The trees lining the icy pavement on the avenue two floors below are frozen limbs in the dead of night. A stray pair of feet here and there walk the new streets and do little else but cast shadows over the cold. A new window looms before me; a new unknown. Unfamiliar street names and a horizon that I’ve only recently met as the sun went down on another chapter of my life.
I’ve been away a long time, haven’t I?
So it seems, to me anyway. But this is the new scene, the new vantage for my viewing, the new base for my wanderings. There are no horse hooves clipping and clopping on the cobblestones; there are no cobblestones at all, actually. Just headlights and tires rolling over the thick ice that covers everything. Yes. There is asphalt and there is ice, and over these two layers a fool tries to make his way; tries to find his footing.
–
Jesus. Over the past two years I’ve been everywhere, man. From Tangier to Prague and from Oslo to Riyadh, I’ve covered Europe and the Middle East. Covered it. Hit the sweet spots, find the juice, move along. That’s been the motto, the driving force. And what a rush. What a mad, fulfilling, fast rush. Like crack but with more airline miles and hotel points.
So I was a bit surprised when I found myself overwhelmed by the buroughs of New York. The whole move started to hit me - the fact that it was happening, that is - much like it hit me when I’d moved to Amsterdam: later than it should have. In Amsterdam it wasn’t until the plane hit the ground that I realized I had no idea what was going to happen next when I got out of my seat and headed out the jet way. For New York at least, it was sometime halfway into the flight from Germany though it only occurred to me because of a situation on board.
Careening over the north Atlantic at 35,000 ft is no place to have a maniac on your hands. The third time she yelled “DON’T TOUCH ME! DON’T TOUCH ME!!” to the flight attendant, I checked the flight monitor and sure enough, flight 4677 out of Frankfurt was somewhere between Ireland and Iceland.
That is a bad place for violence.
I leaned my head back on my seat and turned so my cranium rolled up and out on the headrest to more discreetly look at the large woman in the rear corner of the 777 who was sitting a few rows behind me. She was clearly having a fit of some kind but it seemed there was nothing that could be done but clear the area and give her room to flail around and yell at people. The flight attendants seemed to know enough to form a perimeter around the woman and just hang back until the episode passed and then give her peanuts or something.
“Wow,” I said to the empty seat next to me, “it’s a good thing the professionals know what they’re doing.”
And just as suddenly, I caught myself, realizing how ridiculous that sounded coming from a guy who knows that the only thing that makes an expert is that he know more than the person next to him.
What the hell am I doing?, I thought. I haven’t the foggiest reference for how to make this work.
I thought about this for a while. I might have dozed off for a bit, or maybe just had too much scotch, but the next thing I knew I saw the city come into view from behind the wing.
“Ok, New York,” I said, “here I come…”
A small child walking up the aisle with daddy in tow stopped at my seat and gave me a serene look. I had a moment of thinking that the innocence of that child, that smooth face and soft hair would be symbolic of the city showing me that no matter what tribulations I might pass, what doubts I might have, there was a side of the city that had good intentions, that would put a smile on my face, even if eventually.
Then the kid threw up on the seat next to me.
“Too soon?” I asked the kid.
“Dah!” it said, though I think it meant ‘duh’.
Thanks, New York. I’m coming anyway.
–
Even having studied satellite images of New York on Google Maps, I was surprised at the spread of the thing. Another scar on the surface, I had to keep reminding myself that I’d seen bigger, lived through tougher. New York has nothing on São Paulo and Bangkok, even if only for the sheer savageness of those places. But New York has a way of making you forget all that and focus on that Apple. Maybe it’s something in that awesome tap water they have.
Yeah. Unfortunately, I think this is what happens to people who move to New York for the ‘New York experience’. If you’re from a small town or haven’t traveled much, you’re doomed to be eaten alive by the city. Everyone knows that. But even for those who’ve been around, whom come from large cosmopolitan places, who’ve seen the dark corners of the asphalted world, even for them New York offers a unique challenge.
It’s a problem of expectations. People are told that the city will toss them around if they’re not careful. But what’s missing from that is that it’s not a question of being careful. The city will toss you around no matter what. You’ve just got to stay afloat, hang on, get up again.
