The new job was a breeze, Duke and Eric were laid back dudes with no power issues. The apartments were a gold mine of things that tourists left behind, toiletries, food, money, weed and hash. The anticipation of what goodies would be left was like Christmas morning when I was a kid. Duke would usually roll around while I was working to smoke a big joint and discuss world affairs, we had similar views about the way things are and had great conversations. I found myself actually enjoying going to work, a feeling I hadn’t had in many years. It wasn’t that I liked to clean, I didn’t, but it was such easy no brain work and working for cool bosses made it enjoyable. I was starting to make some good money again but one setback to renting week to week with no contract is that the landlord can raise the rent whenever they like and every couple of months she was hitting me up with a new amount. It was starting to get a bit steep and Frans was only paying what the rent was when we made the deal, which meant that a fair chunk of my wages was now going towards rent. It was still affordable, but barely.
One day out of the blue as I was walking down the street my phone rings and it’s Etienne from the pool hall. I hadn’t talked to him since I walked out 6 months earlier. He told me that the final test results were in from the T.B. tests and that no one had tested positive. He went on to apologize for the way things turned out and wanted me to come back to work. I was both stunned and flattered, I told him that I had a new job but that if possible I would like to work around that. He said it would be no problem and 2 days later I was back at the pool hall. The fact that I made aver 4 euros more cleaning apartments would make that job my first priority but I figured I could do both. I settled into the new routine with ease and soon things were rolling along nicely. I was making enough to start a new bankroll, I felt like I was in the best shape of my life with riding my bike everywhere and I was playing more pool than ever. There was one of the top players in the country that lived in town and Etienne and Ayden had made a deal with him to play exclusively at our place. His name was Nick VanDanBerg and little did I know at the time that he would go on to become one of the best players in the world. He would come in to train when we would open and since I was usually just finishing at that time, we would knock some around. Soon we were playing all the time and my game started to really shine, I had a stretch at the Nes where I won 17 in a row on Thursday and !2 in a row on Sunday. Usually that would turn people off from joining the tourney but in this case it expanded the event. The Nes only had one table so there was a strict 16 person limit to ensure we would finish by bartime. Now I was turning away up to a dozen every time because of this. I calculated that if we were to eliminate the lag time between matches that we could get up to 24 players. I gave it a go and it was tight, but we were able to do it in time, after that we had 24 for every tourney for years.
Cleaning at the pool hall was one of easiest jobs I’d ever done, I would get there before anyone else and have the whole place all to myself. I would crank up the stereo and jam out as I cleaned up. One day when I had to go into the storage room and it was still dark outside, I searched for a light switch. Not finding anything but a strange contraption in the general area you would expect a light switch. It had two red buttons on it and I figured it was just a new fangled European switch. I pushed one of the buttons and nothing happened so I pushed the other one and still nothing. I then pushed both buttons at the same time and once again, nothing. By then my eyes had adapted to the darkness and I could see what I needed so I grabbed it and went on with my business. About 30 minutes later as I was in the bathrooms cleaning I hear Etienne’s voice yelling out to me and it sounded rather urgent. I walked out of the bathroom to see a half-dozen cops with their guns drawn spreading out through the place. I obviously froze and Etienne says I pulled the emergency panic alarm and it goes straight to the swat team at the police station. At first I had no idea what he was talking about as I had not pulled any alarms but then it slowly dawned on me that the strange contraption in the supply room must have been an alarm. I told him and the leader of the cops what had happened and Etienne and I got a bit of a laugh out of it but the cop was dismayed by it, I think he wanted something to be going down so he could act on the adrenaline they had built up on the ride over. I went back to cleaning the bathroom thinking that it was over but a few minutes later one of the cops comes in with pen and paper in hand and wants to know all my details. First he asks me if I have my working permit with me and I try to casually tell him that it’s at home. He gives me a stern look and asks me where I am from? I tell him that I was born in England but grew up in Canada. I hoped this would ease any concerns about my accent, it must have worked because he did not push it further. He asked some more routine questions about myself and I made it up as I went. He finished and just walked off, I felt a cold shiver go down my spine as I wondered if this would be the end of it or not. After they left Etienne re-assured me that I did not have to worry as the swat team had no interest in matters of citizenship. I felt a bit relieved but there was still a feeling of being exposed and I could only hope he was right.
The pool hall was growing by leaps and bounds with Etienne and Ayden at the helm. They had a perfect system where Etienne would handle the running of the place and Ayden would be the pool playing P.R. man. It was a great formula and soon it was the most popular pool hall in the city. All the best players would come there for the weekly tourneys, a 9-ball on Thursday and a 8-ball on Saturday. The tourneys were getting 64 players regularly and it was not unusual to see 3 or 4 pros there to play. It was a very magical time in Amsterdam for pool, the enthusiasm was greater than I’d ever seen. People were believing that pool was on the verge of taking the next step into dart or snooker kind of money and everyone was thinking that they were going to one day be the best. I must admit the thought rolled through my head a time or two back then. I could not play in the Thursday event because of my commitments at the Nes, however I would join the Saturday event quite regularly and was put in my place most weeks. I won a couple of times but nothing like my dominance at the Nes, I concluded that it was better to be a big fish in a small pond than a small fish in a big pond and happily resigned myself to being just that. The pool aside, I was really starting to have a feeling of belonging. Maybe it was the fact that I had been there for nearly 5 years or maybe the feeling of family that the boys were building at the pool hall or maybe a bit of both, but as delusional as it was, I felt as if I was growing roots in the paradise city. It was a great feeling indeed but I was feeling conflicted as to what this meant for my future in the states. I had felt since the beginning that I would one day return to warm greetings from all my family and friends, but now with the direction that the U.S. was headed and how good things were where I was, I started to see a future where i might not see any of them again and this brought sad thoughts to my head. One thing I knew for sure is that I had to be free.
A Continuing Story About Life On The Run