CHAPTER 4
Would you like to know a secret just between you and me? I don’t know where I’m going next, I don’t know who I’m gonna be – “The Other Side of This Life” by Jefferson Airplane (1968)
I landed in Luxembourg on a beautiful sunny day in October 1971. I doubt if I could have found Luxembourg on a map, but damn it felt great to be there. I wanted to ask someone, “Is this a city or a country?”
The flight had been filled with young travelers, and all of us were in high spirits. We got off the plane like a bunch of kids arriving at Disneyland ready to have fun. I noticed that I was one of the only people traveling alone.
I must have seemed like such a rookie with Uncle Del’s huge, jam-packed duffle bag. No one else was carrying much; most of the travelers had small backpacks or lightweight suitcases. They looked like real pros, as if they did this all the time.
Inside my bag were several pairs of pants, a dozen shirts, and a few pairs of shoes. Also stuffed in were books, an electric shaver that ran on European current, and other assorted items. I planned to ditch the things I probably wouldn’t use.
Shortly after landing, many of us wound up standing around on the lawn in front the airport. Some people were playing Frisbee while others sat on the grass waiting for rides. I heard people talking, laughing, and making arrangements. Suddenly it dawned on me that I had absolutely no plan. I didn’t even know where I’d be spending the night yet.
Someone mentioned catching a bus from the airport to Paris which was only about 250 miles away. I thought to myself, “That’s what I should do!”
A short while later, as I climbed aboard, I couldn’t help but think of the Grateful Dead lyric: The bus came by and I got on. That’s when it all began.
The group on the bus was loud, rowdy, and ready for adventure. We got to Paris in about four hours. As we were driving through the city to the bus station, I was completely in awe. Every building was beautiful; there seemed to be something interesting and historic on every corner.
The first thing I wanted to do was wander around and take it all in. I hadn’t even left the bus terminal before I noticed that I was drawing a few stares. I must have looked like the obvious, clueless American tourist.
A young friendly looking guy walked up to me and started a conversation. He was also an American, with long straight brown hair tied in a ponytail going almost down to his waist.
“Hey, there! How ya doin’?” he asked. “Just get here?”
“Yeah, I came in from Luxembourg,” I said.
“Uhh, let me guess, Icelandic Airways from New York?”
“Yeah, that’s right. How’d you know?” I wondered.
“That’s what most people do,” he said. “There’s not much of any other reason to go to Luxembourg, to tell you the truth.”
After we talked for a few minutes, and I learned that his name was Alan, he asked me if I wanted to join him and a couple of his friends for dinner that evening. He explained that he was waiting here at the station for them to pick him up to go to their house a few miles out of town. It sounded good to me, so I accepted the invitation. His friends arrived in a car shortly after that, and we drove off to the suburbs of Paris.
Our hosts were a young, polite, welcoming couple who were in their early thirties. Both were attractive and chic in a Parisian kind of way, but they didn’t speak much English. I was a little embarrassed because I didn’t know any French.
“I had no idea where I was or where I was going, but I knew I was glad to be out of that bed and away from the apartment.”
Their apartment was in a well-maintained, affluent neighborhood of small houses and residential buildings. We went inside, got comfortable, and had a glass of wine.
Because of the language barrier, I missed the details on how Alan knew these people. It appeared that they had spent some time together in the United States, and Alan was visiting them in France. Our conversation remained simple, since I couldn’t understand most of what was being said.
My hosts began to prepare dinner, and the savory smell of home-cooked food filled the entire place. I was starving and felt very lucky to have been invited for a delicious meal and a place to stay on my first night in Europe.
After we finished eating, we sat around, talked, and drank some more wine. At around 11 o’clock, I was totally wiped out and ready to hit the sack; it had been a full day of traveling. The young couple showed Alan and me to the bed we would be sharing. It was a fold-out couch in the living room which opened up into a nice queen-sized mattress, and it sure looked inviting.
I was exhausted, and I slept like I was in a coma. Around three in the morning, I woke up to find Alan putting his arms around me and snuggling up real close.
I sat up faster than a bolt of lightning; I was shocked and startled. I gave him a hard elbow in the ribs and said loudly, “Hey, what the fuck are you doing?”
