forward to it. ”I really have a dollhouse, also with a doll, yes, yes, yes!” ”To blow up!“ said one of the fellows who fetched a coffee from the office. ”Ay, how do you know that? You were probably already there and fucked her!“ ”My lock is out of order,“ he said to the night-watchman, ”I'll have to check it out. Otherwise everbody'll step inside my dollhouse. Get ready! Listen to this!“ Charlie bent forward. ”Newly I dressed my doll pretty with a garter and so on and she giggled and I said to her don't giggle so silly so I slapped her but she was still laughing. I slapped her again and could you imagine, she didn't stop, she's always kind to Charlie!“ Charlie leaned back and took a sip from the plastic cup.
The night-watchman really came for a visit. At the first knocking of the door it opened. ”Come in, Thuggy!“ Charlie shouted. He had washed the dishes and the towel was still over his shoulder. ”Everything should be clean when visitors are expected.“
”Yes, yes, yes!“ the night-watchman cut him off and pat him on the back.
The room was painted white, a converted garage, the bed was tidily done. Charlie's knives and rakes were hanging on the walls, and the revolver served as wall decoration, too: also a rope with a solid knotted loop.
”Look here!“ Charlie said and opened the wardrobe. The clothes lay sorted in immaculate order. ”I can't manage it like that,“ the night-watchman said. ”You see,“ Charlie said. ”The locker has to be shipshape.“ ”Well, where's your doll?“ ”Hu!“ said Charlie, grabbed under the bed and pulled the crumpled doll with the frozen smile out from under it. ”You can't talk to her,“ said Charlie and bounced her immediately back under the bed.
Charlie has recently two friends accommodating with him, with whom he chats from dawn till dusk. They start twittering when he opens his mouth or switches the radio on: Punch and Judy, his two budgies.


Diese Übersetzung von Kalles Puppenstube war für das britische Straßenmagazin The Big Issue vorgesehen.



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