The Bone Man

Well, something’s happened again.

Spring’s a glorious time of year, though—poems and all that. And everybody knows, it’s in springtime that life awakens. That’s why nobody wanted to believe it at first when suddenly it was the other way around.

Times change, though. What we would’ve given in the end if it’d only been as bad as it’d looked in the beginning. And that was only three weeks later—still spring. And then the summer—ruined by rain, you can forget about July—but a first-rate spring.

And if you’d seen Brenner sitting there at the Löschenkohl Grill, you would’ve been hard-pressed to guess what had dragged him down there. You might’ve even mistaken him for a day-tripper, taking advantage of the spring day for a jaunt into East Styria.

And it would’ve been wiser for him to take a day-trip through Styria’s sleepy vineyard towns. Enjoy the countryside a little, taste a little wine, eat a little fried chicken—and suddenly you’re feeling like all’s just a little bit well in the world still.

Never in all my days will I understand how a thing like that could happen in a place like this.

The spring wields such power, though—a person can’t not
feel nature. And you could be wading knee-deep in blood when, all of a sudden, it’s love you’re thinking about. Now, Brenner may have been at the Löschenkohl Grill waiting for his food, but in his thoughts he was someplace else entirely. He was checking how long it’d been since his fiancée had run off. Believe it or not: twelve and a half years.

It wasn’t just spring that had him thinking like this, though. No, whenever Brenner ate fried chicken, he’d automatically think of Fini. Her name was actually Josefine—needless to say, everyone called her Fini.

And you’d be hard pressed to find a person who liked to eat fried chicken as much as Fini did. Because she’d eat two, three chickens every week—practically addicted. And to watch Fini gnaw the bones clean, that was a real pleasure. Cannibals, no match. So, when Brenner walked into Löschenkohl’s dining room, Fini came to mind, of course. Because Löschenkohl’s is the kind of chicken place that—if you can imagine a furniture showroom or those garages where they park the jumbo jets. And the entire airplane garage is full of people eating fried chicken.

But then Brenner got interrupted and couldn’t give Fini another thought. And besides, he shouldn’t have been thinking about her for all that long anyway, because one thing you can’t forget: only engaged two weeks. And so there wasn’t all that much for him to remember, except for her incessant chicken-eating, and her huge rack, of course. Fini had said it was on account of the chickens being fed so many hormones.

But enough about Fini, because old man Löschenkohl himself was bringing Brenner his fried chicken, and you’re going to be wondering why old man Löschenkohl would personally
serve Brenner his fried chicken. Pay attention, though, because this is interesting: Löschenkohl offers his hand to Brenner and says: “Löschenkohl.”

And Brenner lifts his rear half a millimeter off the wooden bench and says: “Brenner.”

Old man Löschenkohl took a seat at Brenner’s table. But these days, of course, when two people are sitting together and each is waiting for the other to say something, well, conversation’s a little tricky.

“Dig in,” Löschenkohl went on, and then they sat next to each other in silence until Brenner had finished the first piece of chicken.

And one thing you can’t forget. There are four pieces in a Löschenkohl chicken, and even if you eat just two of them, you’re going to bust a gut. That’s why when you ask for the check, the waitress automatically brings you some aluminum foil, so that later on at home you’ve got yourself a decent snack, which is why Löschenkohl’s is known throughout Styria—well, until you get to Graz. Even the Viennese come down on the weekends when they don’t know how to fill up their greedy children anymore.

So, you’ve got Brenner with his half a chicken and his beer, and by contrast old man Löschenkohl with his wee glass of Löschenkohl’s house wine—because he’s got his own vineyard out back behind the place. And Brenner’s just waiting to see if old man Löschenkohl doesn’t have something to say for himself now.

But old man Löschenkohl didn’t say a word and just silently watched his guest pick the bones clean. The old man’s cheeks had turned purple—you could count every last vein—and he
breathed about as heavily as an old mail truck. When Brenner had finished the first piece and placed the bones in the bone dish, his host asked: “What do you think?”

Now, did he mean the chicken, or did he mean would Brenner take the job? Because it was the kind of job, of course, that you have to think about three times before you take it. But Brenner couldn’t say yes one way or another because the chicken was covered in a batter that was a centimeter thick and tasted like any number of things, just not like chicken.

“No wonder you’re famous throughout these parts,” Brenner said.

“A little less famous wouldn’t hurt.”

Löschenkohl was so tall that even seated he was still half a head taller than Brenner. There are so many tall people nowadays, and it wasn’t unusual for Brenner to have to look up to the younger folks. People didn’t used to be this tall, though. And now Brenner was reminded of how, when he was in the police academy, they took a field trip once to a castle—everything magnificent, but the lord’s bed had been no larger than a child’s.

Maybe it only occurred to him now because old man Löschenkohl had a certain something about him—I don’t want to say “regal,” but a dignified old chicken king, sure.

“Why do you want to stir up old history?” Brenner said, even though one really shouldn’t speak with one’s mouth full.

“We want the matter cleared up once and for all.”

“But business is still good?”

“Business, yes.”

“How many chickens do you sell in a week?”

“Ten thousand in a good week, five thousand in a bad week.”

“And so you’ve got a problem with the bones?”

“No, no. We don’t have a problem with them anymore.”

“But you did.”

“Back then, sure. By the time it became an issue, we had a problem with the bones. We paid the price, though.”

“How many bones is that, then, with ten thousand chickens?”

“Mm, let’s say forty percent bones. Let’s say: four tons in a good week.”