Endless Possibility: a RUSH novella (City Lights 3.5) (10 page)

“Yeah, you want a canal seat? I can help you.”

Either Dutch pot baristas were customer service fanatics, or the fact that I paid the equivalent of $33 dollars for one fat joint made him go the extra mile, but the guy walked me through the café, to an outdoor terrace, and sat me down on a couch. I heard a few talking voices around, but the couch I had to myself. For the time being.

“Your coffee’s on the table to your right.” The guy pressed a book of matches into my hand. “You want me to light it?”

“Nah, man, I’m good. Thanks.”

And after two hits on the joint, I
was
good. Better than I’d felt in eons. I’d paid a premium and that’s what I got.

“Primo shit,” I muttered and laughed at myself.

I hadn’t laughed in forever. That felt good too. My whole body felt good, and I could feel—but do nothing about—the stupid, lazy grin on my face.

This was a better apathy. My bones melted into the couch, and the blackness that entrapped me felt lighter somehow. All the heavy thoughts and grief and the pain of missing Charlotte that had been weighing me down were now weightless and drifting. I waved them away and they vanished into thin air.
Like smoke
, I thought with another laugh. I sat back on the couch while my coffee grew cold beside me.

I honestly don’t know how long I sat there; time oozed by, marked by conversations around me that came and went. I had presence of mind enough to let my joint go out before it was halfway gone, or else I’d probably have slipped into a coma. Thoughts of food infiltrated the green haze around me, but to get off that couch was much too much effort. Instead, I decided to do something I’d never done before on this entire trip, and that was strike up a conversation.

There was a small group of people who were now sharing my couch on my left. The pot was making me bold. Or stupid. Or boldly stupid. I turned to them and said, “Nice day for it, yeah?”

A pause. A silence. I just laughed, and then they laughed too, and just like that, I had four new friends. All youngish—my age, or close to—and all college students, all able English speakers.

Bram’s handshake was rough and strong, like his voice.

Schuyler was the jokester, his handshake loose and light, like his laugh.

James was a Brit; he gave my hand one stiff, formal shake and called me “mate”, his voice fully loaded with curiosity.

And Anika was soft and sweet, and smelled like caramel. She shook my hand and held it. I realized she wasn’t going to let go until I pulled away.

My new buddies bombarded me with questions: why I was there, who I was with, and what the fuck was a blind guy doing all alone in Amsterdam? I answered all their questions with a moronic lack of caution, and someone helped me light the joint again.

“What do you do for a living, Noah?” James asked.

“I’m…uh, I’m a writer,” I said.

That was the first time I’d said that. It felt strangely arrogant. Had I done enough to deserve the title? I thought of all my articles for
Planet X
and gave myself permission to use the word.

“I used to write for a magazine. Now I’m a freelancer…so to speak.” I laughed, thinking how I ‘wrote’ by dictating into a machine. “
So to speak
. Yes, exactly! Get it?”

They didn’t, but they all laughed the way high people laughed: just because.

“And why are you traveling around Europe? Are you alone?” Schulyer asked.

“Seems bloody mad to me,” James added quickly.

“My girlfriend is a violinist with a symphony,” I answered slowly, trying to make the words that came out of my mouth match the words my brain wanted me to speak. “She’s on tour and I’m following her…It. The tour. Research,” I added. “How a blind person would travel Europe. That’s my book.”

Yeah, that sounded okay. Sloppy, but enough truth to be believable.

Anika sidled up to me and cooed. “Awww, you’re doing it for your girl. For love! You’re doing it for love!”

“Yeah,” I said, smiling lazily. “That too.”
That most of all.

I shared my joint with them, and while I’d clearly already won Anika over, that brought the guys around. Instant best buddies.

“Fuck me, mate, this is some strong shit,” James said, coughing.

“Neuk mij dood,” Bram said and it sounded like he was pounding his chest. “Sterk. That’s
strong
to you, Amerikaanse.”

“It’s primo,” I said helpfully.

“Primo!” Schuyler said with a screeching laugh, and we all laughed with him.

“Do you speak Dutch, Noah?” Anika asked excitedly. It seemed like everything she did was excitedly. She couldn’t sit still. I could feel her vibrating next to me, like a live wire.

“I speak French,” I said.

“Ohh, I love French. So romantic. Tell me, what do you say to your girl in French to get her hot, eh?”

