“Get your bony ass over here, moron!” a young, male voice yelled.
“Fuck you, lame-ass!” Lena shot back.
“Oh my God, she’s fucked up again.” another slightly older voice said, “What the hell, did you get in a fight with the ground again?”
“Up yours, Herr.” Lena retorted.
“Oh, great fucking comeback.” Herr responded, “Did you have to study for that one?”
“I swear you kids never shut up,” a much older woman’s voice said, with a note of disapproval. “Back when I was your age we didn’t swear so much.”
“Back when you were our age, Jesus was still alive.” Herr shot back.
“You watch your tongue when you’re talking about the Lord, Herr, or I’ll tell the pastor.” the older woman threatened.
“What’s he gonna do? Pray for me?”
“He’ll tell your father.”
“…yes ma’am.” a now contrite Herr responded.
Lena laughed wildly at this as she moved closer, as did a majority of the rooftop’s occupants. It was a group of around ten people, all of varying ages. They sat on broken couches, worse chairs, and a few spare cushions with stuffing pouring out of them. Beer bottles were absolutely everywhere, and the air was overpowering with tobacco, both pipe and cigarette. A dog that looked like it had been alive for far too long sat in the middle of the circle, tongue hanging lazily out of its mouth.
“Mrs. Schroeder brought her dog again.” the first boy, Mick, complained.
“At least girls like him.” Herr poked at Mick.
Mick was a whole fourteen-years old and showed it by bragging every chance he got. He didn’t have much to brag about otherwise—a scrawny short kid with a mop of perpetually disheveled hair that was filled with cowlicks; and, not being particularly bright, he was poor at sports as well as academics. But Mick had a good heart if you had a mind to dig through all the puberty.
Herr, in contrast, was fifteen years old. He wasn’t much bigger or smarter than Mick; but he was bigger and smarter, and anytime Mick would begin to brag about his age, Herr was there to poke fun at his various inadequacies. While Mick had a good heart, Herr… well… he was Herr. If push came to shove, he would likely be there for you in whatever way a fifteen-year-old could. Until that point, however, he was just an annoying brat that lived to pester everyone.
“Leave Kraut alone, Mick. He doesn’t need you pestering him,” the older woman, Gertrude Schroeder, said, referring to the mangy dog. “And Herr, there’s a woman out there for everyone. Even Mick.”
Gertrude was old. She looked it and she didn’t give a damn either. She was “exactly the age Jesus wanted her to be” she would often proclaim. She was also exceedingly devout in her faith and made absolutely no bones about that whatsoever. She loved Van Halen, although she was a bit mixed up in her rock idols. “Oh, that Mick Jagger is such a good-looking fella…” she would often proclaim. No one had the heart to clear all that up for her.
“You hear that, Mick?” Herr teased, “Mrs. Schroeder says there’s a woman out there, even for you!”
“There’s lots of girls!!” Mick complained, wounded.
“Oh yeah, name one!”
“Well… well…”
“If you two don’t shut your damn mouths I’ll throw you both off this roof!” an old man with a gigantic mustache threatened.
“How are you gonna do that with the cane, old man?” a handsome young man who looked to be around twenty-five joked.
“First, I’ll throw you off, Jonathan!” a young woman sitting next to the young man yelled, “then I’m gonna help Mr. Müller throw Herr off!”
The man with the mustache, Walter Müller, had started this rooftop gathering; he was also the one who had invited Lena and was perhaps the only thing in the GDR older than Mrs. Schroeder. A man of simple means and simpler pleasures, his only two prized possessions were his mustache (don’t get him started) and his radio. For what it was, the radio was a technological masterpiece of mismatched dials and broken gauges cobbled together out of things he found in his neighbors’ garages. He was obsessed with The Rolling Stones, but told Mrs. Schroeder that the lead singer was Phil Collins—much to the amusement of Janet and Jonathan.
Janet and Jonathan, the young couple sitting together, were the perfect mix of oil and water. They were both very athletic and notoriously pretty. Unfortunately, that’s where the similarities ended. They argued more often than they didn’t, and each hated the music the other liked. Janet didn’t even like the rock they were listening to. She simply came for the company (that she didn’t like) and for Kraut (whom everyone else didn’t like). Differences aside, they had managed to create two children just as perfect as they were and—all things considered—they were fantastic parents, if not a fantastic couple.
“Well, who’s gonna provide for our children then, Janet?” Jonathan retorted.
“Maybe I’ll find someone a little more respectful. Like Lorenzo!” Janet teased.
“Lorenzo?!” Jonathan responded, “Lorenzo?! You would leave me for that cross-eyed piece of…”
“At least I didn’t wreck my car the first time I drove it!” another young man who looked around twenty-five hollered in Jonathan’s direction.
“Shut up, Lorenzo! No one likes you!” Jonathan fired back. It was true, no one liked Lorenzo. That’s all that anyone seemed to know about him.
“Fuckin’ sounds like Janet fuckin’ does.” Mick chimed in.
“Language!” Mrs. Schroeder snapped.
“You suck at swearing,” Jonathan harassed Mick.
“Oh yeah… well, you… you…” Mick attempted to retort, “you suck at… at…”
“You also suck at comebacks, dipshit.”
“You suck at comebacks!” Mick screamed with his voice cracking up an octave.
“You sound like a girl, Mick.” Jonathan jested as well.
“What’s wrong with sounding like a girl?!?” Janet howled.
This would go on all night long, Lena knew. She couldn’t help but smile from ear to ear. These were her people: misfits every last one. As “You Really Got Me” ended, “Hit Me with Your Best Shot” by Pat Benatar began playing with that outrageous guitar. They must have been listening to Radio Brandenburg again, although it didn’t sound like the infamous DJ John Peel’s style this time. Sneakily, so as not to end up in everyone’s verbal cross-hairs, Lena grabbed a spare cushion. She lay on her stomach quietly with the cushion pressed against her chest.
The rooftop was her haven when she wasn’t performing. In the GDR, music was heavily controlled by the Stasi to make sure it reflected the views of the pompous codgers in the Politburo. While good music was incredibly hard to come by, ‘inherently seditious’ bands like Van Halen, Echo and the Bunnymen, Fleetwood Mac and REO Speedwagon could land you a prison sentence if you weren’t careful. Oh sure, they had The Puhdys, Die Anderen and the Klans Renft Combo in the GDR. These bands were all talented in their own right, and East German music was renowned across Europe for its catchy, eclectic nature. But it was the lyrics that really earned the ire of the international community—for those who spoke German at least.
Whereas Sammy Hagar and Brian Johnson were singing about having sex with everything that moved or breathed, East German bands that hadn’t yet earned an international appeal were singing about… well, socialism. That, and socialism-related woes. Scratch that—there were, of course, no woes in a socialist society. And you’d better be willing to express that to the rest of the world or you had no business being a musician in the first place!