Nina Hagen

When I was in high school, I spent most of my time in the dorm. But during vacations, I moved back into my room at home. My house was an unusual structure, having been originally built as a two-story duplex to be used only during the burgeoning summer months of the National Music Camp. Being a duplex, there was no way to get from the first floor to the second without walking around outside and using the fire escape. A bit inconvenient during the summer, but completely impractical during the winter, when snow covered the ground for up to six months straight.

So, when they winterized the house for us, they put in a folding staircase to connect the two floors on the inside. Unfortunately, the result of this was that my room became, in a sense, a hallway. There was no way to go from one floor to the other without walking through my room. Plus, the washing machine and dryer were set into a little alcove at the foot of my bed. It was like living in a train station and I had absolutely no privacy. That was one thing when I was nine, but by the time I was in my late teens, it was definitely a cramp in my style.

One day, my folks were out and my buddy Allen had stopped by to hang. I was painting houses that summer and was completely miserable, and he worked the front desk in the nearby hotel. As was his wont, Allen had brought over a big bag of weed, which is the only thing that was keeping us both sane that summer. I pulled out my trusty bong, put Nunsexmonkrock on and we dutifully got to work. I had the stereo up so loud that I didn’t hear the car pull up outside the house (they had never paved the road in front of our house, so I usually got about a 30-second head’s up before the front door opened), and wasn’t aware that my folks (by which I mean my mom and Frank, the man who would soon become my stepfather) had come home until they walked through my bedroom door on their way upstairs. Allen was mid-toke, and subtly threw the bong across the room while coughing up a giant plume of blue smoke. Smooth. After an awkward moment, my mom and Frank continued upstairs and Allen and I ran out of the house and stayed out until I was sure my folks were asleep.

The next morning, I was expecting a talk, and, sure enough, right after breakfast they invited me to come sit down with them in the living room. Oh boy, here it comes. I was sure I was going to get chewed out and grounded forever – if not thrown in jail – but was surprised to discover that they guardedly approved that I smoked pot (while not necessarily condoning it, they nevertheless couldn’t condemn it, as they had both “experimented” with it themselves, and were glad I was doing something to blow off the tension of working a terrible job and waiting for college to begin). They only wished I didn’t freak out when they came home and didn’t try to hide it. Not exactly the response I was expecting (it reminded me of the time I was busted for stealing Playboys from the neighbor and ended up being offered a subscription to the magazine myself – which I politely declined). I had the kind of folks that other kids just shook their heads when they heard about.

I told Allen about it and a few nights later, we were again sitting in my room smoking when I heard their car drive up and park outside. I suppressed my startle reflex and we sat there, trying to be cool, while we heard them come into the house. They walked through my room, nodded, and continued upstairs. My heart was in my throat, but Allen urged me to invite them to join us. I shook my head, but he pressed on, “Come on, man, they said it was cool.” So, I climbed up the ladder to their room and asked if they wanted to join us. They shot looks at each other, shrugged, and said, “Sure, we’ll be right down.” I went downstairs, nodded to Allen, who grinned, and we all moved into the living room.

In theory, this was a good idea. We were all adults, more or less, and we were all cool, so it should’ve been a no hassle evening. But it wasn’t. It was awful. First of all, Allen had been a former student at the school where both my mom and Frank worked and, while he was never one of their students, that fact put a certain spin on the situation – in their minds, at least – that made them a bit uncomfortable. Then, Allen pulled out an entire ounce, which we just bought, and threw it on the table. When your familiarity with pot comes from the occasional joint, an ounce is a prodigious amount, and I could see my folks’ eyes bugging slightly as my mom nonchalantly asked how long it took us to go through a bag like that. “Oh, about a week,” Allen replied, which wasn’t even close to true. Ten days, minimum. Oh great, I thought. Then we pulled out the bong, which is something neither of them had ever seen, and I could tell the whole scene was starting to seem more serious to them than they originally thought. And teaching your own mother how to use a bong is not something I would recommend doing. On top of everything else, I was already stoned, and somewhat paranoid, and I just couldn’t relax. I kept waiting for them to catch up and show signs of being stoned, but my mom, at least, held on to her control as tightly as she could, which just made me more uptight. Then, she topped it off by asking all kinds of drug questions. Do you like drugs? Why do you do them? Where do you get them? Are there other drugs you’ve taken or are interested in taking? It was like getting stoned with the Gestapo. Frank, at least, chilled out, and was soon stuck, red-eyed and grinning, in one of those low-slung, impossible-to-get-out-of chairs that were so popular in the '70s. They finally went back upstairs and we all agreed it was an interesting experiment that was never to be repeated again. I realized later that the Ian Dury punk anthem Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll delineated perfectly the areas of your life that you should never expect to share with your parents, no matter how cool they are. Drinking margaritas and listening to the Beatles together was one thing, but when it came to smoking pot and listening to Nina Hagen, I was on my own.