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The first-person narrator Micha recounts in anecdotes what happened to him in particular during the 80s and 90s. Since he feels part of the punk scene, the experiences associated with it are often in the foreground. It is a world full of excessive alcohol consumption, wild parties and all-nighters, weird and forbidden actions, police interrogations, unemployment and various jobs. Be it a mysterious driving assignment in which he puts himself in danger, or the fact that he wakes up in the park at night during a vacation and sees a gun pointed directly at him – Micha recounts what happened from his perspective, but does not skimp on vulgar expressions and the description of sometimes absurd situations.
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Seitenzahl: 463
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024
General, loose garbage
Paul was suddenly there at some point. As is so often the case in the scene, people came and joined us. As we always hung out with the wavers and goths, it was not uncommon for new people to join us from that direction. Paul still had his real name at first: Mario. It usually didn't take long for people who had become an integral part of our clique to be given a nickname. It was the same with him. Someone thought he looked like the singer Paul Young. So he got rid of his nickname. Paul was more of a quiet guy, always up to something and always had something to sell. Everything he did seemed urgent and conspiratorial. He was always on a date with some woman or was with one for a while. One of these women also got him into a well-known nightclub. We could only dream of that. Normally, we couldn't get in almost anywhere in our outfits without relationships. In Paul's company, we managed that more and more often. I have no idea how he did it and what he did in return. So it happened that we found ourselves drinking champagne in a bar at night, surrounded by Wessis and gays. "Uuuuhhh: Agnostic Front, huh?" a guy who was obviously from the other side of the river asked me, alluding to the lettering on one of my badges. He came threateningly close to me and fiddled with the badges that were emblazoned on my leather jacket while I stood at the piss basin and did my business. "Jo," I replied, zipped up my pants, quickly disappeared from the toilet and sat down on one of the comfortable leather sofas between the others.
When we were in this bar, which was quite rare, we never had to pay for anything. Our gay friends or some lost Wessis generally always bought our drinks. The Wessis wanted a photo with us to show their friends or family. They didn't expect the GDR to be like that. We were duly paid for such a photo. And the gay friends certainly had ulterior motives, but I'm not aware that even one of them came to us. What's more, they were all part of the popper spectrum, and we didn't want to have anything to do with them anyway. The punk philosophy says that poppers have to be their enemies. That couldn't be upheld in this case. They were just too nice and saw us as their allies in a way. We therefore always had an excellent relationship with the popper gay faction. They were always correct with us. That probably resulted from the fact that we were lepers in the eyes of the GDR superiors and also the population. That kind of thing really welded us together and made us feel good.
But back to the real thing. After Paul had been hanging around with us for a while, one day he brought a guy with him. Quite inconspicuous in appearance and dressed quite shabbily even by GDR standards. "This is my brother, Dirk," he introduced him to us. As usual, we were cool and bored. This guy didn't look like one, nor did he give the impression that he could be of interest to us.
Dirk was always there from then on, later even more often than Paul. It didn't take long for him to transform into a punk. Soon he was only wearing black clothes. A leather vest, which was gradually adorned with more and more studs, chains and other paraphernalia, adorned his appearance. He swapped his strange street shoes for boots, which he bought from a hunting and fishing store. What he still lacked was the right haircut.
The time had come at one of the numerous drinking parties. A few girls got to work and turned Dirk's black curls into a wide mohawk, half of which was bleached blonde. "You still need a new name. Dirk doesn't look good," said the girls. Based on his previously rather ragged outfit, one was quickly found. "Generic, loose garbage suits you," the girls said again and laughed. We also found the name suitable, but it was far too long. However, if you just took the first letters, it would make a suitable name. So from now on, Dirk was no longer Dirk, but Alu. That was also nicely ambiguous. It was the abbreviation for aluminum.
The nicknames were a tradition in the punk scene. But also in all other scenes. It was part of the new identity to adopt a new name. Some people you knew for years and only knew their nickname. That was always particularly funny during police interrogations. It was similar with the girls. But the naming was much more complex there. They were more respectful. Or not. Depending on the nature of the person in question and her mood.
Over time, Alu developed into the epitome of what we understood an anarchist to be at the time. He literally did what he wanted.
In the early days, he once came to my house. With an ancient men's bike. He then left it with me. It stayed with me for years. I later found out that he had stolen it from somewhere. When he came into my room, he looked around and made fun of my pictures and posters. I didn't understand and it made me quite angry. I was so proud of my posters of various punk bands that I had struggled to get hold of. Especially the Clash poster, which I'd swapped for a budgie. Some time later, I was at his house. There were lots of self-painted pictures in his room. With flowers, tractors and animals. I couldn't believe it.
Alu was always controversial and unpredictable. That in turn made him likeable to us. He never had any money. But when he did have some, he invited everyone over until it ran out. Then he'd immediately pump some back into someone else.
