Love in a Strange Place

We decided to go to Amsterdam at the last minute. It was so close, and the stories we heard from others who had returned were too good to be true.

Arriving at Centraal Station late on a Friday night was like getting lost in an outdoor insane asylum where the staff had been run out of town. Even the train conductors were falling down and laughing at invisible pictures on the walls. Combined with the striking modern facilities and architecture, it resembled a carnival from the distant future.

After dropping off our bags in our shockingly pretty budget hotel, we walked eagerly into the night.

“Did you see all the bikes? We should rent one,” R said.“R, it’s not like Bermuda, you don’t just rent a bike at a corner stand. Besides the guide book says you can walk the whole city in like, half an hour.”

We were really only looking for an ATM to pay the concierge for our room, and naturally, found ourselves in the heart of the Red Light District by accident. Out of every corner and every sex shop, guys in black clamdiggers and gold chains begged us to watch the live sex shows. The streets were so small that we wound up brushing up against every tourist and Dutch alcoholic – you could get high just circling the block.

“Oh, there’s the Bulldog! The guidebook says it’s like the McDonald’s of smoke shops.” I made a mental note to never say “the guidebook says” again.

“We should try it.”

“Really? Right now?”

“Why not? That’s what we came for and I don’t really see any ATMs anyway.” R was right. The closest thing to an ATM around there was the 25 cent Rent-a-Porn machine.

The menu at the Bulldog organized cannabis by country. R chose the weakest from Thailand and I opted for the hot chocolate. The last time I smoked, I got lost in a massive panic attack, sitting at the computer for hours and searching the web for all the possible fatal diseases I might have contracted. It happened one of the first months I was with R, and I remembered looking at him before I fell asleep in my haze, feeling so lucky to have met him before I died.

Two Thai sticks and hot chocolates later, we left the wooden enclave of the Bulldog, and found ourselves on the edge of a canal lined with houseboats. I saw a man in a dusty grey jacket smiling at me and I reached for R’s hand. But I couldn’t find him. He’d disappeared. All I saw were the broken neon lights outside the sex shows, horrifying in their unapologetic neglect for love and emotion. The city had abandoned hope for normalcy, and rejected me, with my searching and my aspirations, as a member. Everyone around me was sad and huddled in darkness, the red lights setting their faces ablaze with grief.

I ran to one of the houseboats, only to bump into the smiling man in grey. He smelled like chocolate, and I realized it was R. I hadn’t moved at all; the city itself had collapsed before my eyes while I stood motionless.

In the morning, I sat with R in a corner shop near the flower market while he puffed away—I neglected another go and read my guidebook cover to cover.