Amsterdam Redux

Jara smokes

January 17, 2003

Pauline never made it to the Paris train station. She missed her train, or skipped her train, or for whatever reason didn't get off the train as I stood waiting and watching. I finally got hold of her after trying a dozen times to dial her Dutch cell phone from a Paris pay phone while charging it to my American calling card. Nope, she wasn't coming—but she'd still be in Amsterdam when I arrive, so let's meet up then and there, okay? Okay.

So I stood around the Paris train station and looked at the plastic cups filled with piss and waited for my train. It was cold. The train came and I got on. I drifted off to sleep as the Canadian girls across the aisle giggled about boys and birthdays. It turned out they weren’t Canadian at all, but were American. One of the girls’ fathers made them sew maple leaf patches on their backpacks so as not to be pegged as Americans. It worked on me.

I opened my eyes, and where was I? I looked out the window, and it looked like Indiana. Green fields cut by highways, and small gas stations at the crossroads. Is that a McDonald's sign on the horizon? Yup. The train sounds like the ocean. Brussels? Already? Time flies on a high-speed train.

Finally pulled into Amsterdam around 8 PM. I got in a cab and told the driver to take me to Erste Leeghwaterstraat—where's that? He doesn't know—I don't either. I knew the general direction, and he started down the wrong way. “Let me out here,” I siad, when I spotted a payphone. I used the last two minutes on my calling card to call Jara, and she rode her bike to find me. She's sick and complained about her period, her fever, and the fluorescent green snot clogging her nose. We got to her place, unloaded my luggage, and talked. She made me a grilled cheese sandwich, and we talked some more, as she mixed up herbal concoctions and stored them in empty plastic yogurt containers. "PMS," she wrote on one and put it in the cabinet with the others. She was sick, I was tired, we watched TV, and fell asleep.

The next morning, Pauline’s phone call woke me up—she's leaving in a few hours, let's meet for breakfast, she said. Okay. I jump on the bus and meet her at Centraal Station. We have coffee and omelettes, and she smokes, and we try to catch up on everything we’ve been up to since we saw each other last. There’s hardly time to cram it all in. She's been in Africa and jasmine a million funny stories about the African men. She's tall and white and has a nice ass, so she's very popular there. Popular everywhere —but especially there. She tells me about mercenaries, curfews, and discoteques. Another coffee? Yes. Another cigarette and another coffee, and she had to go.

“When are you coming to New York?”

“Soon, soon.”

A big hug good goodbye, and she was gone.

I ran back to Jara’s place to meet her for lunch, and off we went. More coffee. She had to go to work, so after lunch I wandered around alone. I was exhausted. I felt sick and hoped I didn’t catch anything from Jara. I puked in some bushes as I leaned against a tree. Then I was fine, but went back to Jara's for a short nap, figuring it was what I needed most.

When I woke up, the sky was purple, and I was right as rain. The town was quiet as I walked. I heard drunks on the stoop complaints echoed through the alleys. Amsterdam is small, they said. “Nothing is going on.”

All the places that in the summer had people spilling into the streets—all those places that I couldn't stand to be in because they were too crowded—are all quiet and empty now. I stood on a canal bridge and watched the water reflecting the purple sky. The moon looked full. Is it? Can't tell.

I met Jara at the restaurant where she works with Eilidh. They cooked, waited tables, and sat with me when they could. Eilidh thought I was here another night. Nope. “Oh shit,” she said. She can't stay out long tonight. But she’ll come out for a little while.

They closed the restaurant and we all went for a drink. We played with a box of Legos at the bar and made the little Lego guys do pervy things, took pictures, and laughed. Before I knew it, Eilidh had to go. With a hug and a kiss and a few vague promises, she was gone. Jara and I have one more drink, and then we get a snack and walk home. Jara tells me about the guys in the snack shop and how three out of four of them sexually harass her whenever they see her. I tell her about the pizza guy in Florence who copped a feel.

I'm up and out early the next morning. A note goodbye, a taxi to the airport, and I'm on my way.

And now I'm home in Brooklyn. Dizzy. Disoriented. Tired and heavy. I could sleep for a thousand years. Maybe I will.