Travels with Penny: True Tales of a Gay Guy and His Mother (10 page)

She shouted and waved to someone standing behind what I assumed was the customer service counter. A bulky man with a stern look waddled towards us, sporting the same lemon-sucking face as the clerk. I glanced outside again. I didn’t want the others to miss the bus on my account. I wish I could say it was because of my kind, altruistic nature that I didn’t want to disrupt my mother’s adventure. The truth is if we missed the bus because of a bag of nuts, I’d never hear the end of it. Luckily, the three figures were still waiting at the bus stop; two sitting calmly and the third spinning around, looking at the buildings, gesturing to the sky … like I said—there’s comfort in familiarity.

The man said something. I didn’t understand the words, but the tone was unmistakable: What kind of idiot are you? I looked at him.

“I’m sorry. I don’t understand.” I gestured to my temple and shook my head. Either he was going to deduce I didn’t speak German, or that I had just lost my mind. Either interpretation was correct.

The man and the young girl looked at each other and shook their heads. Then they started talking in German again—really fast and with a curt, abrupt tone that told me they were pissed off. About what for God’s sake? I happened to glance down and saw they were looking at the back of my Visa, where I had written the words: PLS SEE I.D. where the signature is supposed to go.

“Oh!” I finally got the problem. “Yes. That is me.” I whipped out my passport and showed it to them. They recoiled from it. Apparently I look like the kind of guy who would steal an American Visa card to buy some nuts. The young woman yanked the Visa away from me like the passport would taint its value. She said something to the man. He nodded and walked away. Then he picked up the phone. Crap! He was calling the police. Well, maybe the police spoke English. Then again, maybe the police would arrest me and throw me in a German penitentiary for the rest of my life. I wondered it German prisons resembled the ones in Turkey, like in that movie
Midnight Express
. I hoped not. I hate naked yoga and getting raped in the shower.

I looked at Mom again. She was standing at the bus stop, waving to me. The bus must be on its way. I waved back to her through the glass doors and mouthed: Help. She shrugged: What’s going on? I motioned for her to come into the store: Get in here, I’m about to be arrested and thrown into a German prison for trying to steal some cashews. She waved back: The bus is coming, get over here. I motioned harder and with larger arm movements: Get in here and save me from the lemon-sucking duo who want to throw me into a German prison! She threw up her hands in disgust and pointed towards what must have been the bus rapidly approaching. I walked to the door, intent on shouting at her when I heard the gruff voice of the man behind the counter. He didn’t sound happy. I turned to him and saw him motioning for me to move away from the door. Great. Now they can get me for fraud and evading the police.

“My mom,” I said to the girl, “that’s my mom. Mutter.” I pointed to Mom, who was still gesturing to the invisible bus and motioning me to get a move on.

“Never mind,” I said, pushing the purchase back towards the girl. “I’ll pay cash.” I took out my wallet. No money. It was then I remembered I had spent the last of my cash at the castle with the fascinating toilet. Damn—I knew paying with cash would come back to haunt me. I turned back to the window. Outside, the bus was standing at the stop and people were getting off. My three companions stood staring at me through the store window.

“Forget it,” I said, pointing to the purchase. “No. Me. No. Want.” What is it about attempting a foreign language that turns us all into a character from
Clan of the Cave Bear
?

The man hung up the phone and returned to the dour-looking sales girl. They said something and looked at my credit card again. Just then the door to the shop opened and Mom entered.

“What the hell are you doing?” She demanded.

I instantly turned into a blithering idiot. “They aren’t taking my card, they think I stole it, I don’t know what’s going on.”

“Pay cash.”

“I don’t have any.”

“Oh, for Christ’s sake,” She said, opening her purse. She counted out some marks and shoved them across the counter to the girl, who stood there glaring at me.

As the girl stood evaluating Mom’s potential as a dangerous cashew-stealing American, Mom snatched the card away from her and gave it back to me. The man started to say something, and Mom shook her head at him. She pointed to me, then held one finger to her head and motioned: Crazy.

“My son,” She said, shaking her head at me. “Dumpkauf.” The man laughed. The young woman handed Mom back her change and smiled.

“Danke.”

“Danke,” Mom replied. Then to me, “Come on. We already missed one bus waiting for you. Jesus Christ, what the hell are you doing without any cash on you?”

I slinked behind her, clutching my purchase like a toddler would a toy bear. As I left, I noticed the man and salesgirl laughing and pointing at me.

