American in Amsterdam 1

American in Amsterdam

2/11/03

I had my most interesting evening in Amsterdam last night, thanks to Wild Bill. We met at the Green House coffee shop in the red light district. So many friends and acquaintances gathered there around 1700, after work or waking up, that we took two tables by the front window. “Best seats in the house”, Andy told me.

“There is an auction tonight”, Billy interested no one but me. He pointed out the building across the canal where squatters occupied the top two floors. It will be auctioned, maybe tonight, would I like to go? Only Billy and I set off on foot for the old meeting hall where public auctions are held in the rotunda. The rest of the gang seems to be settling in with smoke and drink and each other. Hans, Susie, Edward, Andy, and David have other plans for later.

The doorman acknowledged Billy and let us into a large room filled with well groomed, wealthy people, speaking softly. I was wearing a new jacket with a hood and white sneakers. Billy had on a long top coat, flap ear hat, sports coat, warm up pants, white shoes, too, but with a very nice silver silk scarf. He appears as a homeless person, a happy man missing half his front teeth, bespecktickled, and wild dark hair with two mysterious rasta coils coming down from the crown of his head that he hides mostly; not tucked into the side jacket pocket today as they were when I first noticed them. We stood in the back by the bar drinking black coffee watching the auctioneer sell property. The large screen to his right lit up with the first offering. The third and fourth floor of a building, not squatted in, went for €235.000.00 in a fast bid, pause, and last chance chant that ended with a tap on the brass gong. ‘Going, going’, gong. “I will introduce you”, Billy offered, I declined. He seemed to know everyone. He fit in everywhere. I wasn’t ready, my Dutch would improve tonight, thanks to his tutelage, but, the choice was mine at the end. Two more properties were sold in front of the rapt audience; each new owner going to the dais to sign for his commitment.

Billy has on his person all the flyers for every venue. He is a voracious reader and scrounges every paper available, if only for a pause, a moment to smoke another joint. His timing of events is impeccable. We made it to the café filled with successful people in just enough time to order a drink before the liberal local politician began to speak to the crowd. An appearance here only, Billy looked around nodding, acknowledging nods and sipping a red sweet water, a cassis. Middle class respectability all around us, quietly, we left, nodding goodbyes to the closest men who looked at Billy with respect and then at me with curiosity. On the street again, Billy kept up a dialogue, with my oohs and aahs, filled with Amsterdam history and what’s in store for the future. He espoused what Stille Omgang is, the mysterious silent procession along Heiligeweg (Holy Way). Once a year in March, it begins and ends at Spui, kept alive by believers of the miracle of 1345. He laments the choice of change where change has little effect. He is an environmentalist of the first order. He was active with the Peace House, still champions for Ruigoord, speaks for the forgotten.

We open a beautiful wooden door found in the first ring of the city, an island Billy tells me, into an enclave with only one private entrance, its back to the wild when first occupied so long ago. The public entrance on Gedempte Begijnen Sloot is closed for the day. The vestibule is a tile encrusted archway of intricate beauty. Very quietly, we walk the path around the small lopsided square which each house faces. The grass was fresh smelling and very green in the lamplight. A spray of tiny white bell flowers cast shadows here and there. The Presbyterian church, the only building in the courtyard, offers public worship at 10:30 on Sundays. An English speaking congregation held together since 1607, the church is much older at 1392. The refugees from intolerant Scotland were given this space by the Burgers and only women live here now. We are close to the Spui and the Queen’s house, quite alone in the early evening of a Monday.

He leads me to a mall near the flower market. It is closed, he rings, we are admitted. On the top floor, Luke lives with his son in a conciousness center; pay for prayer, buy books and talismans, expand your awareness with expert help. The mall is an amazing architectural marvel with a center elevator that travels an incline, not a shaft. We only look down at the floors below us filled with commerce. The 2 meter tall wooden horse striding over Luke’s desk is a fine sculpture recalling Sarejavo for the man, when I ask him. Luke gives Billy money. He is more interested in the gold trading news on his computer screen than in me, asks us for our forbearance even at our interruption, goes back to work. I look around the high ceilinged room filled with hope, introduce myself to Thomas, the son, while Billy resets himself in the water closet. His look changes with each door that we pass through but his smile stays the same and everyone accepts his intrusion.

“Billy, I have to eat. My treat, your choice.” A few steps away we enter the Eetsalon. A precursor to FEBO, the chain of automats found throughout the city, the waitresses stand on a raised platform, ringed by customers like us wanting fresh food. Broodije de boten, Billy’s choice, are served open-faced on white bread and the American consists of minced beef. He orders another with cheese, just sliced, still pungent. Still another meat sandwich, slowly savored in silence punctuated with Billy’s language lessons. Finally, we ask for the krokets. The order goes to the kitchen and a tasty finger food, deep fried, best dripped with mustard, arrives at just the right temperature. Two large hungry men eat their fill for €15.70.