I jumped out of the bed and stood there in my underwear for a few seconds. My brain was foggy, and I was partly asleep. I was also a little hung over and trying to figure out where the hell I was. Gradually, I remembered that I was somewhere near Paris, and I began to get dressed.
Alan tried to get me to stay. He said something like, “Aww, come on. I’m sorry. It’s OK.”
Well, it wasn’t OK for me. Within a few minutes, I packed up my things and ran out the door. I made sure that I had my passport and traveler’s checks as I began walking down the dark street. I had no idea where I was or where I was going, but I knew I was glad to be out of that bed and away from that apartment. My mind was racing, I was in a daze, and I kept thinking, “What the fuck just happened?”
I replayed the whole thing in my head. I thought to myself, “Holy shit! Was he gay?” He sure hadn’t come across that way. When I met Alan, it never occurred to me that he might be gay. He certainly didn’t present himself to me that way; he came across as a friend. Did he think I was gay? Was this the scam he pulled on tourists arriving at the bus terminal? What was his plan? Was he going to rob me?
The way he sprung himself on me in the middle of the night like that, without warning, really scared me and left me feeling betrayed. I had known gay people before, and I certainly didn’t have a problem with homosexuality, but Alan deceived me. I was freaked out, and I knew that I needed to be more careful.
Once I sorted it out in my mind, I started to feel better. I was excited about my trip which was finally underway. My first experience had certainly been a surprise, but I was pleased at how I had handled it. Deep down, I knew everything was going to work out fine.
For about an hour, I followed roads with a lot of street lights. As the sun started coming up, it looked like it was going to be a beautiful autumn day. Eventually, I found an entrance to a major highway and saw a sign with an arrow pointing toward Paris.
The weight of my 50-pound bag was bearing down on me, and the straps were cutting into my shoulder. I put my bag on the ground, sat down for a few minutes, and then tried to hitch a ride.
While I was waiting next to the on-ramp, I realized that this was the first time in my life that I’d ever stuck out my thumb and asked for a lift. Now I felt like I was officially on the road.
It didn’t take long before the traffic started to get heavy, and a large number of cars were turning onto the highway to Paris. A nicely dressed businessman in a fancy new Peugeot offered me a ride. He didn’t speak much English, and again I felt embarrassed that I didn’t know any French. Somehow we were able to have a conversation in halting English as we drove into the city.
It’s funny how people who don’t speak each other’s language manage to communicate with one another.
“You are American?” he asked.
“Yes, American.” I said.
“You are student?”
“No, tourist.”
“Ahh, yes. Tourist!”
“Yes, I am an American tourist.”
“From New York?”
“No, I am from California…Los Angeles.”
“Caw-lee-forn-ee-a! Hollywood!” he said excitedly.
“Yes. Hollywood,” I said.
It wasn’t the deepest conversation, but he was a likeable guy and seemed happy about being able to talk to me in English. I thought to myself, “I really need to learn a few words in French.” As he dropped me off on a busy street corner somewhere in downtown Paris, I managed a mangled, “Merci.”
Now I really felt optimistic. I had been through my first hitchhiking experience, and the road delivered the help that I had asked for. I thought, “Yeah, this is going to be a piece of cake.”
I hoisted my duffle bag over my shoulder and started to walk. Then I saw a street sign that indicated I was on the Champs-Élysées. That was a name I definitely recognized. It was kind of like somebody arriving in Times Square for the first time and thinking, “Oh, yeah. I’ve heard of that place.”
I kept on walking, and it didn’t even matter that I had no clue where I was going.
“Wow, I’m in fucking Europe!” I thought. “I’m really here at last!”
I spotted a guy coming down the sidewalk toward me. He had one of the friendliest looking faces and smiles I’d ever seen, and his eye caught mine right away.
He walked straight up to me and said, “Hey, how you doing?”
“Great. How ’bout you?” I replied.
“You just get here?”
“Yeah, I got in yesterday.”
“Where you from?”
“Los Angeles.”
“Oh, L. A., eh? There’s a lot of you Californians over here.”
“Really?” I asked with surprise.
