For a long time when I was a child, I couldn’t decide what I wanted to be when I grew up. Let’s say there is nothing crazy new about this, I think almost all children are like that. And of course, I could also say that I wasn’t even sure if I wanted to grow up at all, but no matter how cool and edgy that sounds, it wouldn’t be true. I was convinced that being a child is basically a painful situation, you can never do what you want, but instead you have to deal with a lot of boring things, and in the meantime, you are regularly chirped from all directions, rightfully so, because you are chirpy yourself, and so on.
So I wanted to grow up as soon as possible, I just had to figure out that one little thing about what I would become. I had quite the palette, but I had to choose between the archaeologist, the paleontologist, the historian and the astronomer. For a while I thought about archaeologists that they were all like Indiana Jones, then when I went on a dig during a summer vacation due to some parental connection, I realized that wheelbarrows were not for me, and migration-era bones sticking out of the ground were not for me. To compensate for this, as a future astronomer, I discovered a star with an amateur GDR-made telescope mounted on the balcony of our block of flats, but despite my enthusiasm, before I could announce the results of my space exploration to the world, our geography teacher, who stubbornly stuck to the facts, informed me that there was nothing special about what I was talking about, it had been discovered a long time ago, it was actually a planet, and its name was Jupiter.
It was also a big disappointment when I found out that in prehistoric times, the territory of Hungary was mostly covered by sea, but I wanted to dig up Tyrannosaurus skeletons, not those of tiny sea animals. When I whispered to my crush throughout high school that I wanted to be a historian, to my great heartache, he replied that he hated history, so I was forced to drop that as well – not that I fell in love with him.
Fortunately (at least I thought) all was not lost. As a rescue idea, I thought I could be a football player or a lead guitarist, in which case I would even be more famous than Indiana Jones. I was so happy about this that from then on, I radically broke with my previous habits and spent every afternoon playing football on the concrete playground of the housing estate surrounded by a steel wire fence. I also bought a guitar with my Easter money. It wasn’t an easy decision, originally Stephen, the kingI wanted to buy it on tape, and then I was like, I can write a rock opera after all, but I can’t make a guitar by myself, twenty years earlier my father’s knife broke, even though he was a full-blooded handyman, he also did my homework assignments from the technology subject from the hip, I always got five for it, even though the teacher knew that it was not the work of my two left hands.
The point is that I planned the whole thing nicely. According to them, I naturally started my football career in the Honvéd, which dominated the domestic field in those years. I could have been a controlling midfielder, with the number ten on my back, but I politely left this position to Détári, I went forward as a left winger. I also figured out that I could also play as a left-footer on the right wing, thus also confusing the opponents. Well, there is nothing new under the sun, Czibor did the same. Anyway, they quickly noticed my talent, I was quickly invited to the national team, and then with the national eleven, we not only made it to the World Cup, but also won it. Well, that’s really an exaggeration, I only got the guys to the bronze medal in futsal, that seemed more realistic, let’s stay here. At the same time, it dawned on me early on that my options were limited. How many times and how many times did I hear later, but from time to time – of course, by no means shouting out loud – even then that “if he was born in the West, he could have been a world star”. I wouldn’t say that I was fully aware of the meaning of this, but I did have some inklings about the limitations posed by political, social and economic-financial conditions, despite the fact that from the West I was mostly familiar with the Mariahilferstrasse in Vienna and the Munich campsite, as well as the West German and American crime film series shown in the industry.
Well, after all, Öcsi Puskás also won the European Champions Cup three times with Real Madrid, not with the Budapest Honvéd. I didn’t insist on how to get out to the West, at that time that kind of thing was already allowed, you just had to meet a certain age. However, I had no time to waste. I was there once and that’s it. Things didn’t want to come together. After some hustling, a Bundesliga team signed up for me, but not from the top flight. But it is also conceivable that it was a Belgian club, that could have been a chance for the podium.
In the first games, the game went relatively well, then a new coach arrived, who had different ideas, and I didn’t fit into them or the team. I had to stand back and lower and lower the bar. Back home, I could not have imagined that I would play in a lower division, but here I had no other choice, after all, this is the West. Then some old bribery case came up, I was banned, and after that nobody needed me at all. I know, it’s confusing, but I can’t put it any better than I trudged home like a beaten army. But at least I could say that I was born under an unfortunate constellation, if I had fallen into that world in the first place, everything would have turned out differently. For example, I wouldn’t keep bumping into walls.
My band and I (this was the other plan) got together for a couple of performances in Western Europe. By that time, we gave several successful concerts not only at home, but also in other parts of Central Europe, our records were bought like sugar, and our songs not only topped the charts, but also received serious critical acclaim. It was icing on the cake that a good number of people came to see us in the West as well, even though they didn’t know our name very well, all they could know about us was that we came from some exotic place, the Wild East. A producer noticed us and booked us studio time. We started to play our songs that were very successful at home in English, when they told us to play something else, the hits here are different, they are not the ones we are used to. Of course, if we were born in the West, we could have known this from the start.
The record was finished anyway, we even ran into Ringo Starr in the studio, that is, once a bearded guy waved at us from behind the mixing desk, they later said it was him. There was also talk of a western tour for a record presentation, but we had to come home. I mean, yes for the others, but I – one life, one death – remained. The producer promised that he would arrange for me to make my own record, but before that I should play a bit here and there, get used to the atmosphere, them and my name. I stood in as a session musician for some artists, while I went to the nearby record store, I watched how our album sold out. I bought one from time to time, just don’t send it back to the warehouse. Session music didn’t pay very well, I had to go into catering. When I came back, the producer was gone, in the studio they acted as if they didn’t know me, and they didn’t know about my solo album at all. I tried to reason and manage myself, but I only spoke the language in a broken way.
The following summer, I stood on the main square with an inside-out baseball cap and a string of guitars, and when a group of Hungarian tourists started throwing the coins, I started playing one of our old hits. Then they finally recognized me, asked for autographs, and took pictures. I came home a few weeks later. I couldn’t return to my old band, they took someone else in my place, but at least my own album came together at home. It wasn’t a resounding success, but it proved to be enough that later, in my old age, I was invited to the jury of star-seeking shows, and I was also able to perform here and there, with playback of course.
So, the whole thing was kind of planned. There was only one snag: I ran into limitations not only because I was born here in Lajtán, but also because certain abilities turned out to be more than finite. I started with the rock opera, but I had to stop after the second act, because I felt that the songs I had made up to that point were too lame. Not to mention that even though I managed to learn a few chords, and after a while my fingers didn’t get tangled in the changes, I was unable to play anything just by hearing it, unless someone wrote down the chords for me beforehand. And that, let’s face it, is not enough for a career as a rock musician.
My career as a football player seemed to come to a screeching halt when the self-appointed team captains always chose me last on the playground – at a time when there was no one else left. But then what is left for me? A few years after my plans went up in smoke, I ran into a former classmate on the street. By then I had already published one or two books. The guy opened by asking if I still write. I didn’t like that phrase, but I couldn’t help but say yes. “I thought you’d already grown out of it,” came the answer immediately, and then he took the final bite: “Although I think you’re writing because you play soccer shitty.” Now should I say that he was right?
