Zoo Station: The Story of Christiane F. (40 page)

But eventually, a real chance opened up for me. An old infection started giving me some problems again, and I told the
doctor repeatedly that I needed to go to a hospital for an operation because the pain was getting to be more than I could stand. Then one morning I was taken to the Rudolf-Virchow Hospital, escorted by guards who were instructed to keep a close eye on me. After the medical exam, they decided to keep me in the hospital because it was really quite bad. I'd already gotten some solid information about how to escape from there. I finagled a park pass for myself—which wasn't easy; trust me. Not if you're an addict. But I had a trick up my sleve. I walked up to a really sweet nurse and told her that I wanted to take one of the old ladies for a walk. She was stuck in her chair, so I would help to push her around in a wheelchair. The nurse didn't suspect a thing and thought it was incredibly sweet of me.

I grabbed one of the old ladies, who thought I couldn't be sweeter. I pushed her out into the park and said, “Wait a sec, grandma. I'll be right back.” And a few seconds later, I was over the fence.

I ran to the Amrumer Street subway station and then made my way over toward the Zoo. I'd never felt so free in my entire life. I dove immediately back into the scene at the University cafeteria. I flitted around a bit, getting a sense of what was happening and then sat down next to three young dudes on a bench. I told them that I'd just escaped from Bonnie's. That impressed them.

I was dying for a shot. One of the boys was a dealer. I asked if I could barter with him or have some on credit. He said I could if I'd help him negotiate some deals. I agreed. So he gave me some, and right away I gave myself a shot in the cafeteria bathroom.

It was less than an eighth, and the dope wasn't that good, but it still improved my mood. I still had a good grasp on things and had my head on pretty straight. Which was a good thing because I was still supposed to negotiate for this guy. He was still kind of young, and I knew him a little from the pot scene at the park. He was still in school, about sixteen. It was obvious to me
that he didn't have much experience with dealing; otherwise, he wouldn't have given me the shot before I had paid him back with some work.

Suddenly, I sensed undercover cops all over the place, just outside the cafeteria. The guy didn't notice a thing. I had to go right up to him and whisper, “Cops!” before he finally caught on. I started walking slowly in the direction of the Zoo, and he padded after me. When a junkie came toward me from the station, I said, “Better stop right here. There's a raid going on at the cafeteria. But I can get you some first-class stuff.” The boy dealer came up at once and actually took all of his dope out of his pocket and said that the guy was welcome to try some. I couldn't fucking believe my eyes. There's a raid going on a block behind us, and this moron pulls his whole supply of dope right out of his pocket.

Right away, two cops (who'd obviously been lying in wait) trotted up to us. Running made no sense. This rookie of a dealer was just throwing his little baggies all around him. Purple foil fluttered everywhere. Apparently, he thought that he could pin it on me or the other guy and kept blabbing about how he had nothing to do with it.

We had to lean up against a VW, arms up in the air, and were searched for weapons, even though none of us was older than sixteen. The asshole cop felt me up while he was at it. But I stayed totally cool. After all, I'd had my fix, and after Bonnie's, nothing could rattle me. I immediately adopted the persona of the polite and well-brought-up child. That prompted them to be very friendly when taking down my personal information. One of them said to me, “Listen girl, you're barely fifteen; what the heck are you doing here?” I said, “Window-shopping,” and lit up a cigarette. That got him angry: “Hey, throw that butt away. That's poison at your age.” So I had to throw away the cigarette.

We were taken to the police station at Ernst-Reuter Place and put in a cell. The wannabe dealer immediately came unglued and
shouted, “Let me out! Let me out!” I took off my jacket, rolled it into a pillow, lay down on the cot, and dozed off. An arrest like this wasn't about to faze me. I wasn't worried about the cops finding out where I'd come from, about how I'd escaped from Bonnie's. I was confident that I hadn't been reported missing yet.

After two hours, they let me go again, and I went back to the university cafeteria. On the way there, my emotions caught up with me. I started to bawl. So once again, I'd shot up some smack as soon as I could after a withdrawal. And I didn't know where to go next. I couldn't possibly show up at my mom's place with pupils the size of pinpoints and say, “Hey Mom, I'm back. I ran away. Could you make me some dinner?”

