The Wilderness Years - One Night in the Red Light

Shortly after the 28th anniversary of my birth and the 3rd anniversary of setting up shop in North Oakland i took a vacation, of the European variety, it was roughly a month and i went on my own and it was a calculated gamble because the weed buyers of the world can be a fickle lot and packing up and leaving for a month could have found me coming home to a clientele list that had shrunk dramatically, and the honest truth was slinging was my main gig, it was how i got by, the warehouse job was for show, i had managed to squirrel some cash away and set myself a budget and did all the research and booked some cheap rooms and had a free place to flop in South London, this was done by placing phone calls and using actual travel guides because back then the internet was not the wondrous wasteland it is now... i would dub this trip the Booze and Drugs tour and it would involve stops in, besides London, Amsterdam, Brussels, gay Paree and then back to London before heading home and back to the grind...

And so it was one Friday London morning i arose early and walked to the train station, took a train to the main station and caught the Chunnel train to Paris where i realized that i'd fucked up and added 3 hours to my trip and that i should have caught the train to Brussels but what the hell? i'm a septic on a walkabout there was no need to rush... and so i caught another "fast" train from Paris to Brussels and then a slow one from Brussels to Amsterdam which was spent sipping Amstel and staring at the tulip fields, sometime around late afternoon, after spending roughly 9 hours on trains, i wandered out of the Amsterdam Central Station and began walking towards my little hotel, the whole time like some wide-eyed, wild-haired child, in awe of all that i saw, of the the language and street signs and bicycles and canals, i skirted the Red Light district as i saw my first coffee shop but resisted the urge to grab some gear until i had checked in and gotten settled and grabbed a bite to eat...

My little room was up a flight of steps with the toilet and shower down the hall and a bakery right next door, (how that would come in handy), i looked out the little window that faced onto a little square where the workers of the nearby shops took their breaks, i discovered that Dutch toilets had no water but a little shelf which amused me to know fucking end, the water rushing out after and pushing your turds over the "falls" and out to the lovely canals (or i could only assume)... i unpacked and took a short nap and then headed out to get something to eat, it was still early but after a long day i told myself that i would wait until tomorrow to hit the Red Light, no need to rush as i had a few days and in the back of my mind i knew i couldn't run amok but also knew that there was a distinct possibility i would run completely fucking amok and run the risk of Brussels and Paris going by the wayside and heading back to Souf Londin to drink Tennant's Super for the next two weeks while awaiting my flight home...

So into the late afternoon sunshine i went, i wandered a bit and saw Ajax's stadium and stood admiring the first professional home of Dennis Bergkamp, then found a little place and ate some lasagna and drank a few Amstels, i watched the bicycles and traffic and people all moving about, i watched the sun slowly fade and pulled out my little map and figured what the fuck? couldn't hurt just to find the Red Light tonight so that i would know where i was going in the morning right? and so off i went in search of the Red Light District of Amsterdam, a tall septic in a flannel shirt, like Coronado searching for his city of gold, in less than 10 minutes i was at the gates of Eden to a 28yr old half ass American hoodlum, i was stopped at the gates and told that if i wanted the best "coke, hash or ecstasy", to come see this man in a black leather jacket, "i'm here every night, marycan."  I nodded and took it under advisement.

There's a reason for districts like this being beacons for the petty criminal, my first fifteen minutes wandering through i must have looked like a first class mark, a bumpkin right off the bus, you didn't have to lift my wallet you could have stolen my pants right off me and i wouldn't have known it, my grin was Cheshire cat wide as i looked around, i told myself as i walked through that if there was a so-called heaven i hoped it looked just like this, yes it may be a warped view of things but it was my 28yr old view, the thought of a good night sleep dissolved like acid on the tongue, fucking gone, it was time to get down to business and so get down to business i would...

Now a good friend of mine who had come to Holland, squatted a house near the Belgian border, set up a grow room and plied his trade by peddling his crop to a Belgian who would ride his bike across the border and put the gear in a backpack and ride back, told me i would absolutely hate the music, he told me this while sitting in my room and buying gear off me when he came back after 18 months because his mother missed him, he was a good guy but leaned towards the hippy jam band scene and so i shrugged and took it under advisement, there was a couple years where my life was all about the club and doing drugs and dancing until the sun came up, but the reality was that i was mellow enough to get on anywhere and so i wasn't too concerned...

I walked around a bit and noticed this hole in the wall sorta place, dark except for the light that hung over the pool table, there was strange track lighting that ran around the doors and above the bar and it seemed reasonably seedy enough at first glance and so in i strolled, of course everyone sorta of turned and took a glance at the stranger walking in, the bartender looked like a bull dyke Bridgette Nielsen, she was close to six feet tall with a space between her front teeth, a mullet with bangs and shaved sides, she turned from the CD player behind the bar, took one look at me laughed and yelled, Hey American! you like James Brown? i grinned slightly and with my best smart ass said, I fuckin' love James Brown, she broke into a smile and yelled, then sit down and get yourself a drink... (to be continued)