The journey through the night was uneventful and we passed by Madrid sometime in the early morning. By midafternoon we were nearing the border and the boys had the rather good idea that since we swam in the Med yesterday, then lets swim in the Atlantic today. We parked in an underground garage and left Miss Kitty on her own in the car, hoping she would be okay. We then headed down to the main beach in San Sebastian and jumped into the ocean. It was nicer than the Med and had nice waves to jump into. We stayed about an hour and then we were off to the much dreaded French border, This was the only one I really worried about. When we got close the traffic slowed to a crawl and all three lanes were backed up for a ways. The border used to be a stop but was now only the remnants of that and we sailed right through without a sign of a border guard anywhere. Once comfortably into France, Martijn pulled out his piece of hash and told me to roll up a fatty, to which I promptly did. The ride through France was a breeze and soon we were approaching the Dutch border. Miss Kitty had been a real trooper along the trip, every time we would pull over to stop I would let her out and she would go off to the bushes or the fence line and take care of business. We stopped at a gas station near the Belgium border for our final stop before arriving in the Dam. I once again let Miss Kitty out to do her business but this place had no fence line and had a forest behind it. Miss Kitty heads straight for the forest and doesn’t look back, she was out of sight within seconds. At first I didn’t worry as she had always just jumped right back in the car so far and I didn’t think this time would be any different, but after 20 minutes, I started to fear the worst. Had she gotten lost or even worse, attacked by another animal? I called for her for the next 20 minutes without any sign of her. I began to fear that we might have to leave her here in Belgium if she didn’t return soon, lucky for me both Willy and Martijn were cat lovers and they were very patient about it. Then after about 45 minutes she comes bouncing out of the forest like she owned it and headed straight to the car and waited for me to open the door. I looked at her in disbelief, wondering how I ever got so lucky to have such a cool cat.
A couple of hours later we were pulling up in Amsterdam and the feeling in me was pure joy. Only a few short days earlier I thought my journey was over but now here I was back for Amsterdam 2.0. We went to Willy’s shop and had a smoke, while there Etienne called and said he had a place for me to stay. We went to the place I had lived before I left for Spain. The apartment was awesome and in a great neighborhood, but it was on the top floor, and carrying all my stuff up was a pain in the butt. The apartment was the same but since I had been gone, many other things had changed. First off, Etienne had met and married a lady and now lived with her and her 5-year-old son. He had rented the apartment to a brother and sister of 18 and 22 respectively. She had his old room and he had mine with the living room being turned into a room for Etienne, he had worked it into the rental deal that he would have access to the place at all times and the living room was his. He decided, without telling them, that I would now be living in the living room and he told them as I was moving my things into the room. I could tell by the looks on their faces that they did not like it one bit and later that day I found out how much. After getting my stuff situated, I laid down for a much-needed sleep, I had stayed awake the whole trip back to keep Martijn company so now I was dead tired. After only a few hours of sleep I was rudely awoken by some dude I had never seen before. He told me that he was the siblings father and that he needed to speak with me. I shook out the cobwebs and went out to the kitchen to see what he wanted. It seems that the poor little babies had cried to mommy and daddy about their new arrangement. He told me that he was uncomfortable with me living with his children and wanted to give me the 3rd degree. I felt I was interviewing for the N.S.A. with all the questions he was asking, but once he finished he said that he would accept it for now but that I should try to find something else. Who did this guy think he was? I mean I get that he wants to protect his kids but what right does he have to lay down any rules in someone else’s place? Later that day Etienne returned and I told him about my strange encounter with the father. He told me that it was his place and if they did not like it then they could leave at anytime. This made me feel good knowing that I would not have to walk on eggshells trying to please these kids.
Besides having a place for me to stay, Etienne also had my old job for me. The pool hall also had some big changes since I had been away. Etienne and Ayden had a falling out and had severed their partnership. Etienne had bought out Ayden and was now sole owner of the pool hall. He needed a cleaner that would do it for less than 10 an hour and he knew I couldn’t say no to a job so he offered me 8.50 and I took it happily. When he told me that I would be paying for my rescue and that it would come out of my pay over the next few months, my happiness waned a bit, but it was fair that I payed for it and said nothing more about it. When I asked about the weed we had grown the year before, he told me that he had given it all to Frans and had heard nothing back from him since. I thought it strange that Frans would not have sorted it out and promptly got in touch with him. After the big bear hug he gave me to welcome me back, he told me that he had sold a bunch of it and had the rest of it vacuum sealed. He then pulls out 500 euros and hands it to me saying, “I will give you the rest later.” I was stoked, I now had money in my pocket again and from what Frans told me, I would soon have plenty of weed to smoke as well. Two days later he gives me another 300 euros and around 600 grams of weed that was still left. Lucky for me Etienne’s new wife was a real square and had made him stop smoking so it was all mine to enjoy. I added his half of the money to my debt which made it around 2000 euros that I had to pay off for my rescue, the tent, and his half of the weed. With having 800 in my pocket and plenty of weed, I would have the debt payed off within no time. Frans also asked me if I would run the tourney’s again, it seems that they had suffered in my absence because of a lack of commitment by anyone to do them. I happily said yes as I knew that it would mean that I could add some easy money to my wad playing at the Nes twice a week. And then life started rolling along as if I had never left. Of course the falling out with Duke and that group might have some repercussions here but I wasn’t too worried about them. It was Jap I was more worried about, he was from Amsterdam and might have some dangerous friends around. He was definitely the type who would try to hunt me down, the only question being, would he be clever enough to find me? Hopefully not, but time would tell…
A Continuing Story About Life On The Run