The others laughed. I managed a smile.

“She doesn’t speak French.”

“No? Too bad. What a waste.” Anika leaned closer. “I speak French. Maybe you will say something hot to me, oui?”

Naturally, I hadn’t the faintest clue what Anika might look like, but right then I was hit with a very strong impression: a girl with a soft face but hard, cold eyes. Of warm skin but a bruising touch. A slapper. Someone who would hit a man and then cry hysterically after, begging forgiveness.

“Anika, niet een slet van jezelf niet te maken,” Schuyler laughed. “Noah, thank me. I just told her not to make a slut of herself in front of you.”

“Slet?” Anika shrieked in my ear. “Here’s some
English.
Go fuck yourself, Schuyler!”

Schuyler just chuckled and knocked my knee with his hand to get my attention. “Hey, you need to learn Dutch, ya? I teach you. Say this one. Very important: Neuken in de keuken.”

“Noykehn in de koykehn,” I muttered, feeling stupid. I took a hit off the joint and felt instantly less stupid. “What’s that mean?”

“Fuckin’ in the kitchen,” Schuyler said, and laughed like a hyena.       

“Sort of loses something in translation,” I said. “If you want something to rhyme…‘Fuck in the truck.’”

We all burst out laughing at this, the dumbest conversation in the history of the spoken word.

“Schuyler, idioot. Teach him something he can use,” Bram said. “Noah, say, Ik moet mijn zonnebrils avond dragen.”

“That’s not going to happen,” I said dryly.

“It means, I wear my sunglasses at night,” Bram said. “And you do, ja?”

“Ja,” I said, smiling softly as an old memory echoed faintly in my mind. “Like Bono.”

“Like Bono!” Schuyler screeched.

Everyone laughed so hard, I knew they had to be high as kites, and the vague disquiet I felt for my new ‘friends’ was relegated to background buzzing. We talked and laughed at nothing, and made stupid jokes until I could no longer feel the sun on my face.

“Eh, Noah!” Schuyler said, suddenly. “We’re off to get dinner and then…you’d say ‘clubbing.’”      

“Have you ever been to a dance club in Amsterdam?” Anika asked. “You must come with us!”

“Yes!” Bram bellowed. “But which? Paradiso? Escape, or—”

“Escape,” I said immediately. “Escape.”

“Noah wants Escape,” Schuyler cried. “Let’s help him escape!”

Anika linked arms with me, and they led me out of the café on a cloud of pot, laughter and maybe even a little bit of danger. I felt it, lurking just beneath the surface, but hadn’t the faculties or the energy to investigate. Over the last month, my instincts had become a fifth sense, drawing me away from situations—or dark alleys—I could feel, but not see.

But these four moved too fast, and I was caught up with them like a swimmer tossed by a wave—helpless to do more than tumble along until it let up. And god help me, the part of me that had craved danger, that had sought it like a drug,
enjoyed
this. The lightning that skimmed along my nerves was a million times more potent than the pot.

We scarfed down broodje sandwiches from a sidewalk café, and then the gang took me to Club Escape in Bram’s car. I thought it must have been much too early for a nightclub but before the loud, pulsing music swamped me, my watch told me it was close to 8 p.m.

“You have a talking watch?” Anika shouted in my ear. “Super cool!”

My sluggish and sound-drowned brain couldn’t come up with a response, but it didn’t matter anyway. Anika tried to drag me to the dance floor but I refused. I was high, but not so stoned out of my mind that I was about to dance in front of anyone.

I resisted the tug of her small but strong hands. “I wanna sit. Smoke.”

The music was too loud and the place was packed with bodies. Too many people. If there was a fire or some other emergency, I’d be done for.

That’s just the pot making you paranoid. You should quit.

Why? Charlotte isn’t here. She’s safe.

And what about you?

Fuck it all. I was tired of the routine, the regimen that I’d prescribed myself. I was going to go where the night took me and suffer the consequences later. My biggest threat, my stupid, cloudy mind reasoned, was keeping Anika’s grabby hands off me without pissing her off.

“Where are you staying, Noah?” James asked.

“In the red light district,” Schuyler said. “All American tourists stay there. Get high. Get some girls, ja?”

“No. I’m at the Sir Albert.”

A silence and then, “The Sir Albert? Oh la la,” Schuyler laughed. “Are you a prince? Noah, here, is American royalty. Prince Noah!”

