Zoo Station: The Story of Christiane F. (41 page)

The men were stubborn though. And when I looked at the two Tinas, I could understand their thinking. The Tinas didn't look very appetizing now that they were in full withdrawal. I went back to the girls and told them that the deal was off. But then the devil got inside of me. I took Stella off to the side and said to her, “The two Tinas won't be able to manage any customers in the state that they're in. Especially not these guys. Let's go with them. We'll get them going, and then the Tinas can come and finish them off. They're used to fucking customers anyway. We'll ask for a hundred marks and buy half a gram.”

Stella was on board right away—despite the fact that we'd always said that we'd never sink so low as to sleep with these foreign types.

So I went back over to the two Turks and suggested our plan, to which they immediately agreed. Only Detlef resisted. He was pissed and demanded to know why I was hell-bent on prostituting myself. I replied, “Oh, stop it, will you. I'm not doing anything. There's four of us.” I was telling myself that I was doing it all out of pity for the Tinas, and pity may have played a role. But I'm sure I was also interested at the time in getting my hands on some more dope.

I told the others that we'd have to go to the Hotel Norma in Nürnberger Street because they had the largest rooms. In the other hotels, they wouldn't let the six of us go up to a room together. Then off we went. And suddenly, there was a third guy following us. The other two explained, “He friend. Also to hotel.”

We let that slide for the moment and collected the hundred marks. Stella went off with one of the men to score some dope. She knew a dealer who sold the biggest half-gram packets on the scene. When she got back, all eight of us went strolling down Tauentzien Street together. All of us girls walked in front, arm in arm with Detlef, and behind us were the Turkish guys.

But there was some tension in the air. The two Tinas wanted the dope right away, and Stella wouldn't hand it over. She was afraid that once they had it, the Tinas would just take off. Besides, we wanted to shake off the new guy, who wasn't part of the original deal.

After a minute, Stella turned around, pointed to the third guy, and started in on all three of them together: “If that asshole keeps following along, then the whole deal's off. Got it!?” She had balls anyway, that Stella.

The three foreigners, however—who had their arms around each other's shoulders in a very collegial fashion—were unim-pressed. Stella then suggested we just cut and run. At first, I was all for it because it would be easy in my flat-soled shoes. (It was the first time in at least three years that I had worn flats, incidentally. I'd borrowed the pair from my sister.) But then I had second thoughts. I said, “We'll probably run into them again sometime, and then we'll be in for it.” I'd forgotten that this was supposed to be my last afternoon out here.

Stella was pissed. She stopped and waited for the foreigners to catch up, and then she tried once again to get them to stick to the original deal. We were just passing under the stairs of the
Europacenter, and after a pause I noticed that it'd gotten very quiet behind us. I turned around and Stella was gone. It was as if she'd been swallowed up by the earth. And the dope had gone with her. The three customers noticed this as well, and they looked pissed.

This was typical Stella. I was fuming. Suspecting that she had to have disappeared into the Europacenter, I sprinted up the stairs of the pedestrian bridge toward the center with Detlef right behind me. The two Tinas didn't get away though. The foreigners had grabbed them. When we got inside the complex, I went to the left and Detlef went to the right, running like lunatics. Not a trace of Stella. And now Detlef was gone, too, and on top of that, I felt guilty because of the Tinas. In the distance I could see them being dragged into a hotel by the Turks, and I had to wait for hours outside, all alone, until they finally came back. At that point, they at the very least deserved to get their share of the dope.

I had an idea where to find Stella. The Tinas and I took the subway to the Kurfürstendamm station. There wasn't much happening there because around this time of day the action moved to the club down the street. But we knew where to look and made a beeline for the station's bathrooms. As soon as we were through the door, I heard her. She was yapping at someone. This bathroom had a lot of stalls, but it was easy to find her. I banged against the stall door with my fists and yelled, “Stella, open this door right now, or else.”

The door flew open immediately and out she came. Little Tina slapped her across the face. But Stella, flying high, just said, “Here, here's your dope. I don't want any of it.” And with that, she was gone.