“Yeah. I was partying with two chicks from San Francisco last week, and I roomed with a couple of guys from L. A. a few days ago.”
I introduced myself while sticking out my hand. “I’m Gregg.”
“Jerome,” he replied while taking my hand and shaking it firmly.
He was a 17-year-old Canadian from Vancouver Island in British Columbia. Even though he was younger than I, he seemed pretty streetwise. Jerome had long, curly, brown hair and was wearing a faded denim jacket along with some very old, worn out jeans. Right away, I knew I liked him.
“I popped the pills, and we went out bar-hopping. Four hours later I still wasn’t the least bit tired.”
Jerome had a slight frame, was in good physical shape, had sparkly eyes that darted around, and the nicest smile. He behaved like a kid filled with energy and excitement. When I looked at him, I wasn’t the least bit concerned that I would wind up in the same unpleasant situation as I had the night before; Jerome came across as completely sincere.
Everything was expensive in Paris, Jerome explained. Then he asked if I wanted to share a hotel room with him and a couple of other guys. We were going to split the cost of a cheap room, and I would sleep on the floor. His offer sounded good to me. Jerome was someone I wanted to hang out with. I took the deal, and we headed off to a hotel on a nearby side street.
The hotel was on a nice street in a better neighborhood than I expected. It was by no means a dive. There was some subterfuge involved when we arrived. We didn’t think the owner would be cool with four of us staying in the room, so we snuck in through the back door.
Steve and Tim were the other guys sharing the room. They’d all met the day before. The three of them were good guys and exactly the type of travelers I was hoping to meet.
“What the hell you got in that bag?” Steve asked me.
“Well, yeah, I brought too much shit!” I said.
“Yeah, I did that too,” Tim said. “My mom insisted on me taking about a half dozen of everything. I got rid of almost all of it as soon as I got here. Did you know that you can sell a pair of American Levis here for about twice what they cost in the States?”
For the next day, Jerome and I got to know each other and became friends after discovering the things we had in common: music, girls, and getting high.
I told him the whole story about how I was traveling to avoid the draft. He explained to me that he’d come to Europe with his parents, but they were up in London. His mom and dad had brought him here to help him clean up a bad drug habit. He’d split from his parents a few days ago and had no plans to meet up with them anytime soon.
Jerome told me that he had been shooting heroin and other drugs for a couple of years. I was surprised to meet someone that young who was into such hard drugs. Then again, I was starting to realize that I was pretty naïve about a lot of things.
Early one morning, he said with enthusiasm, “Hey, you’ve gotta see Amsterdam, man!”
Jerome painted an inviting picture of girls, lots of cheap hashish, and a non-stop party. He explained that it was the absolute coolest scene in all of Europe, and it was only a day’s hitchhike away. Once again, the road beckoned and offered a promise of something tantalizing and new. He and I decided to make the trip the next morning.
Before we could leave, Jerome needed to go to the American Express office because he was expecting some mail. Ted Sutton and David O’Connor had both talked a lot about American Express. It was like a home away from home for Americans who were out of the country. At their offices around the world, travelers could send and receive mail and always find a person who spoke English.
The next day, we made our way to the highway that led to Amsterdam. My backpack was a few pounds lighter because I ditched a lot of the useless stuff I had been hauling around. I noticed that hitchhiking was a more accepted form of travel in Europe than in the United States. There didn’t seem to be any fear of picking up riders like us who looked unkempt.
Although a lot of other people were looking for rides, we didn’t have to wait very long. The highway took us through some spectacular countryside. Leaves on the trees were changing colors; it was the peak of autumn. By the time we reached our destination, it was about ten at night.
“It was beginning to dawn on me how close I had come to death.”
Jerome was familiar with Amsterdam. We went directly to the Hotel Kabul, a rather seedy accommodation in the cool part of town. As soon as we walked in, I could smell the hash burning. It appeared that he knew most of the hotel staff, since he’d stayed there a couple of times before.
Once we got into our room, Jerome went downstairs to talk to the guy at the front desk. A few minutes later, the man brought up a pipe and some hash to our room.
“So, it’s your first time in Amsterdam?” the man asked me.
“Yeah, my first time anywhere!”
