Between two kops

Chapter fourteen

Steven

I took one final drag of my cigarette. The kind that viciously burns your throat with bitterness, and flicked the butt onto the concrete as I stood with the crew outside the entrance to Sector Six. The Rajko Mitić stadium around us was slowly filling up, and a crazy tension was dangerously building in the air between the North and South stands. The Partizan fans had claimed their spots across the way quite a bit earlier and were making their final preparations before the start of the eternal derby.

I bent down to the ground, pretending to tie a loose shoelace. Then I smoothly shoved a lighter into my left sneaker so it wouldn't be seen. I tied the lace again and straightened up.

By some miracle, the stadium would be packed to the absolute brim today for the first time in who knows how many years. You could literally feel in the air that today was going to be a total collapse and a madness of a match. I took a decisive step forward and stood directly in front of security, nervously adjusting the hood on my sweatshirt.

"Ticket for inspection!" the security guard snapped at me.

I handed him the ticket without a word and immediately threw both hands up in the air. He started patting me down from head to toe, his fingers running roughly along my trouser legs with that typical cop desire to find anything banned from the stands. Of course, nothing. I just gave him a sour, cocky smirk right to his face. I love that moment when you can clearly see the disappointment in their eyes because they came up empty handed, while they actually have no bloody clue that I've got two flares chilling comfortably down in my boxers right now.

Dean Stošić and Victor Tanasijević walked right past me, heavily loaded down with strobe lights tucked between their legs. In the end, we all made it through successfully. Nobody from the crew got caught during the pat down. For smuggling pyrotechnics, guys caught would often pay insane fines, and you could very easily earn yourself an official stadium ban for a full year. The riot police inside would constantly film us with their cameras and phones from a distance, hunting for the faces of the guys who lit flares during the match.

I knew that eternal game of cat and mouse more than well. I knew that just one single wrong move in the stands could separate you from what you love most for quite a long time.

"I'm heading down to Pedja for a sec. Meet you guys later by our fence," I tossed over my shoulder to the boys as soon as we cleared the gates and the crowd of security alongside the riot police.

"Alright, Steven. Go ahead," said John Ilić.

I broke away from the crew and headed down the concrete stairs, straight toward the glowing heart of the North stand. As I descended deeper, that well known, recognizable mix of alcohol and weed hanging thick in the air instantly hit me in the head. In this place, some desperately found comfort and temporary peace they never had at home, while others had been coming here since they were little kids, faithfully following in their dad's footsteps.

We all had the same desire here, bro. To purge all that pent up rage and negative energy through chanting, to empty ourselves completely through song and booze until our vocal cords completely gave out.

Pushing through the growing crowd and deafening noise, I spotted Marko at the bottom of the stand. He was leaning lifelessly against a metal fence, right where he had proudly stood a whole decade ago, leading the cheers of thousands of people.

He was the man who had basically been a street father to all of us. He had personally taught me how to keep my guard up, how to bare my teeth, and stay rock, solid whenever the asphalt got dangerous and ugly. But the Marko I remembered from my early youth days, that unstoppable, raw force of a man... Now he was just a pale, sad shadow of himself.

Today he was barely thirty years old, yet he looked like he had already lived two full lives and drawn the absolute shortest straw in both of them. His once clear and dangerous eyes were now clouded, bloodshot, and red, killed by who knows what cold beer in a row, and who knows what line snorted. The hands that once thrashed three hyped up guys at once without blinking now trembled slightly and helplessly as he tried to flick his lighter and spark a cigarette.

I watched him from the side and felt something viciously squeeze my chest from the inside. Is this really, damn it, the ultimate goal of all this? To end up just a walking monument to your own ruin in the place you loved most in life?

"Where you at, Marko, old house!" I walked up behind him and pulled him into a tight hug.

Under my arms, I could feel how much he had physically deteriorated, like hugging some rotting, dry wood covered in an old hoodie.

"Ooo, Steven... Where have you been, damn it? Haven't seen you around the neighborhood lately," he offered a slow smile, but that smile didn't reach his eyes at all. They were completely dead, empty, like extinguished floodlights on an abandoned pitch.