“I told you—always keep some cash on you.”

“I know.”

A day or two later, Mom sat on her bed in the hotel, struggling with the phone. I helped her connect to the international operator and left her alone. When I returned to check up on her, I entered just as she said, “. . . and your idiot son is running around without any cash on him.”

“Mom, are you talking to Dad?”

“Yes. And he wants to talk to you.”

“MOM, DO
NOT TELL DAD
that you went into a hash bar,” I said.

“Oh, pooh,” Mom said.

“You’re going to narc on me, aren’t you?”

“You worry too much.”

“He’ll accuse me of not watching out for you. He’ll blame me for turning you into a hash whore or something.”

“Oh, he won’t blame you,” she assured me. “You worry too much about what your father is going to say.”

She was right, of course, and I knew it. She had breached this subject several years previously, on our first vacation together in New York for my birthday. I had skirted the issue of my hyper-sensitive relationship with Dad back then, but maybe now was the time to tell her why when Dad points his finger at me and says, “She’s your responsibility.” I suddenly felt like I was ten. I probably should have explained to her why when she narced on me to him about drying her body with Belgian paper towels, I began to hyperventilate. But looking up at the blue spring sky, hearing the sounds of laughter and birds, and smelling the tangy scent of hash made me change my mind. This kind of parent/child chat could wait. In all honesty, I couldn’t really expect her to keep these things from Dad, as much as I wanted her to do so. She naturally wanted to share her excitement with her husband. It’s not her fault her husband had the adventurous spirit of a houseplant.

So instead of opening the door to a deep, compassionate, adult-oriented discussion with my mother, I contemplated the pros and cons of having Mom visit a hash bar. On the pro side: Mom would be so much nicer to deal than if she didn’t visit a hash bar. In Amsterdam, it isn’t a long walk to find a hash bar; therefore, you’re not likely to stumble into a bad neighborhood and die in a drive-by shooting; you can sip a nice cup of coffee while sucking down a doobie—considered (in some circles) to be Nirvana. On the con side: Dad would be disappointed in me. Once again, I would defy his request to give Mom the kind of vacation he thinks she should have in favor of the one I think she should have. Maybe he’ll buy into the hash bar visit if I tell him that they’re just as popular as Niagara Falls and The Tower of London. Somehow in Dad’s book, I suspected “hash bar” fell slightly below “taking your mother to a gay bar” and slightly above “being sold a vibrator by a gay guy in leather chaps and jockstrap.”

Ironically, the day had started out mundanely. Mom and I had wandered off down the winding streets of Amsterdam without an agenda, determined to roam the city with the type of crazed abandon envied by both naïve high schoolers and senile senior citizens. We had meandered through alleys, across cobblestoned courtyards speckled with tiny café tables and streets packed with bicycles. The canal twinkled with reflected sunlight, and a cool breeze tickled our hair. The sun was shining, the people we met smiled at us and a great percentage of them held the doors open as Mom barreled into shops.

As we passed a series of stone buildings on our quest for yet another authentic Amsterdamian souvenir, I caught a whiff of a familiar scent—one I hadn’t smelled since … oh … last month. I was a theatre major, after all, thereby giving me inalienable rights to personal experience and a vast array of random facts about illegal drugs. Sometimes clichés are true.

“What’s that?” Mom asked, sniffing the air like a bloodhound on the trail of prey.

I gestured to the innocuous-looking building to our right while I leaned over and whispered to her, “It’s probably a hashish bar.”

Mom froze. She cocked her head to one side and squinted at me. “A wha’?”

“Hash bar,” I said. “Hash is … ” I couldn’t figure out what to tell her. As far as I know, her only exposure to drugs was the Nyquil in her bathroom. “It’s like marijuana.”

I knew it was the wrong thing to say as soon as the smile spread across her face. “Let’s go!” She giggled in glee.

“No.”

“But David, I’ve never seen a hashis bar.”

“Neither have I,” I said, pulling her along. “And it’s hash-
sheesh
. Not hashis.”

“We’ll just tell them I need to use the bathroom then,” she said, heading for the door. “They won’t tell an old lady she can’t use the bathroom.”

“You’re going to lie about having to pee just so you can sniff hash?”

“No, I really do need to go. I’m old. Old people need to go all the time. Don’t you watch those commercials on incontinence?”