We must go back to the Green House, he decides. No one we know is there after a hasty walk. We go around the corner to a watering hole coffee shop for the Hemp Museum and see Steven. Robert comes in just then and we talk, Billy reads and smokes, another cup of coffee wit melk goes down. “We get my bike now”, Billy announces. Rewrapping ourselves for the damp cold we bid everyone goodbye. We walk down a canal street, just a piece, to the Hemp Museum. There it is, tucked in the vestibule, safe from thieves. “If no one bought bikes from thieves, they wouldn’t steal them.” Billy is so patient in pronouncing each Dutch syllable for me to mimic, but has no time for my nonsense. He showed me how to ride the tram for free. We got caught by the conductors late one night hitching a ride on the train out of Centraal Station to my neighborhood, Muidersport, first stop on the way to Utreche. He marvels at what people throw away and we look at the trash in the street. But my innocense at honesty frustrates his opportunistic self. “Please, don’t bump me so often.”

I try to ride Billy’s bike, a big one, high gear, back for brakes, wobbly when slow. Billy urges me to try again in an empty alley heading towards a pass through; a swank building lobby with a fine hotel. But I walk it through to Dam Square, not ready for a bike yet. He is always explaining something to me as we walk. We stop at the oldest building on the Dam where the cellar is being dug deeper. Pinning a building to “the moor”, as Billy calls the land, is done as deep as the building is tall. The ten story building across from us has 124 meter pilings driven through the fen. When they hit sand, the piles go down 2 or 3 meters at a stroke. Billy knows where all the water was displaced by new land as the city grew from 1618, says the date on one new building we pass. They kept the original keep, a white marble inset, carved for a small statue, all that’s left of a 385 year old building. When we pass by the historical museum, a monastery, and walk around the orphanage for Dutch sailors children, I sense the caring these people have for each other. To raise your voice is an affront to the Dutch. They treat each other politely, with reserve, and with helping hands full of dignity. Alstublieft, please, is heard everywhere.

The evening grows colder, becomes older as Billy and I cross over to the west. I am guiding his bike, holding the handlebar through a newspaper to cut the cold on my bare hand. I spy Marten seated in a café. He sees me and waves, smiling broadly. He is a bartender at the Kameleon, my favorite restaurant near home. “Do you want to go in?” I decline again, Billy’s choices of places to visit have been my treat, I will see Marten again another time. We reach a neighborhood that is non descript, worked over, he kicks a garage door several times waiting for someone to answer; no one home. The bicycles out front are not tied to anything, Billy looks around and then puts his bike between another and the wall, taking its lock coil and wrapping it around his bike seat. We walk across to an unmarked door and ring. A large man lets us in and we join many young people at the bar.

“This is the underground,” Billy points to the large blackboard hung prominently high on the wall and lit with spotlights. “Here are all the squatter sites and there are the places to go for help.” These poor people are still happy, conversing quietly, imbibing and smoking their cares away. The music makes me tap my fingers on the bar while Billy holds court with his many friends here. He comes back to introduce me to cider beer. He takes the first of three whiskey and sodas, the first time I have seen him drink alcohol. He rolls another tobacco laced joint and the man seated next to him joins him in the elaborate process of cleaning the grass, fitting the filter, rolling the smoke. “That man is from ‘The Ship of Fools’,” Billy says. I had been there another time but Billy didn’t take me, Bram did, not knowing it was closed but still occupied. We had climbed into the hold of the ship only to be turned back by a strange looking man, but not by this one, who is close to being a dwarf. Billy tries to explain how prosperity has weakened the left, made this a bar instead of a meeting place, taken the Marxism away. The people around us have a touch of the wild yet, but obviously are not desperate. The bartender is affronted by my clumsy counting, returns the euro, not even thinking of putting it into the tall glass container between the taps. “That is a collection for the needy.” The next round I am careful to count only a tithe more and point to the container. I am forgiven.

Bars, cafes and coffehouses close arbitrarily in Amsterdam, some lock the door but stay open. It is past midnight now, late for me, I’m still time shifting, Billy strides along the near empty streets challenging the taxis which jockey crazily at every intersection. He puts his bike up against another right outside of a café noisily, a woman charges out with a towel in her hands. She smiles at Billy and we saunder in. They are wrapping up but the Dealer is still open. We go to the counter, I am amazed at the selection and variety of weed offered on the menu, Billy convinces the bar maid to give us drinks. He watchs his bike. I feel safe with Billy watching over me but I’m ready to head for the barn. He has escorted me home twice before and looks to see if I have my bearings. “Billy, I’m OK, I know where I am. You can go home.” We shake hands and he heads off on his bike, no light, taking a turn effortlessly into a canyon of leaning gebouwen.