“Well, my name’s Chad. Welcome to our own little paradise on Earth, and the hash capital of the world, too!”
Chad was in his thirties and had dark bags under his drooping red eyes. He broke out a huge chunk of black hashish and put it to the flame of his cigarette lighter. Then he warmed it up until it crumbled onto the piece of newspaper between his legs. He took out a cigarette, removed some of the tobacco from the end of it, and mixed it with the hashish. Finally, he took out some cigarette papers and rolled up a huge spliff.
I had never seen hash smoked like this before, however I soon discovered this was how everybody smoked it in Europe. In California, we put a small piece in a pipe and smoked it one precious hit at a time.
Chad lit up the joint, took a huge toke, held it in, and blew out an enormous cloud of smoke. Then he coughed until I thought he was going to puke. He handed it to me, and I did the same thing.
After a couple of hits, my head was spinning wildly. I was so stoned that when I stood up I got a big head rush, and I thought I was about to pass out. I sat back down on the bed to get my balance.
“Wow, that’s some good shit, man!” I said.
“Ahh, that’s nothing,” Jerome said. “That’s Afghani, but we’ll go out tonight and try some Nepalese. That’s the best there is,” he said goofily with a grand gesturing wave of his hand.
Amsterdam was like Greenwich Village in New York or Haight-Ashbury in San Francisco. The streets were narrow and packed with young people having a good time. Loud rock music poured out of small clubs on every block; the city was one giant party.
Jerome and I walked through the red-light district, and there were sexy looking women on display in all of the windows. They would wave and flirt with every guy that walked by. I had never seen anything like it. I was blown away!
Lighting up a hash pipe in Amsterdam was no more noticeable than lighting up a cigarette. I was amazed that we could go into a public place, get high, and nobody would say anything to us.
There were a lot of people openly smoking hash on street corners and curbsides. Jerome and I bought a big chunk of it from a guy we met on the street, and then went into a nearby coffee shop to smoke it.
A polite old man came over to take our order. Jerome and I asked for some coffee, and then we broke out our latest purchase.
“Now we’ll smoke some real hash!” Jerome exclaimed. “This is the Nepalese stuff I was telling you about. I think it’s the best shit there is. The other stuff you’ll see a lot of is Moroccan, and occasionally some Pakistani. That’s pretty good shit too.”
He broke a piece of the hash off, and repeated the same process as the guy who worked at our hotel. I was getting a fast education.
Jerome took out a small, funnel-shaped pipe called a “chillum.” I had never seen one before. He put some of the mixture in the pipe and placed the small end of it between his fingers. Then he made a fist, lit up the pipe, and sucked air through his hand until his lungs filled up with smoke.
Nobody paid any attention to us as we sat there, drank our coffee, and smoked. My first hit made me cough uncontrollably. I was surprised that I didn’t get a single glance.
After two hits off the chillum, I was blasted. I hadn’t slept much the night before, and I had eaten almost nothing the entire day. We smoked all this exotic hash, and now I was ready to pack it in.
Then Jerome reached into his pocket and handed me a couple of capsules. He said they were pharmaceutical uppers that they sold legally in most drug stores across Europe.
“Take a couple of these, and you’ll get a second wind fast,” he said.
I popped the pills, and we went out bar hopping. Four hours later I still wasn’t the least bit tired.
We wound up in a loud, hard-rocking night club where we were drinking Heineken, dancing, and smoking hash. There were beautiful, sexy American and European girls everywhere, partying their asses off.
“This is paradise, man!” I yelled at Jerome over the music.
“No, it’s Paradiso!” he screamed back at me while pointing to the neon sign over the dance floor. It hadn’t registered that the place was called Club Paradiso.
We had gotten friendly with a couple of girls that we were dancing and smoking with. One of them, Suzanne, took a liking to me right away. She was very affectionate and kissed me as we slid off the dance floor into a booth that we shared with a few others. Suzanne lived in a houseboat on one of Amsterdam’s numerous canals. At about four in the morning, we all left the club and headed for the boat.
