Zoo Station: The Story of Christiane F. (29 page)

I KEPT DRUGS OUT
of my conversations with other people, and I also did a pretty good job of keeping them out of my mind entirely. I didn't want to ruin this pretty little movie I was taking part in. There was one exception though: Right after I arrived at my grandma's place I wrote a letter to Detlef asking him to send me some dope (for which I also included twenty marks). It showed just how hollow my earlier lectures about quitting were, but I couldn't help myself. I managed not to mail the letter, though, because I figured that Detlef would just spend the money on himself anyway.

I let my cousin show me around like I was a tourist and visited castles and other fortresses in the area, and I also went horseback riding almost every day. I went down into the quarry
(which had once belonged to my grandpa), too, along with the other kids. My grandpa had literally sold the quarry and used the proceeds to fund his drinking habit. He drank himself to death eventually. That's the environment my mom grew up in.

My grandma told me that somewhere in the quarry there was a room, locked up behind an iron door, that contained all the old family documents. And so we spent almost every night searching for that door. Sometimes the workers would forget to take the key out of the backhoe. Then we would drive all over the quarry with that thing.

I got along really well with my cousin who was the same age as me. I told her about how much I loved Detlef, and she reacted as if it were a completely normal teenage romance. I also told her that we'd already slept together, and she didn't see anything wrong with that—she thought that was totally okay.

My cousin said that there was a boy from Düsseldorf that she had a crush on. He always came up to where she lived on camping trips in the summer. He had wanted more from her, but she had stayed firm. She asked me if I thought that was dumb.

I told her of course not. It was absolutely her decision, and if she didn't want that camper to touch her, then she shouldn't let him. She should wait until she found someone who she really wanted to do those things with.

Everyone up there came to me for help with their problems. I turned into a regular “Dear Abby” for my cousin and her friends. I didn't mind though. I felt pretty comfortable doling out advice, especially when it came to adding some perspective to their trivial little issues and concerns. In fact, almost all their problems seemed ridiculously insignificant to me. But I always listened, and I always had some ready advice. There was nothing I was afraid to confront with these kids, but when it came to my own problems, I was helpless.

Detlef called me one night—and I was so excited and happy I could hardly stand it. He said that he was at a john's place—that's why he was able to call me. We talked for a really long time, thanks to this guy's generosity.

I told Detlef about my awful withdrawal experience and about how this time I'd almost gone insane. He said that he hadn't quit yet. It was just so sad. I was looking forward to seeing him again. I asked him if he could write me once more like he promised. Detlef said that he really didn't feel like it. But he'd call me the next time he came back to this john's apartment.

After our phone call, I felt reassured that I was as good as married to Detlef. We belonged together—no matter what sort of shit he got himself into. At night, before falling asleep, I'd spend several silent minutes sending good thoughts to Detlef. Praying almost. And I counted down the days until I'd be with him again.

My grandma gave me a regular allowance, and I saved every penny. I wasn't sure why. Saving money had never been my thing. But once I'd saved up forty marks, I couldn't deny what I was up to anymore. I was really proud of having saved so much and put it away in a safe place. Forty marks was the price of a shot. Forty marks was what I charged my customers. Forty was the magic number for me.

Once I'd realized what I had in mind, I reprimanded myself for stockpiling drug money even while I was working to stay clean. And then, to drive the point home, I went into town and bought myself a T-shirt for twenty marks, just to get away from that damned number forty! I'd come to my grandma's house with the sole intention of getting clean. I never wanted to shoot up again. That was the whole point—to get away from that life for good.

As the month came to an end, my mom called and wanted to know if I wanted to come back or stay a while longer. Without
a second thought I told her I was ready to come back. Maybe if she had asked if I wanted to spend the rest of my life out there, I would have thought more about it. But since I knew that it was only a temporary state of affairs one way or the other, it just seemed like it had all been a kind of a dream—a nightmare at the beginning, but in the end a sweet, gentle, beautiful dream. But now it was over. After four weeks, it was time for me to get back to Detlef.

