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“A joint, please,” I told the guy behind the counter. The place felt dim and cozy, but I imagined neon lights behind the counter or maybe menus of colored chalk.
The guy cleared his throat. “Uh, okay. Can you be more specific? We got about a hundred different strains.”
“Surprise me,” I muttered.
“More expensive, better quality,” he said. “But you gotta buy a coffee too.”
I smirked. “Yeah, that makes sense. A stimulant to go with my depressant.”
“Huh?”
“Nothing. Coffee, black. And your most expensive cigarette. Are we on a canal?” I thought I smelled the water but couldn’t be sure, as the café itself was pungent with a variety of other strong aromas.
“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 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, Iwasgood. 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: 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 Ilsa 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 journalist,” I said. “Or was.”
My time atPlanet Xseemed so far away now, it may as well have happened to someone else. “I used to write for a magazine. Now I’m a freelancer…so to speak.” I laughed harshly, thinking how anything I ‘wrote’ would be dictation into a machine. “So to speak. 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?” Schuyler 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.”