“No, man. I wish. I’m just there for one night,” I said, cursing my loose tongue.

Rule #4: Don’t advertise you have money while being blind as a goddamn bat.

“I’m splurging for one night,” I said again.

“Sure, sure,” Schuyler snickered. “
Just for one night
.” 

Inwardly, I cursed myself. I felt them assessing my leather jacket, my watch, my sunglasses—the designer brand Ava bought for me.
Prince Noah?
asked the snide commentator who had taken up residence in my mind.
Yeah, prepare yourself, Highness. You’re about to get royally fucked.

I listened to them chat in Dutch—even James, the Brit, could speak it—and, sure enough, I could feel the air between us change. It grew colder somehow. Eventually, the gang decided it was time to bail, and I was hustled into Bram’s car, and wedged between Anika and James.

“I think it’s time I called it a night,” I said.

“No, my man, we’re going to a party at my place,” Bram said from the front seat. “Canal views,” he added with a dark laugh. “You will love.”

“I’m sure,” I muttered, trying to think how to get out of this predicament with all my body parts intact. But the pot had slowed me down, and Anika was all over me. She had turned sideways to press her breasts against my shoulder, while her hand ventured up my leg.

I caught her wrist and held it. “I have a girlfriend,” I said harshly. “This is not going to happen.”

“What is
this
?” Anika whined and then laughed. “
This
is nothing but a little fun, ja? A fuck in the truck!”

“No.” I pitched my voice to the front of the car. “Bram. Pull over. I’ll get back on my own.”

He didn’t reply, and Anika had nothing more to say to me, apparently, but she had plenty to say in Dutch. The four of them talked all around me and they weren’t laughing anymore.

You’re a fucking idiot,
I told myself, but of course it was too late.

The car stopped, the engine cut out, and two doors opened: the front passenger, and the left rear. Schulyer and James exited, leaving Bram behind the wheel and Anika beside me.

She straddled me at once, and removed my sunglasses to run her hands through my hair. “Ooh, you’re so pretty, Prince Noah,” she cooed. Her hips undulated, grinding against me. “You and I, we’ll play. Let’s speak beautiful French together, and then you pay me, ja? For giving you such a good time.”

From the front seat, Bram lit a cigarette. James and Schuyler were outside the car somewhere, standing guard I supposed, wherever the hell we were.

I sighed.

My high had been blown away by the severity of this situation, but these four didn’t know that this wasn’t my first rodeo. I’d been mugged in Queens after subway surfing, and again in Hell’s Kitchen, where Charlotte lost her violin. Moreover, this journey had worn me down to the quick. I was all out of fucks to give.

Anika’s hands were on the fly of my jeans, trying to work down the zipper. I grabbed both her wrists hard enough to make her yelp, and tossed her off my lap. I heard her head hit the passenger window as I made a dash for the other door.

“Aiii! Bastaard!”

She kicked at me while I fumbled the door open, keeping a tight grip on my white stick.

“Bram! James! Hij mi pijn!”

I scrambled out of the cab, heard shuffling feet over concrete, and then a fist connected with my right eye socket. It felt like a sledgehammer and ten times stronger, since I couldn’t see it coming. But my apathy of earlier was a weapon now. The pain seemed distant. Meaningless. I brought my white stick up and felt it connect with someone’s groin to satisfying effect. Schuyler, judging by the little weasel’s pained squeak. Good.

I dodged a blow I felt coming, and moved left, to keep myself from being pinned between my new
friends
and the car. But Bram was on me before I could take a step.

“You touched Anika?” he asked, grabbing me and holding me by my jacket lapels.

“He did,” Anika shrieked. “His hands were all over me, and when I said he’d have to pay, he knocked my head!”

I couldn’t imagine for whose benefit this little charade was for, but the ridiculousness of it made me laugh. “For Christ’s sake. I didn’t mean to hurt you—”

“You think it’s funny?” Anika’s slap struck my cheek—a crashing cymbal of stinging pain that radiated up my face and left it burning.

“Oh, Anika.” I chuckled tiredly. “I knew you were a slapper.”

I don’t remember much after that.

I put up a good fight, I think, but I was outnumbered and out-sighted. I got a few good ones in on James and Schuyler but Bram was a boulder rolling down a hill, and I was crushed underneath.