Six thousand Euros. Nine thousand U.S. dollars. Given away, no questions asked. Who does that? Sure, to a charitable organization or the cause to fight cancer. But to an individual one hasn’t known for even two weeks? To an escort?!
I smiled as I made an omelet and drank coffee. An online story about the European Union putting pressure on The Netherlands to outlaw shrooms caught my eye as I ate breakfast. Fucking fascists. I showered and dressed. The living room needed cleaning. I noticed we had done all of the coke last night … until I saw a packed baggie on the floor on the side of the coffee table. Had Vanessa dropped it, left it behind, forgotten about it? An early Christmas present? I chose the latter.
I pushed the button to open the blinds. The sun was peeking through the clouds. I grabbed my jacket, phone, and wallet and walked through my favorite neighborhood, found the café I had visited early during my visit, and sat at one of the three indoor tables. I ordered an espresso and watched pedestrians amble on their way to wherever it was they were going. The barista was the same woman who had served me earlier during my visit. She spoke Dutch and I told her, “I’m sorry, I speak very, very little Dutch and I understand even less.” She said, “Ah, you are American. Welcome.” She paused and said, “You look familiar, though.” I told her I had been in her café not long ago and she nodded. “That must be it. I remember faces well.” I asked her if she owned the place and she said, no, she managed the café. An uncle owned it.
So many cafes and shops in Amsterdam were family owned and operated. It reminded me of an America I had never experienced. As I sat with my espresso, sipping it now and then, I thought about the previous evening. My feelings were muted by an inner quiet.
Vanessa sent an SMS, surprisingly early. “I go Romania! Thank you. Love you! Kiss!” I replied. “When are you coming back? I leave next week.” She responded. “I back on weekend. You leave Amsterdam?” I wrote back yes, next Tuesday. She said, “No, you no go!” I responded again, “I see you this weekend. We talk then. Miss you. Love.” It pained me that I would be leaving in a week’s time. When would I return? Surprisingly, I wondered if she would come to the U.S. if I bought her a plane ticket. Maybe I would ask her about it when she got back. I shook my head. Time to think of something else.
Shrooms. Fuckers wanting to outlaw the shit. I had heard a story about how a fifteen year old French girl had fallen or jumped from a ten-story hotel the previous summer—or maybe it was two years ago. She was supposedly shrooming. As if that was what caused her to jump. Anyone jumping from a building likely had a lot of other problems or else they wouldn’t jump, no matter how bad the trip might be. Either way, that event had ramped up the discussion about outlawing mushrooms. Fucking ridiculous sensationalist bullshit. The U.S. and the EU, of course, had to meddle in the sovereign affairs of The Netherlands. Hell, that’s what the U.S. does as policy! Apparently, the EU had incorporated the bullying tactics of the Fascist States of America.
The bullshit pissed me off and depressed me. Well, if they were going to outlaw the fun stuff I figured I had better get my rocks off while I could. Time to “get back up on the horse,” pick some up later. I left the café and wandered slowly through the Oude Zijde and past the canal rings to Vondel Park, my since I had arrived. It was a long walk from my apartment on Entrepotdok. The park was lovely and my mood was even lovelier.
The day was chilly, but good for walking. I was getting fit on this trip while eating well and walking everywhere. I felt more energy. I wished I lived in a city in the United States that was structured like Amsterdam, but of course there were none. Even in Chicago and New York the walking is not the same. The feel of those cities is hyperkinetic whereas pedestrians in Amsterdam were mostly relaxed except in a few key places. I didn’t know much about the city outside the center except for the few neighborhoods bordering it such as the Jordaan, De Pijp, and the Plantage. I had visited neither De Pijp nor the Jordaan this trip. In fact, I had never explored De Pijp--not purposefully, anyway. I had gotten lost and wound up on one of its streets during a past trip. The Jordaan I knew better, having wandered through its quaint streets and touring the Anne Frank house in the late 90s. The latter had been a sobering experience, a history lesson of horror and inspiration.