“Mom,” I started to protest, but she already had my elbow in a vice-like grip and was steering me towards the door. “They’re probably stoned anyway, so they’ll never know if I used the bathroom or not.”

I was ready to put my foot down and, if necessary, go toe-to-toe with her like a couple of white trash hooligans fighting over a sweater sale in the local Walmart, but I was too stunned by the facts that she knew the term “stoned” and had used it correctly in a sentence. What’s the story with parents these days? Where do they learn this stuff? In seconds she was across the crowded sidewalk and pushing through the door, tickling the little bell over the entryway which announced that another toker was in the building.

Being an American on my first trip to Amsterdam, I had never been in a real live hash bar before, college dorm rooms notwithstanding. In my mind, a hash bar was half speakeasy and half holding cell at the city jail; a sleazy, dimly-lit, dirty room with people sitting alone in the dark, cigar-sized joints in hand, wheezing into scarves while sitar music played quietly in the background. Reefer Madness on steroids. But, true to my life story, reality is much more mundane than my imagination. The hash bar more closely resembled the coffee shops in Seattle than a scene from Scarface. It was a well-lit, rectangular room with café tables lining one wall and a long glass display case filled with pastries. Several people of various ages occupied tables decked out with chess games, Scrabble and various newspapers. Amsterdam hash bars are European Starbucks, only their tobacco is less expensive than a venti, non-fat soy latte. Noticeably absent was the infamous smokable weed. Where did they store the hash? At Starbucks, I can see the coffee.

We sidled up to the counter where a huge blackboard spanned the entire back of the bar. I saw the words, but had no idea what they hell they meant. Sure, I knew Columbian and Acapulco Gold, but what the hell were these other kinds? I scanned the list and nodded convincingly. If there’s one thing I can do extraordinarily well, it’s fake competence. I leaned over to Mom, nodding to the numerous words written on the blackboard and whispered, “See those names?”

“Yeah,” she whispered back through the side of her mouth. To those who knew us, we looked like ordinary mother and son. To those who didn’t, we looked like two Secret Service members minus the dark shades, earpieces and president. All the subtleties of a freight train, my mom and I.

“Those are the names of the different kinds of dope.”

“Where’s the dope?” Mom asked.

“That’s what I’m wondering.”

Mom smiled at the dope barista, a handsome young man with thick black hair and a smile that probably got him anything he wanted.

“Bathroom?” Mom yelled. That was another trick Mom learned while in Europe. If you don’t speak the language, yell louder.

Mr. Million-Dollar-Smile nodded and pointed to the back of the room. “Thank you,” Mom shouted, and wiggled her fingers in a small wave as she hobbled to the back of the place, stumbling along slowly enough to inhale twice as often as necessary on the way. Great. Now she’d be stoned. Before I knew it, she’d get the munchies and we’d be forced to stop for Doritos, chocolate and popcorn.

I took a seat off to the side, next to two men with thick beards who spoke in harsh tones and wide arm gestures. It didn’t take fluency in the language to know the conversation was an intense one. I watched their fists pound the air and found myself spinning back in time, wondering where that passionate young man I used to be had gone. Once I used to be like these bearded punch-the-air guys, feeling so strongly about an issue my face flushed, caring so deeply about the human race that my pulse raced erratically. Now I feel deeply about being in bed by midnight. I care deeply about someone stealing my parking spot. Is that what growing up is about? Exchanging passion for contentment? I wished I could understand their language and eavesdrop on the heated conversation. Politics? The economy? The benefits of Acapulco Gold over Columbian? Although judging by their wide, alert eyes, the benefits of the wacky weed had not fully intruded upon their consciousnesses. I heard the door chime, and a young couple strode in and placed their order. Now was my chance to see where the hash lived! Surely Mr. Million Dollar Smile would reveal the hiding place of the weed now! The worker nodded and began pulling coffee grounds for espressos. Espressos? I’m from Seattle and can see beans and steam any day of the week. I was in a hash bar, for crying out loud. I wanted to see the hash! Luck wasn’t on my side, as by the time the drinks were made, Mom had returned from her visit to the loo and stood over me at the table.

“Okay,” she said, heading for the door. “See anything?” I shook my head. Mom shrugged.

As we stepped out onto the sidewalk, I turned back to look into the shop through the window. “I’m disappointed that I didn’t see any hash.”

“I smelled it.” Mom said.

“Me, too, but I wanted to see it.”