His mother was also a case of her own. She was always to be seen somewhere in the city. Always accompanied by her brother, a bearded guy who never actually said anything. Both seemed to be very fond of alcohol. No matter which pub we went to, they were always there. For example, when we entered our favorite pub, often on our own, she and her brother were already sitting at one of the tables. When you entered the pub, you were immediately "welcomed" by her. Laughing loudly, she would shout: "What does he look like?" or "Here comes another one of those assholes. I wouldn't let him in here." At such a moment, you could be sure that you had the attention of the entire staff and guests.
When Alu was there, things were a little quieter. He then went to the two of them, greeted them and then asked for some money.
Things got interesting when Alu's mother landed a guy. As soon as Alu found out where the guy lived, his apartment was occupied by the punks a short time later. We rang the doorbell, he opened the door, was pushed aside and we walked into his apartment. The first thing we did was inspect the fridge, the contents were usually eaten immediately. Then we made ourselves comfortable in the living room. We watched TV or one of us put on a music cassette. The next step was to find out what alcohol was available. In any case, it was always a party. Protests from the owner of the apartment were not accepted. Depending on what was in the fridge, we would fill our bellies.
Alu essentially left him with only one option: to spend the rest of the day locked in his bedroom. Or to party with us. Most of the time, the guys preferred the latter. At one of these parties, Alu and Rossi started tattooing themselves. An anarchy sign on the left side of each calf and a swastika on the right leg. They had seen the swastika on a poster of Sid Vicious, the bassist of the Sex Pistols. He often wore a T-shirt with a swastika. Neither of them was in any way politically ambitious at the time, they were just full of it.
Sometimes we would sit in the apartment of a complete stranger and spend time together. At Alu's insistence, we were then treated to excellent food. This situation never lasted long. After one of our gigs at the latest, the relationship between Alu's mother and the guy in question was over.
I remember a party that Alu and Paul had at their house. The Erfurt punks had also come to this party. As their house was in the village, they had to walk quite a few kilometers to get there. Hermann, a local and very fond of the punks, took over the transportation. He drove each individual there on his moped.
The party itself was once again a complete mess. This did not go unnoticed by the rest of the village. Alu's mother tried to keep an overview by making ridiculous announcements. Later on, a kind of vigilante group formed in front of the house. They stood in front of the house with clubs and burning torches. They shouted that we should leave, otherwise they would chase every single one of us out of the village. This got the party guests moving. They looked for weapons and philosophized about countermeasures. As if made for this purpose, there was a bundle of shovel handles next to the front door, which Alu's mother handed out to the party guests at lightning speed. Some Erfurt residents tried to open the front door from the inside, but were initially unsuccessful. After a thorough examination of the door, it turned out why. The door did not open where the handle was as usual, but where the hinges were. Once we had figured this out, the door was opened and some punks stormed out of the house armed with shovel handles. "Come here, you country bumpkins," someone shouted. The stupid thing was, they really did come. They didn't seem to be afraid of the armed punks.
After a few brief skirmishes, the punks retreated into the house and barricaded the door. Now they resorted to ideological and biological weapons. Alu said, "I've got an idea." He went upstairs to the second floor with some people and tore open the windows. Wild insults rained down on the villagers. But that wasn't enough. Alu and a few particularly fierce warriors knelt on the windowsill, supported by those behind them. They opened their trouser pockets and pissed on the heads of the villagers, who in the meantime had come right up to the front door. They immediately scattered. They then also launched into cannonades of abuse. At least we had managed to keep them at a distance, because none of them risked getting pissed on again. We punks had no intention of clearing the field at any point. The situation eased as the evening progressed. The villagers apparently got bored or too cold. In any case, they gradually disappeared. We partied all night long. Alu sent his mother to bed at some point. The alcohol had really got to her.
He was still at school and his youth consecration was coming up. He said that he didn't want to go because it was a stuffy event and he didn't have anything to wear. So we got him some clothes that we thought were appropriate for the occasion. Including a black wig so that his mohawk wasn't visible. We took him for a fitting. It made him look like a completely different person. Everyone liked it, except Alu. Nevertheless, he promised us he would go there. We didn't see Alu for the week leading up to the Jugendweihe. Maybe he went to school for a change. We had planned another party in my garden for the weekend. There was enough firewood, but everyone had to bring their own drinks. There was no need to send out invitations. Word got around very quickly. Without any phones or cell phones. By the afternoon, the garden was full of people, the fire was blazing and the bottles were spinning. People were jumping around the fire to loud punk music. We imagined Alu celebrating his youth consecration at the same time in the disguise we had put together. Towards evening, however, he turned up. "What happened?" we asked. "I didn't go, fuck it," he replied.
Alu stopped going to school and instead spent most of his time hanging out with shady characters. It wasn't long before he was involved in some kind of criminal activity. Shortly afterwards, he was arrested for the first time. However, due to his age, he was not sent to prison but to the youth work yard. Such a stay usually lasted 6 weeks. When he got out again, he immediately slipped into his punk clothes, had a mohawk cut and dyed it colorful.