After my stroll through Vondel Park, one of the great parks of Europe, I bought fritjes, a broodje, and sparkling water at a stand. I ate on a bench while watching the city move back and forth past me. Back on my feet, the smart shop on Kerkstraat was open so I bought a dose of McKennai. Body high. The Ecuadorians seemed stronger, the dose accompanying my panic attack the night of the Melkweg adventure. Anxiety and panic attacks are part of the risk of doing shrooms. What the hell was a fifteen year old doing with them anyway? Only those eighteen and older were allowed to buy shrooms, but, like drugs and alcohol everywhere, those underage will score if they want them bad enough.
I ambled home, legs tired, and smoked a bowl. Nothing important in my email inbox except the PDFs for indexes due in January. I downloaded them and made sure they were readable. It was mid-afternoon; I napped to be fresh for shrooming later.
I woke around six, put on sweats, and made pasta. Pasta seemed to fit the bill rather well whenever I took shrooms. It was becoming a tradition or perhaps a ritual. I added a few different spices and ate heartily. I had a glass of a cab I had purchased the previous week. I went to a corner store not far from Eik en Linde to buy a six pack of Floreffe. I returned around seven, loaded a bowl, and puffed. I gobbled the shrooms and turned on the CD player. A concert version of Phish’s “Ya Mar” filled the living room. “Oh, yeah, the blow!” The baggie held what looked like an eight-ball; it was much bigger than the gram-sized bags Vanessa and I had been purchasing. I dumped about a gram of coke on the case. I paused for a moment. Shrooms and coke? A combination I hadn’t done since the night I met Vanessa. Hmmm…
I mashed the coke into a fine powder and formed three fat lines. I did a card bump to alert myself, but decided to wait until I felt the shrooms to do more. I filled a couple glasses with water knowing I could easily get dehydrated and put them on the coffee table—visual reminders in case I forgot when the shrooms took over. I looked at the lines. I wasn’t feeling the shrooms, but I was still high from the pot and feeling good from the card bump. The blow spoke to me: “Why would you wait for the shrooms, you fucking twit? We belong up your nose! Sniff, sniff, give your nose a blast.” What the fuck, right? I rolled up a bill and tooted one of the fat lines. “Yeeeeeowwww, mama mama mama mama!” I switched nostrils and Hoovered another fattie. “Zingzingzow!!!” I poured the rest of the cocaine onto the case, mashed and diced it into a fine powder, mixed it with the existing line and made two massive lines. “Holy fuck, those are big lines! Wowza!” They were thick, bulging lines that stretched nearly the length of the CD case. Each one was well over a gram in size, probably a gram and a half each.
God, I felt like heaven. I wanted to do more. Should I do more? Wait for later? Why not do one of the fucking lines right now. Fuck yeah! I nailed half of one down and came really close to finishing off the other half. I pulled back, though. “No, no, I might need more later.” I turned off the Phish CD, shaking like a leaf and contorting my face as I did. “Whoo! Yeah! Fuck yeah. Motherfuck yeah!” I found an ebullient trance station on the satellite radio and put down the remote. Fuck yeah! Doing a gram of coke and shrooming? You bet your fucking ass, motherfucker! What could go wrong?
Soon enough the shrooms made their first appearance. I was hot. I went to the bathroom, turned on the shower, took off my clothes, and positioned myself under the shower-head waterfall. The water was too warm; cooler, cooler, cooler … cold. Yes, cold. Better. Fuck, still flush, though. The water was as cold as it could be, but it wasn’t cold enough. “Why am I so fucking hot?!”
I got out of the shower because it wasn’t helping matters. I dried off, put on shorts and t-shirt, and went to the coffee table. I smoked a couple puffs of weed to try to come down a little. I sat back on the couch, my legs doing a jig, feet tapping, toes twirling. My mouth swirled in circles and my nose sniffed and sniffled. “Why are my eyes constantly blinking?” The room spun faster and faster. I was on a carousel! “Tickets. Tickets, anyone? Step right up and get your tickets before the ride goes off the rails!” I was whacked and the shrooms were just getting started. The pot did nothing but intensify the effects. The water glasses. Yes! Smart to put them in eyesight. Great foresight. I drank one and then the other. My feet led me to the kitchen, first by taking gigantic fifteen-foot steps and then short half-inch shuffles. I breathed deep and felt good despite the churning heat. I put the glass under the fridge’s water dispenser, drank, refilled, drank, refilled and took the glass to the living room.