The first thing I did on the day that I was supposed to head back was to change back into my old set of clothes. My grandma and my cousin tried to convince me to stick with that old pair of checkered kids' pants (which at that point fit me perfectly again), but that was never a real possibility. Instead, I squeezed myself into my skinny jeans. The seams could hardly handle it, and there was no way in hell I could get the zipper up all the way. I slipped on my black men's blazer, and my favorite pair of high-heeled boots. So before I'd even left my grandma's house, I was already looking heroin chic. Or at least the best I could manage. I took the train back to Berlin with my pants undone.

The next afternoon I went straight to Zoo Station. Detlef and Bernd were both there. Axel, however, was not. I figured he was off with a customer.

The two boys gave me a huge welcome. They were genuinely happy to see me. Especially Detlef. I said, “So, you got a good job and dropped the dope?” All three of us laughed. I asked, “How's Axel?”

The boys looked at me kind of strange, and after a while Detlef said, “Haven't you heard? Axel's dead.”

That knocked the wind out of me. I couldn't breathe for a while. “You're joking,” I said between gasps. But I already knew that it was true.

Axel.

I'd spent most of my weekend nights with Detlef over at Axel's place. He always put clean sheets out for me, even though the rest of the house was always a mess. He kept up a steady supply of yogurt for me, and I always brought him his beloved canned tuna. He was always willing to hear me out whenever I had any problems or whenever I had a fight with Detlef. He was never angry or aggressive with anyone in our clique, and even though I was pretty guarded with everyone else, I could even cry in front of him. And now he was gone. “Why?” I asked.

Detlef said, “They found him in some public toilet stall with a needle in his arm.” For the two boys, Axel's death was already old news. But they seemed uncomfortable talking about it.

I couldn't stop thinking about the goddamn tuna fish. Suddenly I realized that Detlef might have also lost his place to sleep, so I asked him if he was still staying at Axel's place.

“His mom has already sold the apartment,” Detlef answered. “I'm staying with one of my customers.”

“Oh, shit,” I said. I just blurted it out because at that moment I thought that I'd lost Detlef to one of his customers for good. The fact that Detlef was living with a john hit me almost as hard as Axel's death.

“The guy I'm staying with is pretty all right. He's still young, in his mid-twenties, and he's still kind of in shape, too. I've already told him about you. You can sleep over there, too.”

We took the subway over to where we knew some dealers would be selling since Detlef needed a hit. We kept running into people we knew, and whenever we did I would say to them, “Doesn't that just fucking suck about Axel.” But the others didn't react at all. So I just kept muttering the same thing over and over to myself.

After scoring some dope, we went to the public bathrooms on Bülow Street.
³²
Detlef wanted to take care of business right away. I came along to help, but I was also hoping Detlef would offer me some—I wanted to turn it down, just to show him that I was strong enough to do it. But I didn't get my chance because Detlef never offered me any.

The thing with Axel shocked me to the core, and I was having a problem processing it. When Detlef was cooking up his dope, I suddenly got this insane craving. This is some serious shit with Axel and with Detlef, I thought, and a shot will help you out—plus it's not like one little shot means anything. You don't become an addict again just like that.

Detlef said, “Are you serious?! You want to get high? I thought you'd quit.”

“Course I did,” I replied. “But that's not a big deal. It's easy to quit. After all, while I was away getting clean, you did the same thing, right? But whatever. I'm just freaking out a little bit after hearing what happened to Axel. I just want a little shot.”

“Yeah—quitting's not a big deal. I could have done it, too, I just didn't feel like it. But I'm just saying, if you're clean now, you should stay clean and not start up again now.”

While we were talking—and despite what he was saying—he finished shooting up himself and left a little bit for me, too. After being clean for so long that little shot was enough to get me a little high. I almost forgot all about Axel. Almost.

I went from sobriety to full-blown addiction way faster than I did the last time. My mom was clueless though. It took me a while to lose those extra pounds, and she was happy about how healthy I looked.