He no longer needed to go to school, they didn't even want him anymore. Instead, he was supposed to start an apprenticeship. But he didn't feel much like that either. He preferred to hang out with us or his strange friends and spent most of his time in pubs. The house in the village where he and his mother lived was demolished and they moved into a dump in the old town. His brother Paul had long since moved in with one of his girlfriends. When Alu took me home with him one night in winter, I discovered that they had no heating at all. There was a stove in his room, but it wasn't plugged in. There was also no hole in the chimney for the stove pipe. After literally freezing my ass off that night, I went home the next day and got my tools. Using a hammer and chisel, I chiseled a hole in the chimney and connected the stove. I fixed the stove pipe in the chimney with some mortar. I also checked the stoves in the other rooms to make sure they were all in working order. Of course, I wanted to test whether everything worked straight away, but there was no fuel. From then on, everyone who came to Alu had to bring wood or coal. Often everyone went to the coal yard at night with zinc tubs and shopping bags and coals were stolen.
It was May 1st again. Of course, we also celebrated Labor Day in style. After successfully avoiding the annual "demonstration of working people" and all the police checks, we set off for the big evening event. Howy and Werner stood at the entrance to the festival site to let us in. Two well-known bouncers from a disco we used to go to almost every week. You could hear Howy even before you saw him, he was practically always shouting. Despite his glass eyes, he had everything in view. His presence never left the slightest question unanswered. He was never sparing with compliments when he let someone through.
When he saw us, he naturally took the opportunity to tell us how shitty we looked again today. We shrugged it off with a smile. We didn't know any different. Although with him, you never knew where you stood. I always remembered an earlier incident from which I knew that he was actually a nice guy. Back then, I went to Erfurt for Whitsun out of boredom. A meeting of the FDJ (Free German Youth) was taking place there at the time. Shortly after arriving there, I met the entire clubhouse security team in Erfurt city center. In FDJ shirts. We were all happy to see each other there and I was immediately handed one of the many beers on their table. Even though I had nothing to do with this event and didn't fit in visually. I stopped with my beer in my hand and pithy remarks were exchanged. It wasn't long before three guys were standing in front of me and chatting me up. They were also wearing FDJ shirts. "Piss off, you punk pig, or I'll get punched in the face," I was told. Before I could react, Howy jumped up from his chair, grabbed me by the collar of my leather jacket and dragged me to the chair next to him. "He's with us; if you want trouble, you'll have to deal with me. Now get out of here before I start handing out cheek plates." Visibly confused by the unexpected new opponent, the three birds actually pissed off. I then spent the rest of the day celebrating together with the order group.
"It costs 3.50 M today," Howy shouted. "If you don't have that, you can go straight back home to Mummy. That's the end of the announcement." We scraped the money together and Alu wanted to give it to Howy. "But not to me, you striped horn," he shouted at him, "give it to the cashier." Without further prompting, Alu gave the cashier the entrance fee for all of us. "All punks through, but suddenly," shouted Howy. His glass eye stared menacingly straight ahead, while the other kept a close eye on you. We trudged silently past the entrance and onto the grounds. Several bands and soloists were already playing. A certain Inka was to be the main act of the evening. Today, this Inka on RTL matches up wifeless farmers with ownerless women who want to be on TV and are not afraid to muck out cowsheds and feed pigs.
Our crowd immediately joined up with the metalheads on the festival grounds. The welcome was joyful, as usual. There was a lot of drinking and conversations with Manne, Johnny, Zwecke, Klapperschlange and Fehni were always fun. Johnny came up to me and asked me if I already knew the new Dimple Minds. I said no. He immediately started to give me a vocal sample, but I only understood snippets of it at first due to the volume of the band playing. When he realized that I didn't understand his vocal sample, he came very close to my ear and sang again. "Rusty metal slips into the gut when the nuns ride a bike without a saddle." At that moment, Rattlesnake leaned over us, hissing menacingly and chattering his teeth. That was his trademark. Rattlesnake was called Rattlesnake because he could imitate the sound of a rattlesnake deceptively realistically. According to him, he was able to do this because he only had 13 1/2 teeth. Dentists were never his thing.
It was the turn of the main act of the evening and Inka started to sing. Spoilsport, spoilsport ... We made our way to the stage. We wanted to take a closer look. Inka was about our age and looked pretty good too. As a result, all the punks stood in front of the stage and looked at her as if hypnotized. It wasn't our music, but we liked the singer. Alu looked at her and grinned from ear to ear; after grinning for a while, he tried to take the stage. Some stewards jumped up and prevented this. After the second encore, Alu tried his luck again and this time he succeeded. He disappeared backstage and reappeared after a while, grinning and with an autograph card in his hand. I had never seen him so euphoric.
In the time that followed, Alu became more and more involved in criminal activities. He didn't give a shit about anything. In my opinion, he never did any training or work. Instead, he was sent to the so-called Jugendwerkhof several times and later to prison. He was often wanted and it was not uncommon for him to suddenly jump into the bushes when a police patrol passed by. At some point, Alu was always wanted when he wasn't in jail somewhere. Contact with him was constantly decreasing. At some point it broke off completely. I heard later that he had slipped into the right-wing scene. I never really believed that because he had nothing to do with politics. He was just a thug.
Later, much later, I met him outside a disco. He was leaning against the hood of a car with two girls, a bottle of booze in his hand. When he saw me, he immediately invited me in. "Have a sip of brandy first." The thought alone made me gag. I'd never touched brandy again.