I turned off all the lights in the kitchen and living room except for a couple lamps, one with a dimmer switch I turned low. The saw the light and it was good. I looked out the living room window. I didn’t like the darkness outside so I pushed the button to shut them. “My god, that’s amazing.” I was enthralled by automation. I drank more water and went to the kitchen to refill. Back to the living room. The radio was bleeping and zwooping. I knelt in front of the coke. It was so white, whiter than fluffy fresh snow on Mont Blanc. The softness of the powder soothed me. I felt waves of tenderness washing over me. I wept as I spoke to it, “Oh, beauteous cocaine. You are so white and soft and good. Thank you for your white softness. I would hug you if I could.”
I was losing touch with reality little by little. I zipped the half line which was probably close to a gram and then curved the other huge line in a circle. I re-rolled the bill and zoomed a third of it. I shot back against the couch and laughed hysterically. “Oh-ho-ho-ho! Santa Claus is coming to town!” The walls throbbed, pulsing with the music. I switched stations and a sound hell broke loose. I couldn’t tell what type of music it was, what genre. It was an audio track of a devil gnashing sinewy flesh, chainsaws ripping through bones, a banshee wailing while chasing a little girl screaming, wind whistling through chimes, swarms of locusts decimating corn fields, apples thrown against the side of brick walls, wooden fences splintering from sledgehammer blows, a car backing over thousands of trash can lids, Aborigines swallowing exploding firecrackers, a chorus of soldiers charging through a forest, newscasters announcing the apocalypse after sucking helium from balloons, and billions of sounds that couldn’t possibly have originated within the solar system.
My body slinked and slid on the hardwood floors, propelled not by me but the pressure from pulsating walls. I crawled to the glass topped labyrinth, rolled underneath it, and popped out next to the couch. I saw a bill that could have easily been a leaf from an ancient redwood that accidentally grew next to the Nile River in Egypt. A pharaoh had likely left it for me so I could inhale the white powder that contained secrets only gods could fathom. Could I be Ra or Shiva or Zeus? There was only one way to know. I spent decades rolling the bill, my fingers gnarled from a heavy gravity pulling inward to the palms of my hands. A nostril expanded to the size of an air duct and I levitated over the case to will the last of the stardust into the HVAC system.
“Oh … I am god. I didn’t know.” I stood, twisted, turned, and twirled. Elation spiraled outward, bottle rockets exploded from eye sockets that I had once thought of as mine, but now realized could never be possessed by thoughts. I twirled and twirled and twirled as the lights of the room became bright white then orange-yellow. A tint of green fell over every object. I was blueness in a room continuously changing colors as I twirled. Dizziness arrived, disorientation followed. Neither could have been related to me because I was color. How could a color become disoriented? A schism was developing, a part called “me” and everything else that existed. This “me” was the problem; the rest of the universe was getting along just fine without “me.” In fact, “me” was being punished for believing it existed as a separate entity.
My balance and the world turned at different angles until I crashed to the ground. I felt all of myself thrust back into “me.” I wasn’t sure where I was or what was happening but I felt tremendous pain in my chest, like someone had lassoed me and was tightening the rope. I cried out in horror but no sound came. I couldn’t breathe and all I saw was whiteness.
I wasn’t sure how long I laid there, but I was becoming hotter and hotter. I felt like I was on fire and my lungs had caved to the pressure of what was no longer a rope but an anvil crushing me, a giant’s foot squashing me like bug. I felt sympathy and regret for all the bugs I had stepped on in my life and tried, desperately, to say I was sorry but again no sound came. I lost focus and my mind could no longer access verbal thought. There was only panic. There was a visual of the coffee table and I crawled to it in excruciating pain. I sat up and this time a scream escaped my lips. The scream was eternal, would exist forever throughout time as a sound wave bouncing around the universe. The phone on the coffee table, I needed it. I recovered my verbal capabilities and clicked on “contacts.” I dialed the first one.
