STASI - Part two

Sometimes these
sessions could be short, or sometimes the sessions would stretch out
interminably. They could last for hours and years. They would
occasionaly leave the room and then come back to ask more questions
before leaving and then returning again and again. It was a continual
loop.

The sessions
would however, always come to an end, at which time my possessions
would be returned to me in a cold and impersonal manner (which
in it's way is worse than mean and nasty), I mean there was not a
friendly smile in the room believe you me. Afterwards I would be
escorted to the door where I was then free to enter the territorys of
East Berlin.

When exiting the
back door of Checkpoint Charlie one would enter East Berlin on the
famous and prestigious shopping street called Friedrichstrasse. Back
in the day of course Friedrichstrasse was severed by the wall, or
actually two walls circa. 100 (+/-) meters apart with a strip of
grass running in between, and protected with men who patrolled in
jeeps and men who patrolled the length of the "death strip"
on foot, as well as men with guns in towers along with dogs and
explosives and self-firing machine-gun batterys, and don't forget the
electric fences and land mines and floodlights and trenches and what
not.

Checkpoint
Charlie was situated in what was then a cul-de-sac, which of course
made it very easy to surveille. I would walk about a half'a kilometer
or so up the Friedrichstrasse, passing construction sites which were
never really being constructed. I would only occasionally see workers dressed in Army uniforms, who
never worked.

My girlfriend
told me that many times the ones I saw were "Spartensoldaten"
or "Shovel Soldiers" who were more times than not,
conscientious objectors. They would be put on work details to beef up
the work force and it was great for them because they could most
royally screw-off for the whole day, shooting the breeze with each
other while smoking fags and drinking beers.

The immediate
environs surrounding Checkpoint Charlie was a sort of no mans land
for the fact that even the most brain-dead East Berliners stayed well
clear of any buildings with so many Stasi officers and "Volks
Polizei" (or "VoPo's") hanging around, not to mention
that the wall itself as well as any and every border crossing point
was a high security zone. Eventually I would reach civilization where
I could find a "black taxi", and then go to my girlfriends
apartment.

For the most part
I'd always been alone when I entered the cul-de-sac outside the back
door from Checkpoint Charlie. It was surrounded by empty lots who's
buildings the Americans or Russians had bombed all ways to hell and
back, leaving gaping holes in the city who's rubble and remains had
long ago been removed by endless lines of "Trümmerfrauen",
those strong and sassy Berliner women who took the lead in the
rebuilding of the modern state of Germany.

After a number of
months I was surprised to find two men with ugly clothes and bad
complexions standing outside and waiting for me? When I say bad
complexions, I mean the sort that's gained only after a true
lifetimes dedication to large quantity's of greasy food washed down
with ample measures of alcohol and smoked through and through with
tobacco.

They had mean
dreary little faces with vacant expressions which were offset with
cheery clown noses of the type proudly displayed by those most
dedicated of drinkers. You know the type of nose, they're all bright
red with lots of purple striated little worms on the tip and sides of
the nose, which in reality are right-well busted-up blood vessels.

These two clowns
were standing on the corner of Leibzigerstrasse. which was about
twenty meters from the back door, where I stood looking at them. I
called this phase the "Hi, your not alone here in this big city"
phase. After that day they would always wait on the street corner and
then make a steady bee-line in my direction like two arrogant magnets
attracted to a lone piece of iron. I'd learned something about
tigers though in a large cirkus I'd toured with in the 90's which
helped me to understand what unfolded next. We all know that scene in
a circus when a tiger rears up on his stool and bellows (you know,
the one). Afterwards the tiger is subdued by the trainer who calms
them into gentle passivity as the trainer raises their magic wand and
utters some form of commands and incantations that we never really
quite understand. Well, of course the trainer amazes us with their
mastery over uncontrollable forces. At the same time we are reassured
with our own per-dominance over all species on earth.

What really
happened though was was something else altogether, and based on the
fact that many living organisms have a buffer zone around them, a
safety zone that when breached can signal the alarm bells. The only
reason the tiger stood up and began yelling in the first place was
because the trainer had stepped into the tigers safety zone by
approaching him and coming in too close. It wasn't the trainers
mastery of command that calmed the raging beast, instead, what the
audience didn't notice because they were so fixated on what the tiger
was gonna do next, was the fact that as the trainer raised their wand
and began to talk to the tiger, the trainer simply took a step or two
back. They removed themselves from the tigers comfort zone allowing
the tiger to regain his calm.

When my two
chaperons came up to me; they really came up to me. They crowded me,
like right in my face kind'a crowdin me, and they continued to do so
for the entirety of my journey (which in this case did not include a
"black taxi" as I didn't want to get anyone in trouble).
But they was like two "snug-bugs-in-a-rug" type of tight
fitting stereo shadows who complimented each other without the
slightest phase cancelling, and who I might add, never got physical
with me.

They never
touched me. No Sir, when the power equations are so overwhelmingly
disproportionate, the need for physical intimidation can recede into
the background. They walked with me and rode the underground with me
and they did their best to press in on my space. The other passengers
could tell by my clothes, and by the way that I walked that I came
from the west, and they knew who my shadows were by the way their
beady eyeballs drilled right through me. Upon meeting my girlfriend
however my stereo shadows would vanish like cheap cigarette smoke in
a strong wind. That went on for several months and then I never saw
them again.

They knew when to
be subtle, and they knew when they should get right up in your face.
They used everything around you and turned it into something to be
used against you, to make you feel tight, or, just the very opposite,
to give you the space to make you feel loose and right. If they took
your watch from you, time was your opponent. Tilt a door frame
slightly, and every door you walked through threatened you with a
boom and a bang as you heard the sliding click of a metal lock as it
snuggled up into a metal plate in the wall, which only reinforced the
utter helplessness of your situation. They would even turn
architecture on it's head and throw it back in your face as a weapon
of mass repression, closing in on you and pressing at you from all
sides, or simply crushing you under a too low ceiling.

Given enough
time, they could even program you to strip-search yourself without
your noticing it. Why, you could find yourself pulling things out of
your pockets, even when you are at home at home where you are safe.
Madness you would say huh? Well, I would agree with you most
heartily, but it's happened to me and I was astonished at how deeply
they had deviously wormed their way into my psyche without my
awareness.

Every day they
bored their way deeper and deeper into my psyche; it was like a
Chanese water torture, just a evenly spaced drop of water,
consistantly released, "Drip, Drip, Drip" till you'd bought
the whole kit-and-kabootle before you even knew your wallet had
left your pocket.

I'm sure their
methods were standardized and used worldwide with slight variations
from country to country, although I personally have never come into
direct contact with any other intelligence agency's (not to my
knowledge anyway), but then again, how would I have known if I had?

And now you know
how it came to be that an American fool in love came into contact
with the infamous and world famous Stasi from East Germany.