"Here, bro, hanging in there. You know how it is, Mom's been riding me hard about the new high school. She literally won't let me breathe with all the obligations and studying..."

"That little rat Ilija snitched on you, huh?" he threw out, and his voice suddenly carried that old Marko who despised rats and snitches even more than the cops themselves.

"Yeah, exactly, the little rat b***h. Anyway, forget that... How are you? How's the your little girl?" I asked him, and instantly bit my tongue.

I knew right away I had unwittingly stepped on his worst possible weak spot, but it was already too late to take the words back.

"Honestly, I don't know... Haven't seen my little girl in a month, bro. Neither of them even wants to look at me anymore."

I stared off to the side toward the pitch because watching him like that became unbearably hard. A man who once, with a single wave of his hand, could lead and lift thousands upon thousands of people to their feet now couldn't get a single, brief glance from his own child...

"Bro, she can't ban you from seeing your little girl," I said quietly, more to break this heavy silence than because I actually believed what I was saying.

"You've got a right to at least that much, damn it..."

Marko just offered a brief smile at my reasoning.

"Ah, my brother, you forget this is the 21st century. Women have all the privileges in the world..."

"I know, Marko. But... you can't just give up on everything so easily, bro."

"It's pointless, my brother. The kid loves her new step dad, she doesn't love me. And what the f**k use am I to her like this? Just look at me, Steven."

He spread his arms wide, while the half empty beer bottle rattled eerily in the inside pocket of his vest.

"Honestly... they're better off without me."

He paused for a second, and then his entire face hardened into a strange, painful resignation to fate. "They're happy, that's all that matters to me. And that happiness isn't me... Maybe in the end, this is for the best."

"Marko, you damn well know every kid from Pančevo loves and respects you," I said, desperately trying to pull his head out of that ditch, even a little.

"How many of us kids from the neighborhood did you pull out of the worst s**t and trouble?!"

"I did," he muttered bitterly, his voice sounding dry and raspy, like a rotting, blown out exhaust pipe.

"That's why I dragged you all into this same misery. There's no happiness for us, kids of the stands, Steven. You'll figure that out for yourself one day, remember what I'm telling you..."

"Ah, bro... It's not all that black."

"Anyway, have you seen Pedja?" I changed the subject. "I was heading out to look for him, bro."

"There he is, over by the Nišlije guys," he nodded toward a group of heavier hitters right at the bottom of the stand.

"They just caught some spy from Dorćol a minute ago."

"No s**t? Alright then, bro, I'm gonna go see what's going on. Catch you later, Marko."

I turned around and headed back through the dense crowd. Now, you're probably wondering, what the hell are spies doing in the stands? Yeah, Partizan fans had this frequent habit of deliberately sending their younger kids over to our North stand, mostly from mixed neighborhoods in Belgrade. Their job is to come, pretend to be Crvena Zvezda fans, watch, record faces with their phones, and snitch to their leaders about who from their neighborhood comes to the matches.

Afterwards, they hunt you down for it in your own neighborhood, wait for you in the evening outside your building, beat you with iron bars, and harass you for months until you break mentally and out of sheer misery switch over to their side. It was a brutal, dirty fan war that's been going on for decades.

I made my way all the way down to the Nišlije crew. Pedja was standing there, cool as a cucumber and visibly edgy, right in front of a kid who was kneeling in terror on the concrete floor, right behind the fence. The kid had already been seriously beaten up. His face was slowly swelling from fresh blows, and his eyes clearly held that panicked, animalistic fear you only feel when you realize you've knowingly walked into the wrong, dangerous territory and there's no saving you now.

"You like setting up your neighborhood buddies, huh, you little ape?" Ivke interrogated him furiously, getting right up in his face.

The kid might've been all of fifteen years old. Either way, whatever he asked for, he finally got... In the stands, years mean absolutely nothing if you've consciously chosen the wrong, traitorous path. So young, yet such a hardcore snitch rat...