That’s one of the things about New York. When you live in New York, you’re not in control. The city is in control. Its traffic and its subways are in control. Its crazies and its people are in control. Its size and its attitudes are in control and you are along for the ride. Like the rivers that split it, New York has a current, and if you’re going to use the river to get somewhere, you can’t fight that current. You have to go with it, be prepared to take it and stand up again.
If you haven’t caught on yet, I’d missed a crucial step in preparing for the situation of finding a flat in New York.
Sure, I’m familiar with the housing markets of San Francisco and Amsterdam and have done well in finding housing and good flatmates in both places, but those are villages compared to New York City. Those are straw and mud communes next to the steel and concrete that litters the grid of Manhattan, the industrial complexes of Brooklyn, the immigrant populations of Queens, the ghetto of the Bronx and the trashiness of Staten Island. To say nothing of the other areas around the city.
And if you thought that working in Paris, Istanbul, Oslo, Riyadh, Madrid, Copenhagen, Amsterdam and Budapest all in a matter of a month was a trying thing on the body, you should try to find a flat in New York in 5 days.
Maybe I’ll tell you about it sometime.
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After many trials, much deliberation, constant interruptions and no less than 3 death threats the search is over. I have new flat mates. And not a moment too soon.
With one Katie gone and the other soon bound for the grey Isles of Britannia, I was left wondering how to replace such characters in my life. That and their respective rent payments. They’d become such dependable friends and I knew I would miss them so.
Remaining-Katie helped me to shed some light on the matter from her usually helpful female perspective. Her reliable company by the window was just as appreciated with our almost mandatory tumbler of whatever alcohol sat on top of the fridge. Already-left-Katie, bless her heart, could do little from the heart of darkness, the war-and-disease-ravaged lands she currently assists in raising to civility. She wrote to me of her daily issues - problems of blatant and rampant racism, crossing war fronts in the line of fire, outrageous palm beaches with hammocks for the evenings, savage kitten-spewing cats, missing pants and large rats that were somehow responsible for the absence of the pants in the first place. Suddenly my issues of not having flat mates seemed pale in comparison.
But everyone has their problems, and large or small, I had to deal with mine.
So let’s get to the hunt for new flat mates. What this city holds in terms of dubious characters and outright weirdos is understood by some and well-known to most. I imagine almost any place on Earth with a large enough population of humans will have its fair share of shady types so know that I recognize that and am not here peddling in insignificant judgments. There’s no need to get all self-righteous or defensive and protective of your own town of wayward freaks. I know they’re everywhere. I’m from San Francisco and I have friends in other strange places like Portland, Manhattan, Las Vegas, Fairbanks, Brussels and Tilburg. I know these things.
But Amsterdam, friends… it’s a housing mess. This is true. Sure, New Yorkers pay 3 grand for a studio apartment in Manhattan and Parisians have to deal with the French - but do they have to worry about squatting mafia connections and large porn kings returning from a 2-year long flight from the cops?
Rhetorical questions, of course.
But seriously, you’d think that for an apartment in the center that is practically a living postcard with canal-side natural light, an absurdly large living space, a large kitchen, a sink in the bathroom and a decently normal flatmate with all of his teeth would attract good people so fast you’d wonder where they had all been living before.
But lo - the oddities of humanity are larger in number, and they love to answer them some Craigslist ads. They came in droves.
The first two girls that replied were from Spain and came as a pair. Ideal, I thought, and they seemed interesting. Red-and-blue-hair-kind of interesting - true - but interesting nonetheless. That is, until they asked about the possibility that I dye my hair green so that the mood would feel more rounded and we could project ourselves better across the continuum.
“What continuum?” I asked, naively. I shouldn’t have.
“You know, the essence of ‘x’,” said one of them.
“What?”
“Ecstasy,” she corrected me. “It’ll be more soothing when we all do ecstasy.”
It went downhill from there.
All in all I received:
- 21 responses from people living abroad who wanted the place no matter what.
