The ladder not only broke the window but demolished the framework as well, the only fortunate thing was that the neighbor was not home at the time and therefore was not showered with glass in her living room. I wasn’t happy when Etienne says he is going back to the old place to take care of some odds and ends and leaves me there alone, hoping the neighbor does not come home before he gets back. Of course that was not to be as soon after he leaves I hear an angry pound on the door, it is a small mean looking woman with fire in her eyes. As she starts to lay it on me I stop her and explain what happened and that we were sorry for the damage. I tell her that Etienne had already called a glass specialist and that they would fix it that day. With this I can sense her demeanor change and she relaxes into a neighborly tone. We chat for a while with her telling me the do’s and don’ts of the building. When she gets to the part about how thin the walls and floors are she looks at me real serious like and says “the floors are so thin that I can hear you fart”. I couldn’t hold back as I burst out laughing, shocked that this little old lady had just said that. She finally gave in and had a laugh as well, and as I continued to talk with her I realized that the dragon lady title was a bit harsh as she was actually pretty cool. This might not be so bad after all, I might have had to downsize on the room but in exchange we had a roof terrace that was ours alone, a perfect place to grow a little bud.
A few weeks after moving into the new place, one of my bosses from the b&b, Duke offered me a trip to the French Alps for some spring skiing. It was not new as he had offered me to go the previous 2 years but I had declined, worried about traveling without any documents. After they had driven there and back both years without any type of incident, I was a bit more courageous and decided to take a chance. I had been a skier back in the states having skied the Rockies on several occasions and had missed the joy of mountains. Duke would pay for the entire trip as a bonus for being a good employee. We would be accompanied by his room-mate Dimitri, a moody Russian dude who seemed to always be suffering from one ailment or another. Then there was Dennis, a miserable German dude who was not built for the ski hill. last but not least was Scotty, he was a fun-loving guy from the states who was like me a fugitive but at least had an I.D.. He had been in town for about a year and loved to drink, maybe even too much but as it was Amsterdam, is there ever too much? We had hit it off from the get go and were great friends by the time of the ski trip. With the further integration of the E.U., crossing borders was as easy as crossing state lines back home, but even knowing that my nerves were a bit tattered when I left the country for the first time in 9 years. The ride there was uneventful as we didn’t see a cop the whole way, thankfully they didn’t share the American’s obsession with highway patrols. We arrived early in the morning and we hit the slopes as soon as we got there. I felt a bit of apprehension as I strapped the ski’s on for the first time in over a dozen years, hoping I could still do it and not wanting to get hurt in the process. Those feelings evaporated immediately when I realized that I still had the skills and was rippin’ it up from the go. We spent a week there skiing by day and partying hard by night, Duke brought weed for everyone and we smoked like we were still in Amsterdam with no problems from anyone. Of course as in all good times it ended way too quick and soon we were headed back to the paradise city with good memories of our trip. Duke had brought up an interesting proposition one day during the trip. He mentioned that business had been so good recently that he and Eric were considering expanding to Spain with a smoker’s b&b there, and he wanted to know if I was interested in going there to manage it. I was definitely intrigued by the idea as I was getting sick of being a cleaner, but leaving Amsterdam would be hard to imagine so I told him I would have to think about it.
Things seemed to be changing all around me. Etienne had a breakdown at work where he physically assaulted one of the bartenders over something that turned out to be his fault. When he realized his error he broke down crying and apologizing profusely but the damage had been done and he knew he had to step back for a while. He turned the control over to his partner Ayden and to his credit he did a good job of it. Another big change was that the bar-coffeeshop combo was soon to be a thing of the past as the system had decided that it was bad somehow and all of them would have to pick one or the other. Frans had decided to keep the coffee shop and buy a bar somewhere else. He found the perfect place right across from Central Station in a prime location. Everything was going just as he planned when a week before the split the owner of the building comes to Frans and tells him that the contract was for a cafe not a coffee shop and if he tries to keep the coffee shop then he will sue for breach of contract. Frans was stuck, he had to keep the Nes a bar and the new place could only be a bar as well. With all the stress that it brought, Frans made some bad decisions that would one day cost him the Nes. The biggest and most damaging being hiring a manager from within, the guy he hired had been working there for a few years and was easy-going enough but as soon as he got a little power the Napoleonic complex came right to the surface and his mean-spirited attitude soon started chasing away customers in droves. His name was Dave and he was the worst example of a piece of shit rat I had ever known, needless to say we did not get along at all. Unfortunately Frans was consumed by the new bar and saw none of it, when I tried to warn him of what Dave was doing to the place he just blew me off telling me | had to deal with him or leave. I was stunned, we had been friends for close to ten years and he was saying this to me? I was mad as hell and told Frans where he could stick it, then I turned and walked out with no intention of ever going back.
I certainly took advantage of the roof terrace and Etienne was equally enthusiastic about our prospects for growing some bud. It would have been nice to have a whole roof full of weed but if we were caught with more than 5 plants per person then it would be trouble. So we agreed that 10 plants would be our limit but we would make them the biggest 10 plants around! Etienne said that he would pay for all the start-up costs as long as I did the growing, an arrangement that suited me just fine. I was happy to be back growing outdoor again, it wasn’t much but it felt great and I was determined to get at least a kilo out of it and hopefully more. I came to see that my true passion in life was growing cannabis as I was willing to put as much time and effort into it as it took, something I had seldom done with any other job. I found myself wondering how much further the human race could be if the time and resources wasted to enforce the war on drugs had been used to advance our common interests instead of destroying lives. The conclusions I reached only made me angry and more determined than ever to make sure those resources were not wasted on me. This was certainly going to be an interesting year.
A Continuing Story About Life On The Run