I took a sip from the bottle. Uuuuuahhh, disgusting. Alu seemed to see that brandy was no longer my cup of tea. "How about these two girls here? You can take them with you if you want." The two of them winked at me as if to say they were okay with it. I took another sip from the bottle and then declined with thanks. "You're missing out," Alu called out. "These two are really hot." "Maybe, but I've got to get going," I replied and said goodbye.
Much later, I had just parked my car at the side of the road, locked it and was about to set off when a voice called my name. I turned around, no one was there. "It's me, Alu." I still didn't see anyone. He stepped out of a bush and said that he was wanted and therefore had to hide.
It was the last time I saw Alu. Nothing seemed to have changed.
Bears and tanks
Banane asked me if I could imagine working in the social sector in the future. I had been unemployed for a long time and had already done the strangest jobs in that time. I thought about it for a moment. "Hmm, what is it and what do I have to do?" I asked. "There's a vacancy for a street worker and you seem predestined for the job," Banana replied. I said: "Okay, that sounds interesting. I'll do it." As I was planning to reorient myself anyway, this offer came in handy. I didn't want to be unemployed forever either. So I became a street worker for a while.
A few years later, we went to Slovakia as part of a youth exchange. As our clientele consisted of rather difficult young people whose families had little money, we could hardly find anyone who wanted to go. Especially not at the beginning of March with the prospect of hiking in meters of snow and freezing cold. Only two young people agreed to come along. Seppel, a young man who was always smartly dressed, but who somehow couldn't really get his act together, but always talked himself up about his situation. In his opinion, his current situation was a chain of unforeseeable obstacles. A kind of force majeure, so to speak. He embellished his failure with so much dry wit that you almost wanted to believe him. Out of compassion alone. No, it really couldn't be down to him. Nevertheless, he was an extremely likeable guy. The second teenager was Assel. A punk of the worst kind. He was actually mutating into a skinhead. But he definitely wasn't smart enough for that. He had already been in prison several times, but had always been given another chance to get his life under control. Assel didn't think about changing anything, however, and indulged in being an Assida as best he could. "Nothing is important, drinking beer is important," he regularly contradicted himself loudly. We had two young people with us whose characters couldn't be more different. That could have been fun.
Due to a lack of participants, we took my girlfriend at the time, Suzy, with us. We hadn't been together for long at that time and so we had the opportunity to spend a kind of vacation together.
Banane, Schorsch and I went along as supervisors. Schorsch was in charge of the streetwork project. He was a gifted guitarist who had dedicated his life to the blues. Not entirely, though. He had a sideline where he performed as a solo entertainer at all kinds of parties. However, he mainly played pop songs there. His repertoire also included English songs, although he didn't speak a word of English. I found that particularly amusing. Schorsch was a real buddy. His real name was Gerald, but not even his wife called him that.
He was easy to get along with. His outward appearance quickly suggested a person who didn't necessarily conform to the usual norm. Long gray-white hair, almost always dressed in black, long coat and an old Mercedes station wagon under his ass. Automatic, of course. His greatest gift, however, was getting people who were in trouble out of prison and accompanying them on their way into everyday life.
Banane was a two-meter guy, sometimes bald, sometimes with long hair that sometimes turned into rasta braids. Just like his role model Bob Marley. A bulky guy with hypothyroidism. I still remember one of his birthday parties. After about 20 minutes, all the guests had their jackets back on. It was 15 degrees in his room, in winter. He was wearing a sleeveless shirt. He never froze either. We went to a few festivals, but he wasn't really interested in the bands that were playing. Among them was Force Attack on the Baltic Sea, a punk festival of the highest order. He was magically attracted to curious types, so that he spent the entire duration of a festival sitting in front of his bus in company. Everyone who passed by was given a line, he had no shortage of sarcasm. He also never seemed to sleep, because no matter when we walked past, he was always sitting in his chair. Early in the morning, when everyone was still asleep and the toilets were being pumped empty, he would shout loudly: "Get up, there's fresh shit coming."
When the opportunity arose, he often acted as a womanizer. But that didn't go down too well with their husbands. He also liked to get into fights with local politicians. In writing, mind you. All it took was a parking ticket or what he thought was an illegal parking ticket and he would start a petty war against everyone involved or not involved. In everyday life, he moved around either on a Schwalbe or in his sky-blue T4 VW bus, which in principle always had something to do. Professionally, he ran a youth club.
So much for our line-up. It promised to be exciting for both the young people and the supervisors.