I went to the drug counseling office in the old cafeteria of the technical university. There were some cool guys there, and they made me feel a lot better and gave me the confidence I needed to call my mom. My mom was reassured to know that I had called from the university. On the way home, I noticed that I had a fever. By the time I got into bed, it was over 104°F. My mom called the emergency hotline because I was becoming delirious. The doctor, when he came over, wanted to give me an injection, but that idea terrified me because I was supposed to get the shot in my butt. I could stick a needle into my arm two or three times a day, but when the doctor stuck the needle into my butt, I freaked out.

The fever started to subside immediately, but I was completely drained. Bonnie's Ranch did me in, physically and mentally. When I was able to get up again after three days, I went back right away to the drug counseling office at the university. On the way there, I had to pass through the heroin scene outside the dining hall. But I ran right past it without looking left or right.

For a whole week, I went to that drug advice place every day. When I was there, I could finally talk about what was on my mind. It was the first time that I'd come to a place where I was allowed to unload absolutely everything. Up until now, I'd always
been talked at. My mom had always talked at me, my dad, the Narc Anon people, everyone. But here at the university, I was supposed to do the talking and figure out myself what was going on with me. I was still spending all my time with the advisors when my face began to turn yellow again. When I ran into some people I knew in front of the university, they literally ran away from me. “Get the fuck out of here,” they yelled at me. “And take your jaundice with you!”

I couldn't believe it. I guess I'd been trying to ignore reality, but here it was: jaundice again. This was crazy. Every time I'd stayed clean for a while and dared to regain some hope, I wound up suffering from some typical addict's disease. When the abdominal pains became unbearable, my mom took me to the clinic at Steglitz. I wanted to go to Steglitz because they had a really good kitchen there. So I sat in the waiting room for two hours, doubled over with pain. Any nurse who walked by could tell by my yellow face what was wrong with me. But none of them did anything. The waiting room was full of people, including kids. I could have infected all of them if I were contagious.

After two hours, I started to walk. I had to stick to the wall because I was so weak and in so much pain. I wanted to ask the way to the isolation ward, and when a doctor passed me, I told him, “I need a bed. I don't want to infect all these people here. I have jaundice, obviously.” He said that he couldn't help me with that, and that I first had to go through the intake process. So back I went.

When I finally had a chance to speak, I told my doctor that I had contracted the jaundice from shooting heroin. She looked back at me, cold as ice, and said, “Sorry, but we're not responsible for cases like yours.”

The thing is, nobody wants to be responsible for the addicts. So back into a taxi we go. My mom was furious with the doctors as a result of their refusal to help. The next morning, she took
me to Rudolf-Virchow Hospital. I wasn't happy about that at all since I'd escaped from there once already.

A young resident physician came to take a blood sample. Right away I showed him the state of my arms. He wouldn't ever be able to get a needle in my veins. “This is where I have a thrombosis. That vein is totally knotted up anyway. You'll have to take one that's below it. Not straight down with the needle but from a side angle; otherwise you won't get through.”

The poor guy, now totally unsure of himself, of course, stuck the needle into a completely knotted-up vein. He pulled and pulled, but no blood came, and due to the vacuum in the syringe, the needle literally exploded right back out of my arm. The next few times, he asked me where to stick the needle first.

I slept for two days straight. The jaundice wasn't contagious. On the fourth day, the liver tests came back okay, there wasn't any more urine in my blood (or not much), and my face was slowly coming back to its natural color.

I had to call the people at the university's drug advice office every day, and I did. I hoped to get a spot in a therapy program there very soon. And then I got a huge surprise: Detlef had been released from jail. My mom brought him along on the next visiting day, a Sunday.

Well, as you can imagine, it was a whirlwind: love, hugs, kisses, bliss. We wanted to have some time alone so we went outside into the hospital park. It was as if we'd never been apart. No sooner had we walked out than we were riding in the subway again, bound for Zoo Station. A small coincidence played a part in that decision. While outside, we ran straight into an old acquaintance of ours, Wilhelm, who'd recently struck gold. He was living with a very prominent doctor and author who not only gave him plenty of cash but also paid for him to go to a private school.