That was bullshit, of course. Stella had shot up a good quarter gram right away, just so that we couldn't get at it. But the two Tinas and I threw the remaining quarter in with the dope that we'd just bought and divided it all fairly amongst ourselves.

For me, it was more than enough. In fact, I had trouble getting up again from the toilet. We went to Treibhaus—the club down the street. There was Stella, doing her thing. She was negotiating with a dealer. We got right in her face and told her to give us the half-gram that she had taken. She coughed it up without a fuss. So she did feel a little guilty after all.

But I still let her know my mind. “You're a piece of shit, Stella. I never want to see you or have anything to do with you ever again.”

In the club, I shot up my share of Stella's dope and got myself a Coke. I sat alone in a corner. It was the first time since the beginning of this afternoon that I'd had some quiet time. For a moment, I was hoping that Detlef would turn up again. But at that point, it was too late: I'd started to do some thinking.

It all started harmlessly enough. I thought to myself, This is all so fucked. First your boyfriend ditches you, and then your best girlfriend rips you off. Friendships just can't exist among addicts. You're completely alone. You're always alone. Everything else is in your imagination. That whole terror this afternoon over just one shot. And what good did that shot do you. It wasn't anything special. Every day there's some new kind of terror. And for what?

It was a moment of real lucidity. I did have lucid moments sometimes—but only when I was on H. When I was sober, I was completely unreliable and irresponsible (as this day, among others, proved so clearly).

I sat there and continued to reflect on my existence. It wasn't at all dramatic. I was very calm about it—in fact, I couldn't have gotten animated even if I wanted to, with all that heroin in my system. I decided that there was no way I would be going back to the hospital. I mean, it was already after eleven o'clock.

I would've been kicked out anyway, and no other hospital would've taken me in. The doctor had told my mom that my
liver was about to go into cirrhosis.
⁴⁶
If I kept on going like this, he estimated that I had two years left to live—at most. As for the drug counseling center at the university, they were done with me. There was no point in even trying to call them since they would have heard all the news about me from the hospital. They were right not to take in someone like me. After all, there were plenty of addicts in Berlin who sincerely wanted therapy, and not everyone could get a spot. It made sense that they would only work with the people who wanted to help themselves out of their condition and who had enough willpower to really do it. I obviously was not such a person. I had probably started shooting up a bit too early to ever get clean again.

I was thinking very clearly. I looked soberly at the facts of my life and sipped on my Coke. Where should I go tonight? My mom would've slammed the door in my face. Or she would've called the police the next morning to pick me up and put me into a home. That's what I would've done if I was in her shoes. My dad was in Thailand. Stella and I were over. And Detlef—I didn't even know where he was sleeping that night, or with whom. If he was serious about getting clean, then he'd be at his dad's. And if that was the case, then he'd be gone again soon anyway. So I didn't even have a bed. Not for that night, and not for the next night either.

The last time I'd done some sober thinking, I'd come to the conclusion that I had two options: I had to either quit H for good and all, or I had to give myself the golden shot. The first option seemed like it was out. Five or six relapses were all the evidence I needed anyway. I was no better and no worse than any of the other addicts. Why should I of all people belong to the lucky subset of people who were able to get away from heroin? I was nobody special. I went onto the Ku'damm and took the subway to the Kurfürstenstrasse. I'd never done any whoring on the Kurfürstenstrasse at night. Girls avoided it at night because that's when the pros took over. I wasn't afraid though. I quickly did two customers and took the subway back to Treibhaus. With a hundred marks in my hand, I bought myself half a gram.

I didn't want to use the bathroom in Treibhaus for my shot or the one at Kurfürstendamm. There was too much activity over there at night. I got myself another Coke and thought about where I could go. The toilets at the Bundesplatz came to mind. There wasn't a soul there at night. Even in the mornings it was usually pretty quiet.

So I made my way over there. I wasn't panicking. I was totally calm. There's something really creepy about empty public bathrooms at night. But somehow I felt sheltered and safe when I got there. It was clean and bright. I had the whole place to myself. The bathrooms at the Bundesplatz are the best ones in Berlin. The toilet stalls are huge. There was one time when we crammed six of us into one stall. There's no space between the bottom of the doors and the floor, and there are no holes drilled into any of the walls. Because it was so nice and private, quite a few addicts had already killed themselves over here.

