Zoo Station: The Story of Christiane F. (39 page)

Then I'd stroll by the shop windows of the big furniture stores located nearby on the Kurfürstenstrasse. But after a while, I couldn't stop myself from thinking about all of my old hopes and dreams with Detlef. And that just made me feel worse.

At that point, I was pretty much at the bottom of the heap— even for a longtime addict. If nothing was happening on the street and I wasn't getting any customers, I turned to crime. Just small stuff because I wasn't a born criminal and didn't have the nerves for it. When some junkie pals invited me to come along on a robbery, I chickened out. My most impressive deed to date—which required almost an entire bottle of vermouth beforehand—was when I smashed in a car window with some brass knuckles and stole a boom box. Other than that, I mostly just helped people transport or hide stolen goods. I also worked as a mule, transporting stolen merchandise for lifetime criminals. I put the stolen stuff into lockers at Zoo Station and picked it up again for them, too. For that I got twenty marks, at most. And when it came down to it, that was even more dangerous than stealing. But I'd totally lost all perspective at that point anyway.

At home, I lied to my dad and fought with Stella. I'd made an agreement with Stella that we'd split everything fifty-fifty: the jobs and the dope. That's what caused most of our fights. Because each of us believed that the other was ripping her off. It doesn't get much sadder than that, I don't think.

My dad had figured out, of course, what was going on with me. But by that point, he was at a complete loss as to what to do. And so was I. I knew, however, that my parents couldn't do anything to help me anymore.

I couldn't handle school any longer, even if I just sat there doing nothing. I also couldn't stand sitting around. I couldn't stand anything anymore. I couldn't fool around with customers, I couldn't relax on the scene with my friends, and I couldn't stand being around my dad.

So it had come to this: end-of-the-world doom and gloom. Thoughts of suicide. I recognized this situation, and I knew that it absolutely couldn't go on this way. But I was still too chicken to give myself the golden shot, the overdose. I was still looking for some way out.

That's when it occurred to me that I could voluntarily check myself into the asylum. That would be the Bonhoeffer Asylum, or Bonnie's Ranch, as it was called. This was pretty much the last option for a heroin addict. Bonnie's Ranch represented complete and utter horror to every junkie. On the streets, there was a saying: “Better four years in jail than four weeks at Bonnie's Ranch.” Some addicts who were forcibly admitted to Bonnie's after a breakdown would usually come back with horrific stories of their time there.

But, naïve as I was, I thought that someone would start paying attention to me there, especially if I checked myself in voluntarily and freely submitted myself to this horror. Then the youth welfare office, or whoever, would have to finally notice that I was a teenager who desperately needed help. And that her parents were completely incapable of helping her. The decision to go to Bonnie's Ranch was like a suicide attempt from which I was secretly hoping to wake up again so that everyone would say afterward: That poor girl. If only we'd taken better care of her. From now on, we'll do better.

Once I'd made that decision, I went to see my mom. At first she acted pretty distant. I mean, after all, she'd already written me off. But I couldn't help it: Right away I started crying, really crying. Then I tried to tell her my story, sticking to the truth as
best as I could. Then she also started crying, and took me into her arms and didn't let me go. We both cried so long, we cried ourselves happy. My sister was also really happy that I was back. We spent the night together in my old bed. And then, after that, I went into withdrawal again. Another, new withdrawal.

I'd lost count of how many withdrawals I'd been through at that point. If withdrawing was an Olympic sport, I probably would have medaled in it. I didn't know anyone else who'd voluntarily gotten clean as many times as I had. And on top of that, I'd done it even though I knew that it wasn't going to make any difference. My mom took time off from work again and brought me what I needed: Valium, wine, pudding, and fruit. On the fourth day, she took me to Bonnie's Ranch. I really truly wanted to go there since I'd realized in the meantime that I would have just started shooting up again right away.

As soon as we got there, I was forced to strip naked, and then I was pushed into a bathroom. They treated me like I was a leper. Two bathtubs were already occupied by two clearly insane old women. I was put into the third tub and was told to scrub myself. I had to do it under supervision. I didn't get my own clothes back afterward. Instead, they gave me a pair of underpants that stretched from my rib cage all the way to my knees and that I had to hold onto if I didn't want them to slide off me. And a pretty old granny nightgown. I was taken to the observation ward, where I was the only one under sixty. The ladies there were all very far gone—just totally crazy. There was only one exception. Everyone called her Dolly.