- 12 promises to deposit all necessary funds into my own account no matter how strongly I pointed out that we might have mice and maybe they should see the place first.
- 10 Jesus freaks.
- 8 propositions of marriage for a visa. Eight.
- 6 responses from people whose names were so unpronounceable it was impossible to know their sex. 4 of them wouldn’t say. What’s up with that?
- 6 replies in languages I could not identify.
- 4 requests that I stop posting ads on craigslist because of global warming.
- 4 Nigerian Bankers.
- 2 accusations that I was actually an ex-missionary in Africa who should burn in hell or else pray there’s no afterlife. Apparently there’s an explanation for these on the craigslist website, but damned if I’m going to read it.
- 5 responses from ex-professional athletes in their late 30’s who did not seem to read the HUGE part about how I was looking for young students/professionals between 20 and 30, and not large ex-linebackers for the Flevoland Flounders.
- 1 pet chicken.
- 1 proposition that I help a couple raise their child.
And as I said, no less than 3 death threats.
…what? I don’t always know how to react to people.
Along the way I got, of course, numerous tugs on the sleeve and side-lip-whispered rationales and explanations out in the corridor for things ranging from criminal records to massive debt to schizophrenia. Naturally, I’ve left out the handful of otherwise reasonably normal people that I actually let come over and see the place. But even among these I had:
- 5 exceptionally boring people.
- 4 cases of clinical B.O.
- 2 people with interpreters.
- 1 violent allergy to peanuts AND ketchup.
- 1 more Jesus freak
ughh.
Nothing like Tweedledee and Tweedledum, but trouble all the same. I tell you, looking for a place to live or for flat mates to share your own is one hell of an exercise in getting to know humanity, assuming you’re into humanity. So you can imagine my glee when 2 girls of caliber and seemingly normal levels of decency showed up at my door with registration papers, phone numbers, passports and a fun and friendly demeanor. Hold on to them, Pete!
I snagged each of them by the arm, one at a time, and yanked them into the apartment, thrusting the contract and clean dishes at them with promises of respectful living conditions and no more than 1 mouse at a time since, you know, it’s Amsterdam. You can’t keep those little fuckers out forever.
Tibi Dabo, I told them, so long as they didn’t have pet chickens and didn’t set fire to my books.
And wouldn’t you know it? They signed on the dotted line and paid up. Jelena with her thorough accountant style and Maryla with her indifferent nonchalance to anything that might bother her. You can tell high caliber when you see it, I’ve been told. And that night, we all saw it.
Good times lie ahead, I think.
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Jesus, what a weird night. Things have been hazy in the past couple of days, the return home dropping itself fully on top of me like a large bag of oranges or some other citrus. At first I thought it was jet lag that was keeping me awake through all hours of the night, forcing me to go to bed at 2 or 3 and waking up alert as all hell at 5, knowing that what you need is a 5k run.
Yeah, that’ll do it. What kind of bipolar maniac would think that’s ok? And then be so schizophrenic to wonder why you’re tired as hell come 10 in the morning and again at dusk. 3 days later the pattern continues.
Then someone sent me an article about a drug they’re trying on these monkeys, something that doesn’t just postpone sleep, it replaces it entirely. Fuck, I thought. That’s an elegant solution to my jet lag problem. I could USE some of that.
Then I thought about how the last thing this world needs is another sleep deprived, over-evolved chimp - least of all one who writes in that state. No, we don’t need that.
Now, late into the night, the bottle of Jameson almost gone and the two blunts my flatmate left me still sitting on the table for a lack of a lighter or anything resembling heat in this ancient building, I’m forced into all kinds of complicated things like answering emails about the apartment I’m trying to rent. What hope did I think I had? Craigslist wasn’t made for ads like this:
Death of an Era: 2 rooms available to share postcard apartment with occasionally drunk migrant
That doesn’t work, Pete. You’re only going to attract more degenerates with that kind of talk. Leave it off the papers, man. Get a grip. Sit down. Think. Maintain.
Or maybe just get some sleep.
But how? Later, one of the Katies, due to leave in less than a week’s time says there’s a film I must watch. It’s an oldie, and it’s scary, she says.