So right away, Wilhelm bought us a couple of shots. I came back to the hospital for dinner. The next afternoon, Detlef returned. This time we had some real difficulties scoring dope, so I wasn't back at the hospital until ten thirty that night. Meanwhile, my dad had also tried visiting me since he was flying to Thailand the next day.

My mom had that desperate look on her face again when she came by. I felt like a piece of shit. And then my drug counselor also stopped in and said that I was a helpless case. I swore to myself and everyone else that I was serious about quitting. Detlef cried also and said it was all his fault. Then he also went to the drug counselors. And when he returned on Sunday, he had a spot in a therapy program for the next day.

I said, “I'm so happy for you that you got that spot. Now everything will turn out okay. I'll get a spot, too. We'll do it together; I'll make it. We won't fuck things up again.”

We went into the hospital park again, and I said, “Let's just go to the Zoo real quick. I need to get a book from over there— the third part of a trilogy. I've already read the first two parts, and my mom couldn't find the last installment anywhere.”

Detlef said, “Yeah, right. Why do you need to go to the Zoo to buy a stupid book? Why don't you just come right out and say it? You want a fix.”

I was super annoyed that Detlef was suddenly pretending to be all high and mighty and on the pious path to clean living. I wasn't even thinking about the dope. I just wanted to get part three of the Death's Head Moon series. So I said, “Stop being so self-righteous. You don't know what I'm thinking. And you don't even have to come along, you know, if you don't want to.”

But of course Detlef came with me. In the subway, we fell back into our old routine. Right away I started in on some old ladies, getting them all upset and annoyed. This was, as always,
very embarrassing to Detlef, so he moved to the back of the subway car. So then, just like always, I yelled back at him from the other end of the train: “Hey dipshit, don't pretend you don't know me! You're not any better than I am. Get back here!” But then I got a nosebleed again. I'd been getting nosebleeds for a couple of weeks, every time I went underground to take a train. I was already feeling pissy, and now I had to keep wiping that damn blood off my face, too.

Luckily, I was able to find the book I was looking for at the Zoo. I was feeling better and said to Detlef, “Let's just walk around a bit before we go back. This is your last day of freedom.” The heroin scene at Zoo Station acted like a magnet on us. Stella was there and both of the Tinas. Stella flipped out when she saw me again. She was so happy. But the two Tinas were both in withdrawal and doing really badly. They'd been on Kurfürstenstrasse with Stella but forgot that it was Sunday. And on Sundays, Kurfürstenstrasse is dead. That's when the customers spend time with wives and kids instead of creeping along Kurfürstenstrasse in their cars.

I was kind of glad to have escaped all that shit. Not to live with the constant anxiety of going into withdrawal, and not having to deal with customers. I hadn't had any contact with any johns for weeks. I was feeling superior to the others; I was really happy, even cocky. I realized that this was probably the first time I'd been able to hang around Zoo Station without craving a shot.

We were standing at the bus stop near the subway station. Next to us were two Turkish guys who kept winking at me. Despite the jaundice, I probably looked the freshest of all four of us since I'd been relatively clean for a while. Also, I wasn't wearing any of the usual street clothes. I'd borrowed some clothes from my sister and was dressed in the normal teenage style. I didn't want to look like an addict anymore. I'd even had my hair cut while I was in the hospital.

The two guys didn't stop winking. So I asked the two Tinas if they wanted me to set something up for them. “Even if you just get forty marks out of it,” I told them, “you can at least share a quarter.” The two Tinas didn't care about any of the details. They just wanted to score. Feeling on top of the world, I walked up to the two guys and said, “You want the girls? I can ask for you. Fifty marks. Capito?” I pointed to the Tinas.

They grinned stupidly and said, “No. You. We fuck you, at hotel.”

I was completely in control. Without being at all aggressive, I told them bluntly, “Nope, that's not happening. But you'll like these girls. They're young and cheap. Only fifty marks.” The younger of the Tinas had just recently turned fourteen.