I mean, imagine that brain. You walk into the opposing stand with the clear goal of snitching and taking pictures of people from your own hood, while genuinely thinking nobody among thousands of people is going to catch you? That, my brother, simply isn't done. I always hated those slimy little pricks more than anything in the world. The ones who can act like your best buddies for days, and then sell you out like a pig at a livestock market at the first opportunity for some pathetic, cheap points with others.

"Bro, I swear on my mother, it's not true... It's all just plain lies! I didn't set anyone up, dammit!" the kid defended himself panickedly, his voice trembling from sheer terror. His eyes were full of heavy tears mixing on his cheeks with the fresh blood from a cut lip.

"Oh really, lies? You seriously think I'm stupid and retarded, huh?!" Ivke snarled.

"We know one hundred percent you set up Pinki ten days ago," chimed in another older guy with that cold, flat tone that never leaves an ounce of room for any excuse.

"I didn't, dammit... I'm telling you, I have nothing to do with those guys from the South!"

"You didn't?!" Ivke got so pissed off at that moment that he backhanded him with a brutal slap right across the cheek. The loud crack echoed louder than a cannon firecracker.

"Look at this, you monkey!" Ivke's buddy angrily pulled his phone out of his pocket and shoved the screen right in front of his swollen nose.

In the photo, that very same kid was hanging out, arm in arm with Partizan fans in some nightclub, smiling, relaxed, and wearing their colors.

"Like, you pretend to support Crvena Zvezda and hold down our turf, and then during the week you hang out and drink with them?! Who the f**k do you think you're messing with?!"

"Come on, get up! Stop whining and sniffling there, you little b***h!" Pedja thundered at the kid, who partly from unbearable pain, and partly from sheer humiliation in front of the entire stand, started crying out loud, screaming.

From that slap, his left eye was already almost completely shut, turning purple, swollen, and bloody.

"Get him the f**k out of the stadium, right now!"

Pedja's words were final, and that was the end of any discussion. Two older guys grabbed him roughly by the collar and literally threw him out through the stadium gates like ordinary trash. I watched him briefly as they carried him out and thought to myself, if you can't take a bit of a beating like a man and keep your trap shut from the get go, then you definitely don't belong in this brutal environment. The stand simply wasn't for everyone. Down here, every cardinal mistake and betrayal is paid for immediately, brutally, and right on the spot.

"Where you at, Pedja," I walked up to him from the side as soon as the situation cleared up and held out my hand.

"Ooo, Pančevo! Where have you been, bro, you're harder to find than cash before the first of the month!" he laughed sincerely and pulled me into that familiar, tight brotherly hug.

"What's new over in your neighborhood? Did you guys calm down at least a little bit, huh?"

"You already know how it is, bro. There's always some tension on the streets, but we hold our line and don't let anyone close. I came down to the stand today to blow off some steam, this new school is driving me crazy with all the obligations," I said, my gaze already slowly drifting back down toward the grassy pitch where the players from both clubs were well into their warm ups.

"School, huh? Aw, forget that crap, bro. There's no bread to be made from school anymore in this country," Pedja laughed bitterly, but his focused gaze instantly drifted back toward the fence where the boys were just hanging our main, core banner "Delije Sever."

"Go explain that to my mom... She only cares what others will say about us..."

"Old folks, bro. It's always gotta be their way, or no way at all..."

"Anyway, alright, I'm heading back up to my crew. Catch you later, bro."

I turned around and started back up the steep concrete steps. Getting back to the opposite side of the stand was a lot harder than coming down. By now it was completely packed, literally down to the last spot, with nowhere left for a needle to drop.

As I slowly squeezed through the crowd, I carefully watched the faces of the people around me. You really saw everything there. Kids who were visibly shaking from sheer fan excitement, but also the oldest ones. The old school wolves who had survived both Bari and Tokyo, and to this day still proudly stood right there, in the exact same spot, with that exact same crazy fire in their eyes. Once again, against my will, my thoughts drifted back to Marko. Where does he actually fit into this whole story of ours? Are all these people around me just future, pale shadows of vice and the asphalt, or are we still something much more than that here?

