Summers in Berlin energized all of the American high school students. We all worked really easy 9 to 5 jobs at Tempelhof. Everyone received the same pay around $4.50 an hour. Money didn't matter, because we spent what we made. If funds ran low we could always facilitate a few hash transactions for a middleman fee. A middleman fee consists of buying drugs from your hook-up and selling them to friends at a slight mark-up. No one bitched, because they didn't know where to get them.
But on this night we possessed cash. Friday night, that meant we celebrate at Das Klo (the toilet). Das Klo was whacky, a gimmick bar far superior to anyone I've seen in the US. The U-Bahn reached Adenauer Platz, and we mosied to Das Klo. I ordered the Pflaumen Wein. A liter of plum wine with Schnaps to boot. The drink is served in an IV bag, and the drinker could regulate how much they put in their glass. If you drank it all, you got sick. 3/4s later Donny asked if anyone had hash.
No one did. Our usual guy, Nolli, traveled to Turkey to see some friends. We thought about going to the church at Wittenberg, but the kripo (undercover Polizei) come out on a Friday. Donny suggested The Pegasus in Kreuzberg. I had never been to the Pegasus, only heard it was rough. But on tilt, I said, "Fuck it." Back on the U-Bahn and into Kreuzberg. Donny led us to the Pegasus. The group got smaller, now it was just Donny, Wayne, and me. Eveyone else went to Thielplatz to meet us at the park where we smoked. The Pegasus was dark, I mean scary dark. Wayne and I were only 16 and Donny 18. At the bar we ordered three Schultheiss (crappy local Berlin brew). Donny addressed the bartender, "Wir brauchen etwas zu rauchen." Meaning, we need something to smoke. The bartender pointed us to a table with a Turkish guy. He had a black leather jacket and mullet. I forgot his name. We gave him 30 marks, and he handed us 1.5 grams of hash. Donny immediately bitched about the deal. 30 marks usually got 2.5-3 grams of hash. This was a mistake.
Two Turkish guys quickly sat down with us, and the mullet fellow pulled his piece. He moved it across Wayne and me. The put it on Donny's forehead. "Hast du Angst?" he asked. That means "are you scared?" Donny stuttered over the word "ja" for two minutes. I have never been more scared in my entire life. All I could think about was my family, and how they wouldn't find our bodies. But these adults were fucking with high school kids. After 5 minutes of staring us down and forcing us into eye contact. They told us to leave. We did.
Getting back on the U-Bahn, we confessed about how stupid and scared we had been. Then Wayne pulled out the hash. Through all the tension and threats, Wayne kept his cool. The cold grass, beautiful sky, and group of friends greeted us a Thielplatz. As we got silly into the night with an animated rendition of our evening, worries drifted. At that time, I listened to tons of rap. Ice Cube, Geto Boys, and several others were listened to daily. The reality of guns came to mean something else. I kept listening to the music, but I realized I wasn't hard.