The ride was accordingly both fun and exhausting. After a few driver changes, I agreed to drive the rest of the route. This was also the starting signal for Banane and Schorsch to sweeten the ride a little and open a bottle of wine. Assel and Suzy had been drinking beer for a while. Seppel acted the sensible one, didn't drink anything and was always complaining about something. Sometimes he got a sip of Assel's beer on his brand new trousers or he didn't like the sandwiches. He felt sorry for himself for going on the trip and didn't know what he had let himself in for. When he wasn't grumbling, he really needed to pee. Assel was constantly making fun of him. "What kind of a wimp are you?" he asked Seppel. I watched what was happening on the last row of benches in the rear-view mirror. It was too funny. Schorsch and Banane were sitting one row in front. They had quickly emptied the first bottle of wine and asked for another. But it was in the trunk of the bus. So they told Seppel to hand them the next bottle. However, he first had to unbuckle his seatbelt. Which apparently meant a lot of effort for him, not to mention the safety risk. Assel rolled his eyes. "Don't be like that and get the bottle of wine," he snapped at Seppel. Seppel reluctantly obeyed, leaned over the backrest, grabbed the bottle and passed it on. "Hey, don't you have any punk rock on your fucking radio?" Assel shouted loudly. "No," I replied. "What the fuck is this tour without punk rock," Assel added. "You'll just have to sing it yourself," I replied and laughed, unaware of what I was doing with this statement. Because from then on, Assel sang passages from punk songs from time to time. As he indulged in so-called booze punk, they weren't always entirely, well, let's say, PG. Which in turn made Schorsch and Banane laugh out loud. The rhymes that were peppered at them were new to them. For Suzy and me, they brought a smile at best and Seppel was now really pissed off and asked for a pee break as usual. Surprising, as he drank the least of this crew.
After countless pee breaks, we arrived at the Czech-Slovak border. Schorsch and Banane had drunk all the wine supplies, even a crate of wine that was actually planned as a gift for the guests. Apart from Seppel, all the passengers were now asleep. Now they were waking up one by one. The Czech border guard demanded everyone's papers. A wild bustle began. Seppel complained to me about the lack of organization and that it was taking forever again. I ignored him, collected everyone's IDs and handed them to the soldier. He spoke Czech to me, which I couldn't reply to in any way. He indicated that we should get out. As we got out, the empty wine bottles rolled out and broke with a loud clink. "ACAB, you fuckers," Assel shouted to the border guards, whereupon our trunk was also searched. I grabbed Assel by the arm. "You shut the fuck up now," I said to him in a sharp tone. He continued to rant and wave his arms around. He was babbling something about fucking cops. "Shut up now," I said. Then he kept his mouth shut. Seppel, who overheard this, said: "Come on, let's go back, it's no use, we'll be arrested in no time." I looked at him and said: "The same applies to you, you keep your mouth shut now." I turned back to the border guards, who were still checking our IDs.
I explained our plan to them in a mixture of German and English. It took an hour for them to get the message and let us drive on. A short time later we were at the Slovakian border post. However, they seemed to have little interest in our group. After a brief inspection of our IDs, we were allowed to continue our journey.
After this action, there was a lot of frustration on the bus. Wild discussions ensued. Banana said: "That only happens in the Eastern Bloc. Fucking communist pigs." Assel repeated his ACAB. Schorsch said there were other reasons, but didn't say what they might be, and Suzy just said: "What a fuss, now I need a beer." Seppel said he had to pee urgently. This time he was widely agreed. We all had to.
So I looked for the next opportunity to stop. It was night, but I still realized that we were in very heavy fog. So thick that you could really only see a few meters. We stopped on a dirt track off the main road. Everyone disappeared for a pee. Afterwards, we smoked for all we were worth. The cold and the fog made the smoke from the cigarettes seem even more intense. So at that moment we were in a huge cloud of smoke. After everyone had got back in the car and I had taken a look at the map, we drove on. I could hardly see anything and could only drive very slowly. The roads got narrower and worse. There was a rumble and suddenly I saw a sign. Ceska republika. "Shit," I shouted, "we're back in the Czech Republic." "Great," Seppel clapped his hands over his head. "I told you we should go back home." I didn't need that right now. "Shut up," I admonished. Assel bent over laughing, he didn't seem to care. He sang cheerfully: "My limb is too big from the cashiers." Suzy said: "Why don't you pull over and look at the map?" Banana said: "Better safe than sorry." And Schorsch just asked: "How did you manage that now?"
I drove on. What else could I do? We fought our way through the fog and suddenly found ourselves exactly where we had been some time ago. At the border crossing to Slovakia. It was exactly this crossing where we had been so meticulously checked.
And again we stood at the checkpoint. The soldiers looked at us in amazement. I tried to imagine what was going on in their heads now. There was general laughter on the bus.
I opened the window of my car door and tried to explain to the border guard what had happened. After a short period of misunderstanding, he let us pass. He was obviously fed up with us or hadn't yet got over his déjà vu.
The rest of the journey went smoothly, apart from Seppel's moaning and the countless pee breaks. It was already deep night when we arrived in Krupina. There was no warm welcome as everyone was already asleep. There was actually a lot of snow and the thermometer showed -12 degrees. A guy in a survival outfit then showed us to our rooms. He said in broken German that we would continue tomorrow. We didn't care at that moment, we just wanted to sleep. We moved into our rooms and soon fell asleep.