And then my thoughts, completely uninvited, suddenly wandered straight toward Christina. Am I seriously thinking about her again out here, for f**k's sake?! I shook my head hard left and right as if trying to literally physically eject her image from before my eyes, but it just wasn't worth it. She's got to be around here somewhere tonight too, across from us over in that South stand, hidden somewhere deep among those stuck up school posers of hers. She's probably standing there in the kop, all glammed up, beautiful and smiling, barely waiting for the absolute madness on the pitch to start.

What a shame, an unbelievable shame. Such a good and pretty girl, yet she supports Partizan. That stupid thought stung me on the inside way more than the fresh cut on my lip and all those old scars I carry across my body.

"There he is, Steven! Damn it, where the hell have you been?!"

I suddenly felt a strong, buddy like grip on my right shoulder. John Ilić gave me a rough, manly shake from behind, and caught up in my own deep thoughts, I hadn't even realized when I managed to make it back up to our spot by the fence.

"Nah, I just got held up down there a bit..." I told him, completely calm, adjusting my hoodie. "Did all our boys from the crew make it inside in the end?"

"Yeah, bro, chill out, every single one of us is accounted for. Here's a cold one, knock back a beer real quick before it gets warm," John said, handing me a cold, sweaty can of Zaječarsko beer.

I popped the tab with a sharp snap, cracked it open, and took one long, cold gulp, feeling the alcohol slowly travel through my veins and pleasantly relax every tense muscle in my body. All that lingering tension vanished in a second, and the heavy thoughts finally lost themselves in the crowd.

I looked straight toward the South stand across the pitch. The Grobari were already raising their huge flags. Massive black and white canvases clashed wildly with the mild breeze at the top of their kop. That huge mass of theirs suddenly began to chant in unison, launching the first serious provocations directed at us. The song started up abruptly that well known, recognizable slow rhythm of theirs carrying a tone of pure, sincere hatred.

"And even if they offer me Crvena Zvezda, to f**k her for free, I wouldn't f**k her, the Gypsy bitch..."

Echoed loudly from the other side of the packed stadium. Individuals on our side of the kop whistled angrily at those verses, while most of us older guys just smiled gently and cold bloodedly at their standard taunt.

"Hey! Listen up, everybody! Let's make em hear us now!"

Pedja's deep voice through the loud megaphone cut through all the outside noise in the stadium like a sharp knife through taut skin. He stood proudly in his spot on the platform by the fence, at the absolute peak of his chanting duties. Every single guy in the stand knew exactly what came next...

"I really don't know what's going on here..." Pedja started slowly into the megaphone, and thousands upon thousands of ready throats joined him right at that damn second in a perfect vocal charge, literally ripping the air above Rajko Mitić apart.

"I really don't know what's going on here, you were Zagreb, now you're Torcida, Croatian genes are waking up again, cause your shadows are going wild behind Poljud!"

It thundered so hard the ground beneath our feet shook violently.

"Give that flag over here, fast!" John yelled at the top of his lungs beside me, expertly threading one of our standard collapsible telescopic poles through the tightly packed crowd.

With a routine, well practiced motion, John extended the pole all the way and immediately, without hesitation, snapped off the thinnest, most flexible top section. That little whip at the very end was honestly too weak for the stadium wind. It would just thrash around uselessly like an ordinary switch, and the whole banner would just bend and snap. As soon as he removed it, the long fishing pole gained a perfectly rigid, stable foundation right at the tip. We slipped the large canvas of our flag onto the pole without any trouble.

"Who's got the duct tape? Give it here, quick!" John said.

I pulled a wide, sticky roll out of the inside pocket of my hoodie. While he pulled the canvas taut like a man, I started wrapping it around the ends. First fast round, second, then third... The duct tape made that familiar, loud screeching sound as I pulled it tight with all my might around the slippery pole and the edge of the material.

"That's it. No way it's budging anywhere..." John said with satisfaction, raising it high above his head.

A huge red and white flag with the clear writing and crest of our crew started proudly unfurling and waving high above our heads. I watched, fascinated, as that canvas under John's hands moved powerfully left and right, clearly displaying every detail and line on the big cloth.