Dolly was busy all day with one job or another. All on behalf of the ward. She really made herself useful and relieved the nurses of all sorts of work. I talked to her, and she didn't seem insane; she was just a bit slow. I mean her thought process. She'd been there for fifteen years. Fifteen years ago, her brothers and sisters had committed her to Bonnie's Ranch. Apparently, she'd never
had any kind of therapy. She'd just always stayed in the observation ward. Maybe because she'd been making herself so useful there. I thought that something was very wrong if someone could be kept on the observation ward for fifteen years just because they happened to be a little bit slow.

On the first day, wasting no time, a whole team of doctors came in to inspect me. I guess most of the white coats were probably students, who brazenly gave me a once-over as I was standing there in my thin little nightie. The lead physician asked me a few questions, and I answered, very naïvely, that in a few days I wanted to do a therapy program and then go to a boarding school in Western Germany so that I could eventually take the college entrance exams. He kept just saying, “Yes, mm-hm, yes,” the way you would when talking to a lunatic.

When I was back in bed, I remembered a few jokes about lunatics. I wondered if I'd said or done something wrong that gave them the idea that I was yet another frothing maniac who thought he was Napoléon. I was suddenly scared that I'd never be able to leave the observation ward, just like old Dolly, and would have to doze away the rest of my days in my depressing hospital uniform.

After two days, I was transferred to B ward since I didn't have any withdrawal symptoms anymore. I got my clothes back and was even allowed to eat with a knife and fork again, instead of just with a baby spoon like in the observation ward. In B ward, there were three more addicts whom I recognized from the outside world. The four of us sat at one table, which one old nut immediately dubbed the “terrorists' table.”

One of the girls, Liane, had already done a lot of jail time. She said that Bonnie's Ranch was much worse than jail because in jail you could easily get some dope, whereas at Bonnie's Ranch it was almost impossible.

So far, it was kind of fun on Bonnie's Ranch because there were four of us. Still, I was starting to get a little panicky. The doctors wouldn't give me a straight answer as to when I could leave to start a drug therapy program. All they said was, “We'll see,” and whatever other platitudes they dispensed to the lunatics on a daily basis.

The agreement with my mom and the youth welfare office was that I'd be at Bonnie's Ranch for four days, to make sure that I was clean. And then I was supposed to get a spot in a therapy program. But I'd already done the withdrawal by myself and had arrived there almost clean. Nonetheless, nobody was talking about my spot in a therapy program anymore.

The big blow came after a couple of days. They brought me a document, which I was supposed to sign, stating I was voluntarily staying in the asylum for three months. Of course, I refused to sign and said that I wanted to leave immediately. I'd come here of my own free will and could leave whenever I wanted. Then the supervising doctor came and said that if I didn't sign off on staying for three months, he'd commit me to involuntary hospitalization for six months.

I felt totally conned. I got chills; I was so horrified. The truth hit me like a bolt of lightning: I was completely dependent on these idiotic doctors. I had no idea what kind of diagnosis they were manufacturing for me. They could say I had a severe neurosis or schizophrenia or who knew what. As a patient in an asylum, you didn't have any rights at all. I thought that I was going to become Dolly's heir.

The worst thing was that I myself wasn't convinced of my own sanity. I already knew that I was neurotic. I had learned through conversation with my drug counselors that an addiction is a neurosis, a compulsive action you can't control. I thought about all the things that I'd done. All those withdrawals I'd gone through, only to start shooting up again as soon as they
were over, even though I knew full well that it was the path to my own destruction, and that someday it would lead to my death. I'd fucked up every single thing in my life. I caused other people pain, including my mom. That wasn't normal. So I was kind of a maniac when you thought about it. Now it was just a matter of figuring out how I could hide my craziness from the doctors and nurses.

