It was late June, and I met with D in Bratislava. We were to go to Vienna, where D knew a guy who lived in one of the squats. We hitched a direct ride. When we arrived, we somehow managed to find the people we were staying with on a small island on the Danube. They were out with their dogs, drinking, smoking weed, and listening to music.
I was 19 at the time. For the last few years, I socialized and lived in the punk circles of Slovakia. I didn’t know D very well, but I didn’t care. For a long time, I was fascinated by squatting, the culture, the ideals, the movement. I read many articles, and I wanted to experience all that I learned about it. In my mind, squats were like the second coming of Christ. They were paradise lost and regained. They were the answer to failed communism, and they were just perfect. That’s why this whole voyage seemed to me as the tipping point of my life, the ultimate field trip, the coming-of-age ceremony for my punk self.
Arriving on the small island on the Danube, we met the group of punks. D knew most of them, and most of them knew D. I, on the other hand, being the shy introverted dreamer, was new. And some of them were understandably careful with me.
We spent a few hours on the island, drinking beer and smoking weed, the usual stuff. After that, we left for the squat. I was calm on the outside, but on the inside, I was shaking with anticipation. After all those years, I would finally step foot in a squat. Looking back, I can’t help but laugh. We took a metro to the place.
“Don’t buy a ticket, it’s not necessary. They don’t have controls here that often. And when they do, the controller can’t do shit,” said one of them.
The house itself was close to the metro station, just two streets away, and you could spot it from afar. It was the only one with anarchy flags, graffiti, and punk show posters. The house had a huge gate, and when I stepped through it, I felt like I was in heaven.
I was to share a room with D and Douglas. Douglas was a Romanian guy with a big dog, a mix of a bulldog and a pitbull. A friendly pup. He climbed on my couch each night and pushed me to the wall. Never mind that I’m not a dog person, that I stank of his canine odor, and that I was full of dog hair… I looked at it as just a little inconvenience I had to suffer for the right of staying in a squat.
This room belonged to D’s friend, who lived with his girlfriend somewhere else, so it was empty at the time. Actually, without D and his friend, I wouldn’t be able to ever get there. Despite the whole “housing is a right,” people in squats aren’t very keen on letting strangers in. On one hand, I can understand that, since I wouldn’t want strangers to walk around my house either. But it’s a little hypocritical at the same time… Never mind, who am I to judge? I admired the people for what they were doing. The little inconsistencies in their attitudes didn’t matter to me at the time. Back then, I viewed them as a unified group with a homogeneous worldview. It didn’t occur to me that each one of them is an individual in his own right. I never imagined that they may not all be friends with one another, that they had different lifestyles, opinions…
D slept on a raised bed, I slept on a couch, and Douglas slept on a normal bed. He had a big dog.
We wanted to stay in Vienna for two days at most and then move on to the sea in Slovenia. At least that was the original plan. In the morning, D woke me up with a huge grin.
“Look what I have!” he said, excited, waving a small plastic pouch with a questionable white powder.
“What?”
“This is top-notch Viennese material,” he said. Seeing my puzzled look, he added: “It’s speed.”
“You do speed?”
“Not really, only when I’m in Vienna. You can’t get it in Slovakia, only the fucking meth.”
Well, that was a new one. I didn’t know D that well, but I always viewed him as a stoner guy, with his brain mellowed by the bongs and spliffs he smoked. Speed, any stimulant for that matter, wasn’t really fitting for him. And I wasn’t a speed guy either. I didn’t have any prior personal experience with stimulants, and they were the borderline where a non-junky becomes a junky. I come from a town with a considerable meth habit, and I know what it can do to people. I know what it did to a few friends. So I was cautious.
D started erratically looking for something in the room, and he looked proud of himself when he found an old plastic CD case. He sat next to me on the bed, took out his wallet, then his ID, and prepared two lines on the CD case, one of them bigger.
“One for me and one for you,” he said, joy in his eyes. “Do you have 5 euros?”
Who was I to judge, so I handed him the 5 euro banknote. He rolled it up, put it up to his nose, and snorted the bigger line. He let out a small roar and handed me the CD cover. I was hesitant at first, but then I succumbed. Although I didn’t like the idea of doing speed, I thought, why not, since it’s just an experience, and I love experiences. I took the CD cover, the banknote, and I repeated what I just saw. I figured it’s going to be just one little bump, and that’s not going to kill me, right? And it’s not like I’m going to do more lines than just the one.
After the deed, we got out into the streets. We bought some breakfast and headed towards Mariahilfer Straße, the “main” Viennese street. I had my guitar with me, and I wanted to earn some money for food, beers, and whatnot. Unfortunately, the tuning mechanism broke, and I didn’t play much. I made about 5 euros, so we bought a few beers and Kräuterbitter, a herbal schnaps that comes in a pack of five small bottles. When you drink it, you first beat the bottle with your hand, then you hold it between your teeth and tilt your head back. It’s a ritual worth of the 21st century, and I definitely recommend it to anyone coming to Vienna (as probably the only thing I did during the trip).
Afterwards, we went back to the squat. We were met by a guy with a huge mohawk on his head and an unpleasant face. Let’s call him Matt. I think it was the guy who sold the speed to D because he asked if it was any good. Saying that it indeed was good, D took out the CD cover (did he have it with him all the time?) and made three lines. I was about to say no, but then I thought, who are you fooling, and I joined in.
