My Latest Encounter with Bernhard

Summary

Ifought with a police officer. Once again after a long time. Like in the demonstrations from the 1970s, I felt the heavy, rough cloth of the police uniform. And the arms underneath it. The arms that kept pressing my companion against the wall.

My companion had said to the police officer, “you're not going to talk with me in this manner,” since the officer had kicked him in the ass and yelled at him “Get up” in the tone of a military boot camp. Instead of replying to his “you're not going to talk with me in this manner,” the police officer had immediately grabbed my companion and pressed him against the wall. Instantly. Without a word. I began pulling at the officer. I threw myself over the arms of the officer so that he would let go of my companion. It looked like a real fight. The two men were already heavily entangled with one another. I was hungry. I wanted to go out and eat. I didn't fell like spending the night at the police station. Statements and the like. And how they inflate themselves in front of you, making it clear to you that you are all alone with them. I wanted to leave. Leave the police officer behind who, as anyone could tell, was trying to make out what type of people we were. And whether he should really lunge at us. Or not. After long indecision. The police officer couldn't make up his mind. We finally got away. I pulled my companion away. Dragged him down the stairs from the balcony on the left in the Akademietheater. My companion is from Frankfurt. He does not know the power of the civil servant's oath here. The police officer had a lot of gold on his uniform. There were no witnesses. The man in the coat check area had immediately disappeared. Escape was the best solution. Particularly because of dinner.

This whole incident happened after a performance of Thomas Bernhard's Claus Peymann kauft sich eine Hose und geht mit mir essen at the Akademietheater. Recently. It must have been a so-called Theaterpolizist who responded to the sentence “you're not going to talk with me in this manner” with violence.