The nurses all treated me like an idiot—the same way they treated all the other patients in the ward. I pulled myself together—to an extent that I could hardly believe—and restrained my own impulses so that I stopped reacting in my usual aggressive way when they provoked me. When the doctors came and asked questions, I tried to give them the answers that they wanted to hear (despite the fact that it went completely against my nature to do so). I tried desperately to hide my real self and appear to be someone who was completely and totally “normal.” And once the doctors were gone, I was always convinced that I'd made a mistake and said the wrong thing. I was afraid that they'd seen through me and thought I was crazy for sure.

The only thing they offered me in terms of rehabilitation was knitting. I couldn't have cared less about knitting, and I didn't think it would help.

In front of the windows were iron bars, of course. But these weren't the normal kind of bars like you'd see in jail; no, these were nice, ornately curved bars—because this was no jail (obviously). But after a while, I realized that, if you twisted yourself just so, you could get your head through the curves in the bars and get a good look at the outside world. Sometimes I stood there for hours, the iron bars around my neck, just looking around. The season was changing to autumn, the leaves were turning yellow and red, the sun was low in the sky, and, for an hour each afternoon, it shone directly through two trees right in front of the window.

Sometimes I would tie one of the tin cups to a length of wool thread, let it dangle out of the window, and bang against the house wall. Or I'd try all afternoon to pull a branch close to the window using the wool thread, in order to get at a leaf. At night I thought, If you weren't crazy before, you've certainly gone crazy now. This was the place for it.

I wasn't even allowed to go into the little garden to walk in circles with the grandmas. Even a terrorist has a right to go outside once a day. Not me though. I was considered a flight risk. And I was. Damn right.

In an old cupboard, I found a soccer ball. I kept kicking it again and again against a locked glass door, hoping that it would break the glass. But then they took the soccer ball away. Then I rammed the glass with my head. But of course it was made of reinforced glass. I felt like a wild animal in a tiny cage. Like a tiger, I prowled along the walls for hours. Once, I thought I couldn't stand it anymore. I just had to run. And so I just started running. Always up and down the hallway. Until I couldn't take another step and literally collapsed.

I got hold of a knife, and at night Liane and I scratched and scraped at the putty of a window that was locked but not barred. The glass pane didn't move an inch though. The next night, we took a bed apart and tried to break the bars of an open window. Before we started on this plan, we intimidated the old ladies in the room to such a degree that they didn't dare make a peep. Some of them actually thought we were terrorists. The plan didn't work though since the bars were so strong. And anyway, we made so much noise that the night watch caught on pretty soon.

The way I was acting pretty much eliminated any chance that I would ever get free of this insane asylum. I kept sliding further and further downhill. The only thing that seemed to be doing okay without drugs was my body. In other words, I got chubby. But my skin was pasty, and my face looked at once sunken
and puffy. In the mirror, I looked like someone who'd been at Bonnie's Ranch for fifteen years already. I hardly slept. That was no surprise. Almost every night there was some huge commotion on the ward. And I also didn't want to miss a chance to escape. Although it all seemed so hopeless, I still made myself look nice every morning—like I was ready to go out. I brushed my hair with incredible patience, put on makeup, and slipped on my nicest jacket.

At one point, someone finally came by from the youth welfare office. Like everyone else, he just said, “Okay, well, let's see.” But he was at least able to tell me where Detlef was being held and his case number. As soon as he left, I sat down and wrote just page after page after page. And as soon as I handed in my first letter, I started to write another one. Finally, I was able to talk to someone again. But still, I had to watch what I said since all the letters were reviewed. Probably at Bonnie's, but definitely at the jail. So I had to diligently continue constructing my string of lies in the letters. I had no interest in drugs. I felt no cravings. And so on.

I got a whole pile of letters from Detlef, too, all at once. He wrote that he'd fucked up royally when he stole those Eurochecks from that customer. But that he'd only done it so that he could go to Paris to quit. He'd wanted to surprise me with it because the two of us could've never done it together. Detlef wrote that he'd be released soon, and then he'd go into a therapy program. I wrote that I'd also be going into therapy soon, too. And we both wrote that after our therapy programs we'd get an apartment together. So once again, we were busy cooking up our imaginary paradise where we'd live together after all of our problems had been solved. But when I wasn't writing to Detlef, I was convinced that I'd spend the rest of my life right here at Bonnie's Ranch.