I wished, momentarily, that Vanessa hadn’t left Amsterdam. Today of all days! I wasn’t sure who I was calling but my friend Brooke answered the phone. I wasn’t aware of time in any traditional sense, but I was glad that someone was awake to answer the phone. I recognized her voice and said, “This is Michael. I’m in Amsterdam and things are falling apart all around me! I can’t breathe and my chest … I think I’m having a heart attack.”
Brooke talked me down. Her voice was calm and she asked a series of questions. I managed to understand a few of them and told her I was shrooming. I wanted to tell her about the coke, too, but I was sure the phone was tapped, probably by a wide array of different intelligence agencies: The CIA, the NSA, Scotland Yard, whatever agencies exist within the EU and Holland. I couldn’t risk telling her even though it might help her to know I had just done an eight-ball of blow a night after doing half a gram of coke after doing coke day after day for … how long? Impossible to know. Could have been centuries or maybe just a minute. There was no telling.
I felt okay telling her about the mushrooms since they were unregulated. I was coming back into my mind again thanks to Brooke's serene and rational voice. She asked more questions and the answers seemed to eliminate the possibility of a heart attack, but I remembered again and again that she didn’t know about the coke. I kept forgetting and almost told her a thousand times, but I always remembered that my phone was tapped and fascist thugs were outside the door waiting to arrest me. I was in a pickle. I wanted to go to a hospital to save my life, but if Brooke was right and I was fine then I would be thrown into a dungeon to be tortured by an endless parade of men named Boris. Every torturer in the world was now named Boris. If they had had a different name before becoming a torturer they were forced to change it. It was the only way their techniques could be effective. Fuck Boris!
After several years on the phone with Brooke—she was a saint, I was convinced—she said she had to take care of some things and that she was going to call our mutual friend, Anne, so that she could talk with me, help keep me calm. She asked if I would be okay for about fifteen minutes. Of course I would be fine; her calm voice was now a part of me and it would talk to me while she called Anne. I got up and walked to the bedroom. My chest still felt tight and hurt quite a bit, but I was breathing a little slower, a little better. When I entered the bedroom, however, I collapsed on the floor. I saw all white again until I blacked out. Who knows how long? My consciousness returned, but I couldn’t breathe. My arms and legs wouldn’t move. I was paralyzed and panicking again. Some part of me said, “Breathe, breathe, breathe,” so I did, breathing within the mantra of “breathe.” I managed to move an arm, the one with the phone in hand. the process was terrifying and incredibly painful, but I put the phone next to my face so I’d be able to hear the phone ring. I remembered she was supposed to call, but I wondered if I would die before she did.
The phone rang and I answered. I put it under my ear so I could talk without holding it or moving from my prone position on the floor. The floor felt nice and cool. I didn’t want to make any moves; movement seemed to result in heart attacks. My body was still overheated but slightly less so. Anne let me know she had called my friend Mark as well, the triumvirate brain trust who, besides my brother and parents, had helped me survive the separation and divorce. I spent about a year on the phone with Anne as she helped keep me calm, reassuring me I hadn’t had a heart attack after I told her all my symptoms. Still, I felt that if I moved I would trigger another one. Anne reminded me, again, that I might not have had a heart attack at all, that I might just be having a really bad trip and an incredibly severe panic attack. This made some semblance of sense to me even without telling her about the cocaine. Anne eventually calmed me down to the point where I felt at peace. She said she would be available all evening and to call back if I needed help. She said Mark was available, too. I was so happy for the time difference between Amsterdam and the U.S. I was also glad that my sense of time was returning.
When I hung up I remained on the floor breathing, returning to my mantra of “breathe, breathe, breathe.” Eventually, I fell asleep on the hardwood floor with the phone next to my face.
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