Gerade gelesen: Charles Willefords "Looking For a Street", seine Kindheits-Erinnerungen. Klingt nicht spannend, ist aber eines der wenigen wirklich makellosen Bücher, die ich kenne. Zitiert wird auf dem Klappentext der "New Yorker": "Mr. Willeford never puts a foot wrong" – und genau so würde ich das auch sagen. Nichts kommt hier groß daher und diese Bescheidenheit ist niemals falsch. Lakonisch, im Blick auf die Dinge, die ihm widerfahren sind, von einer unbestechlichen, im Grundton freundlichen Genauigkeit. Was ihm widerfährt, ist der Tod seines Vaters, da ist er zwei, ist der Tod seiner Mutter, da ist er acht, ist ein Leben auf der Straße für einige Zeit während der amerikanischen Depression. Die Perspektive des Erzählers ist die des Kindes, aber auf eine Weise, die ich so noch nicht kannte. Unterstellt nämlich bleibt die Gültigkeit der Beobachtungen, in der Naivität liegt hier nicht Blindheit oder Ahnungslosigkeit, sondern eine durch nichts einzuschüchternde Unerschrockenheit. Ich möchte sehr viel daraus zitieren, aber ich beschränke mich auf zwei Stellen. Dabei ist das Buch voller Passagen wie dieser, die dem Leben nichts an Bedeutung unterstellen:

I also practiced, until I could do it quickly and easily, rolling a cigarette with Bull Durham tobacco and brown wheat-straw papers, using only one hand. I had plenty of extra papers, and I sat cross-legged on my cot, with a spread newspaper to catch the loose flakes of tobacco, and practiced it until I had it down perfectly. This is no great achievement, but it is a trick greatly admired by those who witness it, particularly by my fellow soldiers when I later joined the regular Army. The trick is to roll a thin cigarette instead of a fat one, and to make certain there is a deeply hollowed space in the center of the little pile of tobacco in the paper before rolling it between forefinger, stiff middle fingers, and the thumb. The thumbnail should be at least a quarter-inch long beyond the tip, because the nail does most of the work. Anyone who has twelve or fifteen hours to spare can learn easily how to roll a cigarette with one hand.

Nichts Besonderes? Eben. Umgekehrt wird auch das Besondere als ganz Unbesonderes geschildert – und das hat erst recht seine Richtigkeit. Hier noch die Szene, wie Willeford seine Unschuld nicht verlor:

Pablito brought me a bottle of beer, my first, which I was unable to finish. I couldn't abide the bitter taste. After eating a few tacos with him, I left the cantina and walked to the far edge of town to the house of blue lights. This was purported to be the best whorehouse in Agua Prieta. There were several girls in the bar area, and they formed a rough line when I came in to look them over. When I hesitated, unable to make a decision, one of them selected me by grabbing my hand. She was a young woman, mocha-colored, with wide soft hips, a white blouse, and a long red skirt. We went outside and around to the other side of the building where each girl had a separate room with a private door to the dirt street. She closed the door and took off her skirt and blouse. She then knelt in font of a garishly colored magazine illustration of Jesus Christ on a cross. The picture was lighted from below by a candle in a blue glass. She crossed herself, rose, came over to where I was standing, and checked my cock for V.D. I didn't get an erection. She then washed my cock with a dishcloth, using a sliver of soap and a shallow panful of tepid water. I still didn't respond, and knew that I would not, regardless of what she tried to do to me. (...) The woman hadn't been surprised, nor did she make any effort to keep me in the room. She assumed, I supposed, that I had already been with a girl earlier in the evening. But I had not, of course. Her keeling posture in front of the religious picture, and then crossing herself before grabbing my cock had sent chills down my back. Although I was not a religious person, there was no way that I could commit fornication in the same room with a shrine. My chances of finding a Protestant woman in Agua Prieta were negligible, so I knew I must wait to commit the big sin with some indifferent Jewish or Protestant woman back in the States. I was not a Catholic, so I was not concerned with the state of my so-called soul, but I was concerned deeply with the state of that Catholic whore's soul. I could not, knowingly, contribute to her execution of a mortal sin.

Dieses Buch ist ein Schatz und man kann es einzeln oder derzeit ganz unerschwinglich zusammen mit Willefords Militär-Erinnerungen "Something About a Soldier" kaufen, in einer schlampigen Book-on-Demand-Ausgabe mit dem Titel "Collected Memoirs" (auf dem Buchrücken heißt es freilich "Collected Memiors"). Das ist natürlich besser als nichts und doch eine Schande. Aber so ist das.