No old ladies, no peeping toms, and no cops. So there wasn't any rush. I took my time. I washed my face and brushed my hair before I cleaned the syringe that I'd borrowed from Tina. I was sure that half a gram would be enough. After the last few withdrawals of mine, a quarter of a gram had been sufficient to knock me out. And I already had more than a quarter in my system. My body was also pretty worn down from the jaundice. I would've rather had a whole gram though. Atze had done it with a full gram. But I couldn't face doing another two customers.

So with peace in my heart, I picked out the cleanest stall. I felt really calm. I wasn't scared. I'd never thought that committing suicide would be so prosaic. I didn't think about my past life. I didn't think about my mom. I didn't think about Detlef. I only thought about the shot.

I spread my stuff out around me in the stall like I always did. I put the dope on the spoon (another thing I'd borrowed from Tina), and suddenly realized that I, too, had ripped off Tina. She was sitting at Treibhaus right now, waiting for me to come back with her syringe and spoon. But there was nothing I could do about it now.

I'd forgotten to bring some lemon, but the dope was good and dissolved without it. I looked for a vein in my left arm. It was just like with every other shot I'd ever done, with the sole difference being that this was supposed to be my last one. On the second try, I hit the vein. I could see blood. Then I banged the whole half-gram into my arm. I didn't get a chance to pull back the plunger and shoot in the remainder. What I felt was how it first tore through my heart and then absolutely exploded through the roof of my brain.

When I woke up, it was light outside. The cars were making a huge amount of noise. I was lying next to the toilet. I pulled the plunger and the needle out of my arm. When I wanted to stand up, I realized that my right leg was somehow paralyzed. I could move it a little, but it made the joints hurt like hell. Especially my hip joint. Somehow I managed to open the stall door. I crawled at first, but then I pulled myself up. I could hop along the wall on my one good leg.

When I came out of the bathrooms, there were two boys out in front, both about fifteen or so. Satin jackets and skintight jeans. Two young gay boys. I was glad that they were gay. They literally caught me as I came hopping out of the bathrooms, looking like
a ghost. They immediately figured it out and one of them said, “Jeez, what the hell were you thinking?” I didn't know them, but they'd seen me at Zoo Station a couple of times. The boys brought me over to a bench. It was a freezing cold October morning. One of them gave me a Marlboro. I thought, Funny that these gay hipster-types are always smoking Marlboros or Camels. Must be because of all the attractive guys in the ads. Somewhere inside me, I was kind of glad that it hadn't worked with the half gram.

I told the boys the story of how Stella had ripped me off and explained that afterward I'd shot up a full half gram. They were very sweet and asked if they could take me anywhere. The question bugged me because I didn't want to have to think. I said that they should just let me sit on the bench. But I was shivering with cold, and they thought I should go see a doctor since I couldn't even walk.

I didn't want to go to any doctor. They said that they knew a really cool doctor, a gay guy, who could help me out. It reassured me that the guy was gay because in a situation like this I trusted them more. The boys hailed a cab and took me over to see this guy. It was just like they said: He was really cool. He let me lie down on his bed and examined me. He wanted to talk to me about heroin abuse and other stuff like that, but I didn't feel like talking to anyone. I asked him for some sleeping pills. He gave me one sleeping pill and some other medication as well.

Almost immediately afterward, my nose started to bleed again, and I started to run a fever. I slept for the next two days. When my brain started working again on the third day, I couldn't stand it anymore. I didn't want to think. I had to really pull myself together and work at it just to keep from going crazy. I was obsessed with just two thoughts: (1) God wasn't ready for me to quit yet. And (2), the next time you try something like that, be sure to take a full gram.

I wanted to get outside, out onto the heroin scene. I wanted to shoot up, wander around from person to person and group to group, and not think about anything again, until it was time to end things for real. I still couldn't walk normally. The doctor was really worried about me. When he realized that he couldn't hold me back anymore, he got me some crutches. I hobbled off on the crutches and then threw them into the bushes somewhere along the way when I got close. I didn't want people to see me with crutches. If I pulled myself together, I could still move around.