Suzanne was a dark-haired beauty in her early twenties with intense brown eyes and a hearty laugh. She was an American who’d been living in Amsterdam for about three years. Her boyfriend was an artist who brought her to Holland. They broke up a year later, and she moved into the floating apartment with another girl. Both of them found work in one of the coffee shops that catered to the young tourist set.
The party continued on the boat, but then as dawn approached the room began to spin. I’d finally reached my limit, and I knew I needed to get back to the hotel and crash. I mumbled goodbye to the small group of people who were there, and I thanked them for an absolutely unforgettable evening, although I wondered how much of it I would actually remember.
I got up and stumbled out into the cold, early-morning air. An icy rain was falling. As I stepped onto the deck of the houseboat, I suddenly slipped and spun around. I grabbed a pole that was sticking out of the canal to regain my balance, but I swung out over the water while hanging onto the pole.
Despite my effort to dig my heels into the side of the deck, I fell backward into the canal.
The ice-cold water was an instant shock to my system, and I lost my breath. Instinctively, I reached out and grabbed the pole, but I was rapidly sinking under the weight of my clothes. I was wearing a thermal underwear shirt, another shirt over that, a heavy wool shirt over that, and a leather jacket on top of that. I was in big trouble.
Somehow I managed to get the leather jacket off, and I pulled myself up and out of the water with the help of the pole. I couldn’t quite make it all the way onto the deck, and I fell back into the canal. Desperately, I tried to pull myself up again, and with great effort, I was finally able to climb onto the deck.
By the time Jerome and Suzanne found me, I was on my stomach, and my feet were still in the water. They had heard the splash, but it had taken them a few minutes to get outside because they were so wasted.
As they helped me back inside, I was practically having convulsions because I was so cold. They took my wet clothes off until I was standing there naked. Somebody wrapped a blanket around me, and the next thing I knew I was in Suzanne’s bed. Thankful to be warm and alive, I passed out cold.
Several hours later, I woke up next to Suzanne. She was nude, warm, and curled up by my side. It was so cozy that I didn’t want to ever move. Unfortunately, my head was pounding from a hangover, and my stomach was painfully cramped from hunger and the uppers I had taken.
I stayed there in bed for a while thinking about my first couple of days in Europe. “If the adventures continue at this rate,” I thought, “I’ll be burned out in a week.”
Suzanne woke up and nuzzled against me.
“How are you feeling?” she asked.
“All things considered, I guess I’m OK.”
She was in the mood to get a little friendlier, but I just wasn’t up to it. Suzanne was a few years older than I was, and I wasn’t that comfortable or confident around women yet. I felt kind of shy, and I was feeling pretty sick too. I needed to get some food and coffee.
Suzanne took me to a local coffee shop for a huge, desperately needed breakfast. It was still freezing cold outside, but the restaurant we went to was warm and steamy with fogged-up windows. She and I talked over eggs, fried potatoes, sausages, toast, and gallons of coffee. I was slowly starting to feel human again.
“It was too much for me to see him put a needle in his arm. I couldn’t believe he didn’t feel the same way.”
Suzanne told me how lucky I was to have survived my fall into the canal. She said that another guy she’d known had a similar experience last year and died. Her roommate had to call his parents in the United States. It was difficult for her to break the news that their son had drowned in a filthy, frozen canal in Amsterdam.
After breakfast, I walked back to the Hotel Kabul to find Jerome.
“You’re lucky,” he told me. “People do that all the time, and some of them don’t come back out.”
Then without missing a beat, he asked, “You get some from Suzanne?”
“Nah, I wasn’t up to it, man,” I said.
“Ahh, too bad. She really digs you. Didn’t I tell you this place was great?”
“Yeah, I just gotta pace myself.”
I loved this feeling of having absolutely nothing to do and nowhere to be. I had never felt so totally free in my life, but I knew it wouldn’t last forever. The one thing that I was concerned about was my draft board. I still had to write to them, tell them how to reach me, and give them a mailing address.
I was still exhausted and not at all recovered from the incident in the canal. It was beginning to dawn on me how close I had come to death. I used the rest of the day to catch up on my sleep. When I woke up, I asked Jerome what he’d been up to.
“Hey, man, look what I picked up,” he said excitedly.