If I wanted to see Detlef now, then I had to head over to Rolf's house. That was Detlef's client—the guy he was staying with. There was nowhere else we could go to sleep together anymore. I didn't like Rolf though. He was totally in love with Detlef, and as a result he was really jealous of me. He loved it when we'd fight, and he always took Detlef's side. That drove me crazy. Detlef treated Rolf like his own personal servant—like a submissive wife or girlfriend. He sent him shopping and let him do all the cooking and cleaning. That pissed me off too, because I would've liked to do some of those things for Detlef myself.

So one afternoon I told Detlef that it just wasn't working out. The three of us just didn't make a good team. It was like Rolf was the third wheel on the wagon. But Detlef said he didn't have anywhere else to go. He said that Rolf was basically an okay guy, and it was nice to work for someone who wasn't a huge asshole.

Detlef did what he wanted with Rolf. And when he was angry or annoyed, he'd tell him bluntly, “Just be grateful that I stick with you.” And Detlef only slept with Rolf if he needed money really badly.

Detlef and I slept in a bed in the same room as Rolf. When we had sex, Rolf would watch TV or just turn away from us. He was gay and didn't want to see us together. I guess all three of us were pretty fucked up.

I couldn't shake the idea that Detlef was going to “become gay” if he kept sleeping with men. There was one night in particular when I thought that it had finally happened. Detlef needed money, so he had no choice: He had to sleep with Rolf. I lay in the other bed. Detlef had turned off the light just like he always did when I was there and he had to satisfy Rolf because he needed to earn some money. The whole thing seemed to take a really long time. And at one point I thought I heard Detlef moaning. I stood up and lit a candle. Both of them were going at it under the
blanket. It seemed like they were both touching each other. (That was against the rules. Detlef and I had an agreement: No one was allowed to touch us.) So I was insanely pissed off. So pissed off that I wasn't even able to articulate what I actually wanted. I just said, “You guys seem like you're having a lot of fun over there.”

Detlef didn't say anything, but Rolf was furious. He blew out my candle and kept Detlef with him for the whole night. I cried silently into my pillow all night because I didn't want the other two to hear how much this affected me. The next morning, I was so upset that I honestly considered leaving Detlef. The heroin was undermining our relationship at every turn, but we weren't even aware of it. We couldn't see what it was doing to us.

It was clear to me now that as long as we were on H, Detlef would never be totally mine. I would have to share him with his customers—especially Rolf. In my case, of course, it was different. I sold myself at Zoo Station every day, and since I was under more serious time constraints, I didn't have the luxury of picking and choosing all my customers. At this point, there were a lot of times when it was the clients—and not me—who set the terms of our agreement.

In order to keep away from Rolf, I started to spend more time again with the other people in our clique—especially with Babsi and Stella. But it was getting to be more difficult to get along with them as well. Everyone wanted to just talk for hours about themselves; nobody cared what was going on with anybody else. Babsi, for example, was going on and on about the weird punctuation on traffic signs, while Stella and I wanted to talk about how a dealer ripped us off (he gave us flour instead of dope). We told Babsi to shut up, but after Stella and I had gotten control of the conversation we wound up fighting with each other over who would get to tell the rest of the story.

Most of our conversations ended with someone yelling, “Shut up!” We were all desperately in need of someone who could listen
to us. But that person just didn't exist—at least not in our circle of friends. There was no real communication amongst us anymore. The only time anyone paid any attention was when we were talking about the cops. We were all united in our opinion against the fucking cops. I was actually a bit more developed than the others in that respect because in the early summer of 1977 I'd already been arrested for the third time.

It happened at Zoo Station. Detlef and I were just coming back after an encounter with a customer. He'd given us 150 marks just to watch us. So we were pretty happy, each of us with a quarter of dope in our pocket and plenty of cash left over. I saw them first, the cops pouring onto the platform. It was a drug raid. A train was just pulling in, and I was running down the platform in total panic. Detlef, not thinking clearly at that moment, ran after me. As I jumped onto the last car of the train, I ran right into an old man. He said, “Fucking zombie hag! Watch where you're going!” He really said that. Thanks to the newspaper coverage, almost everyone seemed to know what was going on at Zoo Station. So even the drones in the subway realized quickly that this was a drug raid in progress.