“Ah, well, tough toenails, Tony,” Mom responded. “You’ve seen the hash bar.”

I nodded. I suppose she’s right. Hash is kind of like believing in God. You don’t have to see it to know it exists.

“Still,” Mom said in a faraway voice, “we should have ordered some. I’ve never had hash.”

* * *

“So you know what we’ve got to see in Amsterdam?” Mom asked.

“Yeah! Anne Frank’s house,” I answered.

“No. The red light district.”

“You have got to be frickin’ kidding me.”

“Why?” Mom looked honestly confused. “We’re in Amsterdam. We should see the red light district.”

“No way.”

“Why?”

“I am not taking you to see a bunch of hookers, Ma.”

“David,” she said sternly, “I know about sex. I’ve had two children.”

I covered my ears and began to hum.

“I’m serious.”

“Ma, so am I,” I said. “I’ve already got to explain to Dad why you went into a hash bar. He will
never
understand why I took you to see hookers.”

“Don’t tell him.”

“I won’t! You will!” I knew she would, too. Charlie Brown may never have learned his lesson with Lucy and that damned football, but I only had to endure my father’s lectures about being an irresponsible son five or six times before I would learn mine.

Later, I told this story to some friends of mine. They were as mystified by my attitude as Mom. Even in retrospect, I stand by my decision. Basically, there were two problems with escorting my Mom to the part of town where working girls worked: First, she’s my mother. I’m sure there’s a whole PhD dissertation on the apprehensions of a son, his mother and whores and how those three categories apply to the “madonna/whore” complex, but there you go. The second reason was more pragmatic—if Dad went bonkers over her chatting up the guy in assless chaps and a dog collar, he would have a coronary about the prostitutes. The dilemma was that Mom made a lot of sense: Going to Amsterdam and not seeing the Red Light District would be like going to New York and avoiding the Empire State Building. You may have no real desire to see the place, but if you don’t, you’ll always wonder what it looked like.

As fate would have it, about the same time we were discussing the pros and cons of prostitute perusing, we passed a small kiosk with advertisements about sightseeing boats that gave “a breathtaking view of Amsterdam via the canal.” I figured it was too good to be true; this distraction must be divine intervention. I could get my mom on a boat, ply her with White Zinfandel and maybe she’d become so sauced she’d forget the whole idea was to see some hookers. What could be better than whore-watching from the deck of a ship while chugging a Blue Hawaiian? I bought us two tickets.

That night, while the other two members of our fellowship were left to their own devices, Mom and I walked to the dock and boarded the small boat with a plethora of other middle-aged tourists. I expected the hour-long canal float to be a cross between a geriatric bingo parlor and a funeral barge, but much to my surprise, the ride was geared more towards lazy Americans than elderly shufflers. Fashioned after a miniature old-time ferry boat, the interior cabin housed bench seats for about fifty normal-sized butts, with additional seating above on the open deck for those who liked to freeze to death in the cold spring air. The music was contemporary, the sound system well balanced and the decor crisply modern. Mom and I decided to avoid becoming human slushies and sat below in the heated cabin next to one of the large windows.

The view of the city from our seats was breathtaking. The illumination from the street lamps, bike lights and neon signs of the surrounding businesses bounced off the wet Cobblestone streets, lighting up downtown with a peaceful glow. The gentle curves of the city’s roads radiated outward from the center of town, turning the ancient metropolis into a pinwheel of soft illumination that allowed you to see its edges but not its center. This was my lesson of Amsterdam: She invites you in, but holds back from revealing too much of herself, challenging you to cross her boundaries and experience her wonders on her terms. Or not. Amsterdam dares you to think about what it is you want. Or not.

From our vantage point, we were close enough to see the faces of the people as they stood on the walkway, which paralleled the canal, and watch them watching us. Many of our spectators stood touching each other and grinning; not in a sexual groping kind of way, but a friendly holding of hands or a gentle hand along the small of the back of their partners. The scene resembled the throngs of New York, which Mom and I had spent hours analyzing a few years before, with the exception that in New York people looked agitated, hurried and pressured. When you look into the faces of New Yorkers, you see a boiling pot of emotions. When you look into the faces of Amsterdam, you see a group of happy, contented people who are thrilled to be alive. That’s the difference between America and Europe, Mom and I decided on that trip: Americans rush through life searching for the pot of gold that will make their lives worth living. Europeans know life is worth living even without the gold. Europeans are human beings. Americans are human doings.