The next morning we were served a sumptuous breakfast and the official welcome took place. The Slovakians consisted of 20 young people and 4 supervisors. There was also a bus driver and a mountain guide, who seemed suspicious to me from the start. On the first day, a trip to Bratislava was on the agenda, including a guided tour of the city. During the trip, we gradually got to know the young people. Most of them spoke excellent German and English, so there were virtually no communication problems. We got to know Bratislava and were shown the sights of the city. After a hearty meal, we headed back to our accommodation. In the evening, the mountain guide came to us with a bottle of homemade slivovitz. Unlike the young people, he didn't speak a single word of German. He hadn't been on the trip to Bratislava and we saw him for the first time that day. A supervisor told us that he lived a very secluded life and only spent time in nature. In his former life, he is said to have been a senior party functionary and a staunch communist, which had probably changed abruptly with the opening of the borders.
He unscrewed the cap of his bottle and filled a row of glasses to the brim. Then he pushed one of them in front of each of us. We clinked glasses and it sloshed out of the glasses. As I finished the glass, I could literally feel where the stuff was going. The others seemed to feel the same. Assel let out a loud growl and Seppel made choking noises. Suzy's eyes filled with tears and she bent to the side: "Baaah." "Boy, boy," said Schorsch, "he's got it in him." Banane remarked that you could certainly fill up a car with it. The mountain guide grinned mischievously and said something. Vera, the leader of the group, translated that it was last year's schnapps, which wasn't quite as strong and therefore had to go. I looked at him with wide eyes. "Well, I don't want to try the other one." The mountain guide was already pouring the next round. I knew that I would go to bed early after this swill, but I carried on drinking. Some of the others in the group had left right after the first schnapps. It went on like this all evening until I couldn't take any more. Whether I could still walk was a really interesting question at that moment. In any case, I didn't let on. The mountain guide kept drinking his schnapps. He didn't show the slightest sign of it. The conversations with him were very one-sided anyway. He didn't answer questions about himself or pretended not to understand them.
At some point, when I really couldn't go on any longer, I got up and said that I was going to sleep now. Suzy looked at me and said she was coming with me. I was curious to see if I could walk now. After all, there were quite a few of those schnapps. The bottle was empty anyway.
The first step was already a risk. The chair flew away and I tried to keep my composure. I couldn't say much more. A "Good night, see you tomorrow" had to suffice. Suzy supported me and we went to our room, where I fell asleep pretty quickly.
We were woken up very early in the morning. I was still completely wrecked. Suzy, on the other hand, seemed fit and never stopped trying to get me out of bed.
We had breakfast and then packed our things. The coach was already at the door with the engine running. It took quite a while to get everyone on the coach and stow the luggage. But then we were off. Through snow-covered villages and steep mountain passes, we drove more and more into a remote area. We only rarely passed a village. "Oh, boy, this is going to be fun. We seem to be in absolute Wallachia here," I said to Suzy. I heard Assel, who was sitting at the very back, singing. "Snow snow snow snow, hurts us all, from snout to toe." Otze (SK's singer) would have been delighted with the lyrics. (Original text Schleimkeim: Spy in the café, when I see something like that, everything hurts, from my snout to my toe).
At some point, only the lane was cleared of snow and we were standing in front of a large wooden house. This was our accommodation for the next few days. Vera said: "Welcome to the Low Tatras. There is heavy snow here until well into spring."
It was quite a hustle and bustle until everyone had got off the bus. Seppel asked what we were doing here and added that he didn't have any ski equipment with him. Assel just wanted to go to the loo. "We'll check into our rooms first and then we'll see," I told them.
After we had divided our travel group into the individual rooms, Suzy and I also moved into one of the rooms. It was very cramped. The bed just fitted in. The bathroom was equipped with all the necessities. But nothing more. All in all, very retro 80s style.
From then on, we hiked every day. It was not easy to motivate our two experts anew every day. Ultimately, the necessary clothing also left a lot to be desired. But it wasn't just Assel and Seppel who had some weaknesses in this respect. At least they were still wearing appropriate footwear. Schorsch, on the other hand, was wearing normal flat street shoes. With his long black coat, he looked more like he was strolling along a shopping street. But he didn't have anything else with him and had to walk like this for better or worse. We explored the whole area around Banska Bystrica. It is a very beautiful area, perfect for winter sports activities of all kinds. According to our mountain guide, the nature here is still very unspoiled, unlike in other parts of Slovakia. Tourism is also limited, as most people tend to go on skiing vacations in Austria. As a result, the wildlife is also well represented here and, with a little peace and quiet and his guidance, you can encounter rare animal species such as the lynx. Bears are also not uncommon here.
The time we spent here was therefore very varied. We also enjoyed visiting the town. Disco was the order of the day in the evening. It started harmlessly with a few drinking games and we held back on the alcohol, after all we had a role model function. But as the time progressed, this aspect faded more and more into the background. Everyone was dancing. When it got a bit more punk, Assel and I pogoed to a few songs. Mainstream pop punk by Green Day and Offspring. After all. After "Lords of the Boards" by the Guano Apes, I really needed a break. It was crazy hot. Assel and I had emptied the dance floor during the song and the adjacent tables and chairs were also badly affected. After that, the music became more upbeat again. I saw Banane on the dance floor. Two young girls were clinging to his back and in front of him. He was spinning wildly to the music and his pose reminded me of a dancing bear. Sweat ran down his permanently grinning face. Completely out of breath, he then sat down on a chair and drank a large beer on ex. Schorsch watched the whole thing and said: "Well, let's see if Banane is fit tomorrow."