Ok. Maybe I’ll get some sleep. Good. Put it on.
“Don’t Look Now”, with Donald Sutherland and Julie something is, for the record of fact, a horribly confounding, twisted and in all other ways terrible movie. Its strangely placed camera angles and scene transitions do enough to trip you out throughout the whole movie, and at one point you start to think that none of it is an accident and that some brilliant art students must be behind all this razzle and dazzle that you haven’t quite understood yet. “I’m sure it’ll all tie together before the end,” you tell yourself.
Wrong.
Imagine that after all the confusion of the 6th Sense it turns out that instead of being a ghost himself, Bruce Willis is actually a Trafalmadorian spy sent to gather toy soldiers from autistic boys. What if THAT were the twist? Would you be pissed off that all the imagery and symbolism had gone to waste. Would you be confounded at WHY any art student would do a thing like that? Would you wonder what sociopath funded a movie of that sort?
Well, now you know how I feel. Sort of.
Because I sat patiently and confused through seemingly pointless scenes that halfway assured me they would make sense later, some creepy shots of blind old ladies and a half hour of a far-too-intimate sex scene showing Donald Sutherland’s hairy white ass. That is NOT a part of well-balanced breakfast.
And for what? The red-coated midget has NOTHING to do with his dead daughter? The murdering old lady dwarf dressed like a European little-red-riding hood and packing a meat cleaver has absolutely NOTHING to do with ANY imagery of the film? Her only purpose is to suddenly turn a drama flick into a horror movie with a single hack of his jugular? What?
Naturally, you’d have to watch the flick to know what I’m talking about in its entirety, but trust me: not worth the time. If you want to waste your time without being pissed off, just watch Transformers with the sound turned off. At least that way you won’t have to put up with Shia LaBeouf’s unwarranted antics and you can enjoy Megan Fox without the winging.
–
I am understandably upset. I imagine the scene in the meeting room where the art students that made this contortion of images at the moment when things go astray.
Lead art student: Ok people, they’ve cut our due date by a few days, so we’re going to have to wrap it up. No more scene additions.
Gabe: But I had this great idea for this symbol around the red candle that would…
LAS: Sorry, Gabe, we don’t have time for it.
Gabe: Fuck.
LAS: Ok, now we need to finish that scene in the dark and fog smitten building, right? Ok. So the midget in the red coat is standing, facing the corner, Donald approaches her, thinking it’s his daughter, the suspense is building, the music is climbing, she sniffles, he says “it’s ok, baby, I’m here,” he reaches out to touch her aaaaannnnnnndd…
[silence]
LAS: Mitch!
Mitch: yeah?
LAS: Wasn’t that your scene?
Mitch: Wasn’t MY scene!
LAS: Loni?
Loni: Don’t look at me, man… I did the weird scaffolding scene.
LAS: Joe?
Joe: Nope.
LAS: Really guys? Really? NObody knows what’s under that red coat? The entire movie has to be based on this. NObody?
…
well, do we at least have any ideas?
Joe: how about an old lady?
LAS: What old lady?
Joe: no, no, the red coat. There can be an old lady under there.
LAS: you mean like the spirit of the daughter aged a century in the afterlife?
Joe: I don’t know. Sure.
Mitch: Won’t work. We’ve been showing a child running through the streets of Venice.
Loni: It could be a midget old lady.
LAS: will you guys listen to yourselves? A midget old lady? Does she look like the blind woman? Or her sister, maybe?
Joe: No, no. Just some scary-looking, creepy old lady with dwarf face.
Mitch: Are you stoned? What the hell is dwarf face?
Joe: Are you drunk?
Mitch: Shut up.
LAS: Look, I’m not following this but let’s say ok, what then?
Loni: Meat cleaver.
LAS: What?
Loni: Meat cleaver. She turns around, looks at him randomly and while he’s trying to figure out who she is, she hacks his jugular with a meat cleaver.
LAS: Guys, c’mon! We’re artists. We’re better than this. Don’t we have any better ideas?
Joe: Well, Donald Sutherland could undress himself and…
LAS: Meat cleaver it is! Done.