“Come to the basement in 30 minutes. My band will have a rehearsal; you can join us,” said Matt.
We had nothing better to do, so we obliged. The “rehearsal” for the “band” was actually Matt teaching his girlfriend, Mara, how to play a riff he came up with, on bass. It looked and sounded like Mara held the bass, or rather any musical instrument, for the first time, and that she wasn’t enjoying it at all. What she enjoyed more was the obligatory line of speed before the whole thing. And the one in the middle. Memory may fool me, but I remember her saying something along the lines of “I’ll need one more to play it right.”
Anyway, me and D enjoyed them as well. I can’t say that the speed worked miracles on me. I can’t really say that it worked at all on me. I didn’t feel any different. I didn’t feel any significant improvement in my levels of energy; I didn’t feel hyped… I felt oddly normal. More normal than my sober normal.
As we were watching Matt struggling to teach Mara the riff, I had an idea.
“Do you think I can take the bass for a moment?” I asked Matt.
“Yeah, sure, I guess it can’t be worse.”
Mara handed me the bass, I kicked another Kräuterbitter, and I signaled Matt to play the riff. After a few tries, I was able to play along with him, and he looked amazed.
“You’re good! Look Mara, he’s good! That’s how you should play it for fuck’s sake!”
Although it was flattering to be praised by a junky-punk living in a Viennese squat, the truth is that the riff was pretty easy. And I think that the speed helped too. I totally get why Mara said she needed another line to play it properly. Matt and I jammed for a while, but then he realized I’m not the one who’s in his “band.” He told me to drop it and return the bass to Mara.
In the evening, we went to a concert of some crust band. We left the squat at around 10 PM, but before that, we were invited for a good luck bump to Dave’s room. The thing about squatters is that they have dogs who are their best friends, and they go with them almost everywhere. Dave and Mara had dogs as well. But these dogs didn’t accompany them. Probably anywhere. They were closed in the room, and the manner in which they were treated was very different from what I’ve seen before and after, in similar places. Usually, the dogs are well-trained, better than what I’ve seen elsewhere; they are friendly and loyal. The two hounds in the room were barking, and they didn’t listen to Dave and Mara’s screaming. The room itself was very neglected, with dirty clothes everywhere on the floor.
The club was pretty far away from the squat, and we had to take the metro. Of course, without a ticket. When we got out, Dave went to an ATM.
“Dinner time!” he proclaimed, holding a 50 euro banknote in his hands.
The two anti-capitalistic, anti-system punks went straight to – I’m not kidding you – McDonald’s. Being the idealistic 19 y.o. vegan, I cried on the inside. Why McDonald’s?
You see, my world was shattering a little. I viewed these people, despite their obvious flaws, as some kind of demigods. As heroes of the 21st century, who take unused houses and give them new lives, and who give new hope to their surroundings. I admired what the squats stand for, I admired how they bring equality into places where it’s usually not present. I admired how they created new realities for themselves. And I looked up to their “mission.” Seeing them shoving McDonald’s down their throats broke my heart. Now I think it was an important step in building my self. It helped me get rid of my misconceptions of this whole subculture and look at it with sober eyes. But at the moment, I couldn’t quite grasp that.
The show sucked huge time. I don’t particularly enjoy crust, but this was sub-par. I eagerly awaited sunrise, so that we’ll finally go back to the squat and that we’ll get some sleep. Only Dave had keys from it. Of course, I fueled myself with speed throughout the night, it now being almost a new normal.
We decided to get back to the squat around 6 AM because Dave didn’t look like going anywhere in the foreseeable future. We waited on the front porch for about an hour until somebody opened the door for us. I dropped dead on the bed and got a few hours of well-deserved sleep.
The next two days were quite similar. What remained of sunlight, after our nighttime escapades, was spent drinking beers, shooting Kräuterbitter, and snorting speed. One time we were sitting on Mariahilfer Straße with others, asking people for money which we spent on booze; other times we wandered the streets aimlessly. Of course, each night is a concert of some sort, and we had to be there. Of course, going to a concert meant not getting to the room before 7 AM, and that meant lack of sleep, which meant more speed. It was around noon on the second day that I realized we won’t be going to Slovenia, as D seemed to enjoy this lifestyle. And I have a strong feeling he never wanted to go there in the first place.
I saw some people who also lived in the squat, and who looked less party and more serious. They didn’t talk with us, which I now completely understand. I wouldn’t want to talk with two random kids high on speed either. I guess I picked the wrong part of the community to hang out with.
On the last day, I was glad I was finally going home. We tried hitchhiking to Bratislava, but I gave up after 30 minutes and left alone for the train station. I paid 20 euros for the ticket and slept on the train. Ironically, I met with D in Bratislava, since he hitched a ride after I left. We chatted a little and then each one of us went his own way. I’d had enough, I’d seen enough and I wanted to go home and forget about everything.
It was one of the first in a series of disillusionments which I experienced during that period. These events finally brought me to a point where I couldn’t stand the whole punk thing, and I gave up on it. It was a necessary development, as I now know, to break my rose-tinted glasses and see things as they are, but it was brutal, sometimes. For a long time, I was in denial of what I saw in Vienna. It was hell of a ride, and I’m glad I got off before the car crashed.