Dumb Monsters
The Dutch roll out of bed like we do. Stuffy, they’ll throw wide their windows; chilled, then just their curtains, let some light in. In their red bathrobes…
They don’t have any shame, these Dutch! Red bathrobes, or red window dressings… All the same to them. White satin panties and a milk-fed grin…
I’m lying in the grass off of Sarphatistraat. She’s smiling at me… Swear she’s dancing up there just for me, my little Dutch design piece! Stacked just like a random chest of drawers, she is a Gehry building: Firm, twisted, magnificent.
And smiling down at me! As she leaps, bounds from room to room within her crooked Dutch apartment. See, there really is an old lady… No, how’s that go? A crooked man? A twisted shoe… ? All off to see the magistrate.
And there’s her little bent, Dutch dog. Aarf, aarf, it goes… Baark, baark… Wouf…
Right.
I’m lying as I lay here off Sarphatistraat, in soft grass: isn’t me she smiles down at from her crooked, dog-run balcony; it’s Amsterdam. Her world in general… Spread out fanned beneath her like it’s fallen down some stairs.
She has no top on… She is flaunting it! Her robe hangs perilously open, flapping in the springtime breeze which teases June Sarphatistraat. I stand up, breathe the toxic mud of centuries (yet still green air); swipe off the newly mown, green blades of grass stuck to my thigh flesh… and I navigate: Must find her place! Along Nieuwe Achtergracht toward loose red Bathrobe Lady’s house… and I turn left, then right, swing back around… Cut through some bushes, cross a bridge…
I’m back on the grass off Sarphatistraat!
"Hallooo… ” a Houseboat Lady calls me. "HA-llo," waves she, boyishly.
Say, “Hey.” I sort of smile, nod.
"You took a little walk?" she blunts.
"I did."
"What did you see here? There is nothing in this neighborhood.”
"I like it. Fact, that’s why I like it. Tourists!" Snort and smile, nod…
She throws her head back. Donkeys toward a camera which now’s pointing at her… Then realizes and notices, and shyly stops her donkey laughing…
"Hi!” my Bathrobe Lady toodles.
"Where are you?” I call up to her. "You’re sorta beautiful!"
"I hate your country!"
"… "
“You are American?”
"I am!"
"What are you doing here?" She’s snapping off her balcony, the Bathrobe Lady, photographs. Red bathrobe flapping dangerous, she snapping, flapping, smiling at me…
Cursing out America!
(The Houseboat Lady laughs, and cries, “It’s only rock & roll!”)
* * *
Bit later, on the Leidesplein, I try to pop inside some place. The door guy asks me bluntly what I want. I tell him just a beer.
"Is that alright?" I ask him. Muscled, thick, just like American… He only gawks at me. Looks up and down, eyes linger on my shorts and shoes. He tells me, “You have passed here ten, twelve times. You know the rules?”
"What rules?" say I.
"No touching. Bothering women… rape."
"‘Rape’… What?!?”
"I’m only… So you know!"
I smirk, and think to hell with it then! Return to floating round the black canals of dirty Amsterdam.
I magnet toward Sarphatistraat. It’s night now, and the houseboat cracks hysterically…A party’s on. Loud music and Dutch laughter beat like hammers, or it’s World War II. The Houseboat Lady from before emerges and puffs daintily… See Hans and Saskia, Sander, Rinus, Theo, sawing off their ears.
The Amsterdam night air becomes flirtatious. Starts in licking me… I shrug and wade across Nieuwe Achtergracht to join the houseboat party.