–
Or something like that. Shit christ. What a terrible experience. Like that time Aaron told me the “Mr. Green” joke.
Ridiculous.
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Closer now to the coffeeshops, the canals and the whores, things are starting to get a bit more real. That’s not some analogy I’m stretching either. Living a street away from the Red Light District means I see an assload of all three every day I’m here.
And that’s the tickle under my skin these days - the splinter in my mind. I’ve not yet left this city for others. I’m still here. This was not how things were supposed to go. I was supposed to be all over, putting out fires in distant corners of Europe, traveling fast to both cause and correct the levels of mayhem in the world. I was supposed to be an international man of mystery.
WTF?
To date, too many tourists have laughed like absurd hyenas under my window; too many drunken English boys on stag parties have sung crazy Irish songs at odd hours of the night. Too many cute prostitutes have winked at me and knocked on their windows as I pass to make my way to buy bread, bananas and milk. And so far, all those notions of gallivanting around Europe with a corporate credit card and a smile as wide as Jesus could spread his arms?
Lies, lies, lies.
So far, anyway. Days go by and with my relocation per diem gone after the official move, I watch my euros - my precious little colored money - the way a freshman watches his stash of beer that someone bought him a month ago. I don’t eat out as often. Afternoon coffee breaks are taken at home, with my 7 euro coffee machine. I can’t go anywhere because I’m at work, but there’s only so many online trainings you can handle, only so many power point slides from June ‘03 I can scroll through alone in my room before my eyes start disintegrating from ennui, pouring out of my face like the sand in a broken hourglass.
And I won’t have it. Not me. Gallivanting is what I do. It’s all I know; it’s my thing.
So things cannot stay this way. The weekend is only days away and I have a car at my disposal. An honest to god CAR. Sure, it’s a European Ford, but it’s got 4 wheels and runs good. That passes for transportation where I come from. So it’s decided then. PKK road trip number one is green for go. Let’s see what kind of plans materialize.
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A dark and hidden moon was in the sky tonight, readers. A moon that shone the way to nowhere and illuminated nothing. A selfish and greedy moon, an Artemis who kept all the light to herself. A beacon to nowhere whose usually tireless signal went ignored by the night.
For the second time in the last week, I have found my way home thanks in no small part to my soon to be flat mates, The Katies. The illustrious pair took a liking to yours truly some weeks ago and housing contracts were signed.
Foolish, if you ask me, but then again, you didn’t, and so much for that. Despite what they have learned about me and my tendencies, they have entrusted me, via contract, a collaborative arrangement to share their abode and company for at least the next few months. Mighty fine thing on their part, if you ask me. Mighty fine thing indeed.
Though despite what I say here, readers, they did, between you and me, get the better end of the deal. A drunken cab ride home on the biceps of some random dude you just met has never felt safer for The Katies and such privileges are theirs to enjoy since that’s what flat mates are for in such times. It will be their end of the bargain, however, to introduce me to countless eligible tall, blond, Dutch bachelorettes that aren’t completely useless. I trust they will fulfill their end of the deal as well as I have upheld mine.
–
Prior to the last couple of posts I’d been gone a long time. Remember that this was for your sake as well as mine. I understand your plight, believe me, but I was not compelled to utilize my resources just because you needed something to read.
But there was good reason for this.
There has been a lot of controversy regarding my recent departure from the place that has been my homeland for some time now. I point you in the direction of the enlightened, in the direction that describes how incidental my home in the US has been. And I tell you that leaving the US for another country wasn’t a matter of choice for me…
It was a matter of time.
And you should’ve seen this coming, so I hope that’s enough on that subject. Maybe not. We’ll see.
Still, even after such time, and even now that the leaving is done, what have I gone and done with my new found time? My fingers are numb with drink and I find it hard to focus. So much the better, I guess. The Good Doctor did say, with some sense still in his head, “Buy the ticket, take the ride.” I guess I’m doing little else other than that these days.
Peruse at your own risk, and good luck with that.
Amsterdam, The Netherlands — August, 2007
Skek, Centrum
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