The next day, at the end of our trip, we had a big mountain hike on the agenda, which would last until the evening and for which we had to take enough food and equipment with us. We made sure that everyone was dressed appropriately and had enough food and drink with them. At breakfast, we noticed that the mountain guide was not sitting in his usual place, his chair was empty. Strange, he was usually the first one up and awake long before everyone else. He went on a hike every morning. He didn't seem to be back from it today. Just before we were about to get up from breakfast, a murmur went through the room and everyone looked towards the front door. The mountain guide came in. There were several red streaks on his face and blood was running down. His hair was sticking out wildly. He looked badly damaged. After he spoke briefly to the Slovakians and the young people were very excited afterwards, we also became curious and asked what had happened. We were readily given information. The mountain guide had done his morning hike, as he did every day. This time he wanted to walk part of the route we wanted to hike today. He was attacked by a bear and fell down a slope. However, the bear later escaped and apart from a few scratches, nothing happened to the mountain guide, so he was able to lead the planned hike.
We looked at each other somewhat indecisively. At that moment, none of us felt like going on the hike. Who wants to make the acquaintance of a bear in the wild? As you could easily see from the mountain guide's face, a bear doesn't just want to play.
After a brief discussion, we decided to go ahead with the hike anyway. We soon set off and our group set off.
We quickly left the town and entered wooded areas. We didn't feel well, a bear was suspected behind every noise in the forest.
The path became steeper and steeper. We could still walk halfway, but the higher we got, the higher the snow became. Soon we were only making slow progress. Schorsch, with his long coat and street shoes, tried to walk in the footsteps of the others, but he didn't succeed, which is why he went flying several times. The higher we got, the thinner the forest became until we finally left it behind us completely. The landscape became rockier. We trudged almost knee-deep through the snow. Conversations were few and far between. Even Assel and Seppel had fallen silent and Banane had long since stopped making jokes. Despite the cold, he had beads of sweat on his forehead. The ascent demanded everything from us. I silently grumbled at the mountain guide, that weirdo. He didn't seem to be bothered by the whole thing and was running right at the front at an undiminished pace. By now, our hiking group had spread out so that we could only recognize the mountain guide by his silhouette. I could now only see our group from a distance. The advantage was that we, who were further back, had a well-trodden track to follow. Next to the track was an almost vertical descent. We ran steeply up a mountain ridge. I was no longer thinking about a bear attack, but only about getting there. It must have been around midday. I didn't have a watch, so I could only guess. Two teenagers came running towards me from behind. "Mikhail, Mikhail," they shouted, waving their arms in the air. I turned around and they gestured for me to come back. Something must have happened. "Your friend is sick," said one of them. "What happened?" I asked. "I don't know. Your friend is lying in the snow, he is not well." I ran back as fast as I could, past the others. Banana was lying in the snow, he was breathing very fast and white foam was in front of his mouth. Someone had already put him in the recovery position. One by one, the entire hiking group gathered around him and watched him breathe. We quickly discussed what to do next. We urgently needed an emergency doctor. But how was he going to get to the rough terrain? Two obviously extremely athletic Slovaks were chosen to run back to the village as quickly as possible and get help. They sprinted off at full speed and quickly disappeared into the horizon. I hoped that this ominous bear wouldn't turn up now of all times. But we would be in a bad position. The whole hike came to a standstill. The mountain guide soon turned up and came back, along with the rest of the young people who had already hurried ahead. The hike was now more or less over. Now we were all standing there in the middle of nowhere. Only mountains and snow surrounded us. We dragged Banana to a tree where he could lean against it. At least he was conscious.
It took an eternity before we heard a low hum in the distance. Quiet at first, it became increasingly louder. Everyone looked eagerly in one direction. Something came shooting out of the forest in front of us. It was a tank. It groaned and squeaked its way up the hill through the snow. It turned to the side and stopped. A hatch flew open and the two boys jumped out. They were followed by two paramedics who immediately took care of Banana. After giving him a makeshift treatment, they strapped him onto a stretcher and loaded him into the tank. The paramedics spoke briefly with the Slovakian carers, got in and roared off in a huge black cloud of diesel.
The day was over for us, no one wanted to continue hiking and so we made our way home. We immediately contacted the hospital where Banane had been taken to find out how he was doing. It turned out that he was doing well under the circumstances, but the treatment had to be paid for in advance. As we didn't have that much money with us, it was first advanced by our Slovakian friends.
It was the last day of our trip and in the evening we celebrated a little despite Banane's absence.
The next day we drove home again. The journey home was very different to the outward journey. We were all exhausted. Even Assel kept his mouth shut. This trip became an unforgettable experience and when I met one of the participants later, we always quickly talked about what a crazy trip it had been.
