mushrooms
sometimes i work in a shop that sells mushrooms.
i don’t actually work there, though i sit behind the counter and will help customers and carry out transactions in the register like i do. it was easier to just help people who often had tenuous grasps of english rather than explain, i don’t really work here even though it might appear that i do because i’m sitting behind the counter. but david’s the manager and most days, after i’ve done my writing in a cafe, i’ll hang out here and watch him work.
david asked me not to try mushrooms because he said i’m too intense. i am interested because everyone tells me it’s a highly spiritual experience, but i trust him and it’s not so important to me. but people will ask me about the mushrooms, and so i regurgitate the things i’ve heard the other salespeople say (mexicans for beginners, take half a box for a medium high, full for a strong high but it’s best to take half a box, wait for an hour before you take the rest. take sugar if it gets too intense, and if you’re a jackass who comes in asking for the strongest shit and buy the ecuadorians even though you’re not ready to handle them, then i’ll probably see you squirming in the street miserably somewhere when i get off work). i realize it’s not that different from my job selling scanners. i hated those things because they never really worked and i didn’t know how to set them up. but not having experience using them didn’t stop me from doing well selling them.
we get a lot of italians and french, but the french have this annoying habit of only speaking french, so it’s really hard for me to help them as i don’t know a lick of french. helping a french person often entails picking up random objects and asking them, “this?” or “this?” until they wander around the store pointing at objects until i finally figure out what they’re looking for. but for the most part, people speak english.
you see a wide variety of characters walk through the doors. most of them are here for the mushrooms or the salvia (something else david says i shouldn’t try), but a lot of them are just tourists who are wandering around, looking for an experience or someone to talk to.
there’s an old man who comes in quite often, and will always want to talk to david. he’s well into his 70’s wearing thick glasses, fishing cap, tie-dye shirt, bermuda shorts, wool socks and hiking shoes. his skin is a sickly gray as are his teeth, and he’s hunchbacked with a slight limp, though his body looks strangely powerful. his gaze is a combination of intensity and an undercurrent of something else, something that makes me think of a gift-wrapped present from a serial killer like the package in se7en.
he comes in with a girl who could be anywhere from 14 to 25. it’s hard to tell because her build is slight, her face is childish and vacant, and she’s wearing red pants pulled up high around her midsection, a long-sleeved black t-shirt with electric blue butterflies on it, her hair braided in one thick rope behind her head, and a pink headband with a single feather in the front sticking erect into the air. she follows him like a lost puppy, and i suspect she’s mildly retarded or suffering from severe emotional/psychological issues because she carries with her a dazed look of childlike dependency.
he asks me if we’re out of hawaiians and i say yes. even though she is standing right next to him and in range to clearly hear me, she doesn’t react until he turns to her and repeats, “they’re out of hawaiians.” her face twists into a scowl and she stomps her foot impetuously like a child told that she can’t have a cookie before dinner. he has to lead her away as she sulks.
they wait until david is behind the register again and they buy one stick of musk-scented incense. the man tells david that it’s good to see him again, and that they’re back for a while. he says they come a couple times a year for “research.” i’m writing everything he says furiously in my notebook, because i don’t want to forget this guy, because i need to remember this guy, so i can spend time later to think about him, thinking about what the deal is between this old, hippie-like man with creepy energy and this girl who trails after him like an abused dog, never letting him get more than 3 feet away. david knows what i need so he asks him, what kind of research. the guy says he’s researching various ways to grow weed and he’s been coming to amsterdam for 11 years, and she’s been coming for 4. david looks at her but as she has the whole time, she stares vacantly at the ground and never makes eye contact, though she’s tied to this man as if by an invisible leash.
the man is looking at david with a glimmer in his eye, and says, “amsterdam has always been good to me.” david doesn’t react and the man stares at him then repeats again, “i always have a good time in amsterdam.” he lets the statement hang, and i can see his eyes adding a whispered, you know what i mean…… and the thing is, we don’t. maybe we do, but we don’t want to let him know that we do. he tells david that he’ll see him soon, and he leaves, the girl trailing behind him. i watch her braids and lone feather disappear out the door.
this man disturbs david but he doesn’t know why, so i question him about him. the guy has been coming for years and at some point, he comes in nearly every day, always with the girl attached to his side and always just buying one stick of incense. but even if david’s busy or there are other salespeople, he always waits for david to help him, only lets david ring him up, and always tries to talk to david. as david hears himself answer these questions, he gets more agitated. there is obviously something subversive in the relationship. whether this guy is a pedophile or a sexual predator, he has power over this girl and this girl is completely submissive to him, even though she clearly has some sort of mental or psychological/emotional issue that makes her not right.
but being in amsterdam and not having any point of reference to pass judgments about social norms, i was able to see that things aren’t so black and white. say this creepy, hunchbacked man with sharp, broken teeth does have a fucked up pedophile, sexually-dominant relationship with a girl who’s not exactly all there. but it occurred to me, if this girl has no other family, if she has no one to take care of her, if this man weren’t taking care of her to a certain extent, what would become of her? if he were arrested or taken away, would she end up in an institution or worse, in the streets? is she better off with a creepy old man who seems intent on hinting something to david that david doesn’t want to know?
here in amsterdam, people don’t hide things the way they do in the us–they don’t hide themselves, they don’t hide what they’re about. but as i start to see both dark truths and light truths, i become more and more aware that there is no black and white right or wrong. there is no easy way to say that something that is ugly and dark is wrong, or something that seems on morally upstanding is necessarily right. there is only what is, and the reality of the people who live those lives.
it bothered david a lot. and i think when he realized that this man seemed intent on singling him out to connect with him, it bothered him in regards to what this man saw in him that made him think that david might want to hear what little secret he wanted to share, whether if he thought david was a potential victim who would know about men like him, or potentially someone who would understand him.
sexual predators are good about smelling vulnerability, the lost look in the eyes of children without parental protection. he obviously wants something from david, senses something about him, his emotional sensitivity or perhaps the vulnerable child in a chaotic world that david had once been. he w
ants david to listen to him, to know him. he wants something from david.
i tell david to ignore him, to never let this guy know that he knows what the guy’s about, because he’s a fucked up old man who just wants to play games. but secretly, i hope that man never crosses a line because i think david will really hurt him.