He pulled a small piece of aluminum foil from his pocket and opened it up on the table. In it was some white powder.
“What the hell is that?” I asked.
“Well, I thought it was smack, but this fucker ripped me off,” he said, “It’s pretty good crystal meth, though. Wanna do some?”
“No, not really,” I said. “What the fuck did you buy that shit for?”
“Hey, relax. It’s cool. Don’t worry,” he said. “Listen, I want you to tie me off so I can shoot it, OK?”
I looked at him in disbelief and said, “No way, man. Are you fucking crazy?”
I couldn’t believe Jerome was actually going to shoot drugs, and I was even more disgusted that he wanted me to help him do it. It was too much for me to see him put a needle in his arm. I couldn’t believe he didn’t feel the same way.
This was the first time I had been around anyone who used needles. Up until now, I had never seen heroin or even cocaine. One time I had tried speed, but for me to feel good, all I needed was some pot, hash, and maybe the occasional psychedelic.
“Hey forget it, Jerome. I’m not going to help you shoot that shit up, and I’m gonna be fuckin’ pissed at you if you do it,” I said forcefully. “Let’s just smoke some hash, man. What else do you need? How high do you have to get?”
“Ahh, OK,” he agreed after realizing that I wasn’t going to give in. “Come on, let’s snort it then.”
We snorted a couple of lines together. It burned like hell as it went up my nose. In a few minutes, I was rushing like mad, and the last thing on my mind was sleeping anymore tonight. We went out on the town for another night of partying.
Around dawn, we staggered back to the hotel and crashed pretty hard. It wasn’t until late afternoon when we woke up, which was pretty much the norm for all of the residents of the Hotel Kabul.
After a huge breakfast at the greasy cafe next to the hotel, we headed over to American Express so Jerome could check for mail. A large crowd of Americans and other tourists were hanging out in front of the place.
Suddenly, an amazing thing happened. As Jerome and I were standing next to the entrance, he spotted two of his good friends from Vancouver. They were negotiating a curbside deal to buy a Volkswagen van. The sellers were tourists who had driven the old converted milk delivery van around Europe.
“Peter! Andre!” Jerome shouted as he ran over to them. “What the hell are you guys doing here?”
They all embraced in a big three-way bear hug.
Jerome, Peter, and Andre had grown up together on Victoria Island. The two had no idea Jerome was in Europe and vice versa. After twenty minutes of catching up, they invited us to join them in the van for a trip to Spain to find warmer weather. Peter and Andre told us that they could use the extra gas money if we were up for the trip. Jerome and I jumped on the deal.
Before we left town, I went over to Suzanne’s houseboat to say goodbye. She was disappointed and tried to talk me out of going by saying that I could stay with her. She even went so far as to suggest that I could probably find work in Amsterdam.
Then she gave me a sexy look that made me stop and seriously consider the offer. But the lure of the road was pulling me stronger than ever. Hell, I was just starting to get good at this! Besides, she seemed a little too desperate, and it didn’t feel right.
After Suzanne realized my mind was made up, she said, “I have something for you.”
She took a beautiful, smooth blue and white glass egg out of her pocket and gave it to me. It was made of something resembling marble, and it felt warm from her touch. I looked at the egg, put it in my pocket, and wasn’t sure what to say.
Suzanne explained that it was her good luck charm. She believed that by giving it to me, it would bring me back to her someday. After handing me the gift, she kissed me passionately with tears in her eyes.
For a fleeting moment, I wondered what it would be like if I stayed here in Amsterdam. Maybe she was a girl I could really fall in love with. Maybe I was the perfect guy for her too. Maybe we could have a great life here in Holland, and I could find everything I was looking for right here. Was I making a big mistake by leaving her now?
Of course, I also knew that if I stayed, I would always wonder what would have happened if I had gone with Jerome to Spain. After a few more minutes and a lot of kissing, I left her crying in the restaurant and headed back to the Hotel Kabul where the van was waiting.
I was sure I had done the right thing, but I felt a little sad for Suzanne. She was a nice girl, and I made her cry. With or without her egg, I was pretty sure that I would never see her again. As I walked back to my friends, I thought to myself, “I’m going to Spain!”