On call: Pizza
After spending a few years in the west of Germany, in Wuppertal to be precise, I enjoyed being back home. There was no work in sight and the days were relatively relaxed. Sure, Wuppertal also had its beautiful sides, the Bergisches Land, Qualle and the suspension railroad, but home is home.
I spent my time fixing up my girlfriend's house at the time (or rather her father's). That wasn't always easy. Peter, the father, had his own ideas. When we moved in, the heating hadn't been working for a long time. Peter didn't freeze and in case it did get really cold, he had bought an oil radiator. These heaters were the spearhead of all electrical appliances that found their way into East German households after reunification.
At that time, it felt like every home had such a device. The same as the polystyrene stucco panels that suddenly adorned almost all East German living room ceilings in every conceivable variation.
Peter's outfit essentially consisted of slippers, jogging bottoms and a bare upper body. If the temperatures made it necessary - and we're talking about temperatures below -5 degrees Celsius - he added a absorbent cotton jacket, which he casually slipped over his free upper body before entering the outdoor area.
Nevertheless, we had a new heating system installed and renovated the whole house bit by bit.
Despite this employment, I was looking for a job. At least a part-time job to earn a little money.
At some point, I spoke to a friend about it. She said: "If you feel like it, you can take over my job. I deliver pizza, but now I'm starting a permanent job and I can't manage it anymore."
Delighted with the offer, I spontaneously accepted and asked her to arrange everything necessary for me to take over at the pizzeria. She did just that and a short time later, I was trained by her. Beforehand, I had bought myself a baseball cap so that I really looked like a messenger. My buddy Manne gave it to me from his enormous arsenal of caps. "Biohazard" was emblazoned on the front in big letters and with a corresponding logo. I thought it went perfectly with the food drive. Only scene people knew that it was an American hardcore band anyway. I wore it loosely over my blond mohawk, which was now back in place.
My new company car was a Fiat Panda. Perfect for the job. Small and maneuverable and still enough space for a few boxes of pizza. I worked from 11.00 am to 2.30 pm. I usually took three orders on one tour. I got 3 marks plus tip per batch. I managed about 4 to 5 tours during this time. At the end of the shift, I got a free meal of my choice to take home. You could really make money if you drove in the evening, from 5.00 pm to 10.00 pm. Saturday was the most lucrative day. People were generous and not stingy with tips. It could happen that you went home with 80 to 90 marks. But I rarely did that. I always had plans in the evening. Money generally only played a subordinate role. It was enough for me to have some in my pocket every day. My spending was kept to a minimum anyway.
As all the streets were renamed at this time, a city map was essential. But even this was not always up to date, which made it difficult to get to some areas. There were no satnavs yet. However, I generally welcomed the side effect of this job, as I inevitably got to know all the streets in the city and soon knew my way around.
Within a very short time, I got to know all the doctors' surgeries, law firms, schools, car dealerships, brothels and clubs. Because they all had one thing in common. At some point they were hungry, ordered something to eat and then I came into the picture. Of course, lots of private individuals also ordered. It wasn't unusual for the front door to open after an order and an acquaintance or even a friend suddenly stood in front of me to receive a calzone or Hawaiian pizza. I delivered first dates to people who are still together today. Occasionally, a door would open and an attractive woman, dressed only in a towel, would enter. Once, after being let in at the buzzer, I entered the huge hallway of a large villa. A young woman came slowly down the stairs, dressed only in a kind of fishnet shirt. I could tell from the food that it was for two people. She came up to me with a smile and pressed the money into my hand. I reached for the change, but she said, "That's right." I looked at her in amazement, but she winked at me wordlessly. She had tipped me 10 marks. Determined, she turned around and went back up the wide wooden staircase the same way she had come. She didn't waste a thought on me finding my way out again on my own. I looked after her and thought, not bad. This observation applied equally to the woman and the tip.
But those were the exceptions. Everyday life was very different. On the face of it, as a pizza driver you never have time and are constantly under stress. An order had to be delivered to the customer as quickly as possible and at the agreed time. There were several opponents to this undertaking. One was the rush hour traffic and the other was addresses that were not yet on the city map after the renaming. It could also be that the pizza bakers couldn't keep up with a large order. Or a customer simply ghosted and pretended not to be there when you rang the doorbell. Or you had an order in one of the surrounding villages. That generally took a bit longer. I drove to villages within a radius of 10 km. That's not so far now, but it could easily take an hour in rush hour traffic. That's why trips outside the urban area were unpopular. Fortunately, this was rare.
The employment office was a regular customer, with several departments placing orders. The department for "combating illegal employment" ordered almost daily. The first order I was asked to deliver there, I thought it was a bad joke on the part of the staff. Because I was carrying out this work as a genuine undeclared worker. I was neither registered nor did I pay any taxes. I received my wages in my hand every day or kept them straight away.
But the staff reassured me. Don't worry, they just want something to eat. They're not interested in the rest.
I drove there with a queasy feeling and delivered the food. Nothing actually happened. And so from then on I delivered pizza and pasta dishes to the employment office staff almost every day. I had to smile inwardly every time at the grotesque situation. The "combaters of undeclared work" were supplied by an undeclared worker and were even happy about it.