I first saw her during my last roll through Amsterdam, while gazing

stoned and stupid out of the front window of my favorite coffee shop.

It was early in the morning that first day, maybe too early to have been

patrolling the center of the city’s infamous Red Light district. Beer-

drooling fraternity leftovers from the night before were still stalking the

roads like hungry party zombies, pathetically moaning for one more

fleshy bite of Sin itself. A few peaceful locals, hoping to have been

able to go about their regular Monday morning, saw the mob and

began warning the townsfolk like clog-wearing Paul Reveres, clopping

down the road, comically dodging bicycles while screaming, “The

Wasted are Coming! The Wasted are Coming!” The tour guides

outside the city’s Old Church hurriedly bang closed the wooden doors,

bread bakers and hot chocolate makers were suddenly promising to be

back in 15 minuten and all the ladies for let quickly drew down the

shades to their steamy glass display boxes. A vomiting troupe of

snaggle-toothed Brit kids on school holiday is no one’s idea of a good

morning group fuck, even at twice the price.

I watched the carnage from the safety of the Temple, a hash bar run

by Tibetan Buddhists that felt more like, well, a Zen temple, than your

generic Rasta pot place. Hundreds of flickering violet candles

illuminated the room so greatly that even the sculpted Eastern idols,

resting in the nooks hollowed out of the cavernous walls, bathed in

dancing light. Lavender and chamomile-scented aromas tangoed with

the smell of smoked sensimilla in my brain. It was the kind of scene

that belonged in those CGI Hollywood movies starring peaceful monks

moonlighting as killer ninjas defending the golden Buddha from evil

Chinese spies. Often the first guest of the day, I would respectfully

remove my hat, as per the house rules, and sit near the back,

comfortably, in the center of an elevated circle littered with silk pillows.

There I was free to meditate among the statues of gods with names

unpronounceable by my admittedly under-cultured Western tongue.

On my first visit, the Temple became part of my morning breakfast

ritual, and it always made my wake and bake feel like something

spiritual and uplifting.

But to be perfectly honest, there are no shortages of cool places to get

‘Dam stoned in this city, that’s the general idea of it. So I wasn’t just

there for green, tea and atmosphere—I was there mostly because

directly across from the Temple, adjacent to the Old Church, in a glass-

fronted bedroom sat the sultry object of my strongest fascination. A

woman beyond comparison in beauty and sheer style, who had not

accepted one client in the week or so that I had been watching. When

properly stoned, I would like to think she was waiting for me. Waiting

for someone who wasn’t just there for the obvious, but who wanted to

know her and laugh with her and maybe one day be free to share the

joys of love with her. Ah, yes, I came to this wonderful and spiritual

place every morning to contemplate life and have erotic daydreams

about the young Dutch prostitute with raven hair who conducted

business adjacent to the oldest church in the city.

Yet until that day, no matter how much I smoked and imagined, I could

never get up the confidence to actually go over there. Based on local

custom, it would be perfectly legal, perfectly normal, to go over there

and have sexually revealed what my imagination was only able to

wonder. Yet, I did not. I hesitated to even think about that long, short

walk to her open door. As the mornings slowly came and went, I ‘d

watch her there, fingering her new iPhone for hour after bored hour,

my confidence began to grow larger until finally, one day I decided that

I would go to her. I would liberate her from that glass prison and take

her far, far away…maybe to this other little place, just across town in

the Jordaan neighborhood, which I knew for a fact made the best hash

brownies in European history. Then, as if fated by magical forces, we

could go about the business of living happily ever after. Right there I

visualized my entire future, and learned that the best day of my life

was about to begin! But first, before all that could happen, I decided to

smoke another joint first.

***

About a toke or so before the line, the path to my wet, sticky future

was suddenly blocked by the oddest pairing of tourists I’d seen blow
through this town in a long time. At the counter stood a nervous

young blonde, conservatively dressed but overwhelmingly beautiful,

and, for a second, her artsy companion. He was a gentleman much

louder and younger than she, who didn’t remove his stupid hat, but

whisked himself right inside to contemplate the Eastern décor, and

after a quick inspection of each statue, obnoxiously proclaimed, “You

know, as an artist, I must say that this interior is quite the blah blah

blah, reminiscent of the late 19th century representation of blah blah

blah’s interpretative blah. But, of course, that was before he

blahhhh…” Maybe that’s not a direct quote, sure, but that’s what it

sounded like when the prick pontificated about all things he really

didn’t know to not know enough about.

For a moment, given the perverse oddity of the couple, I thought to

myself, “This might be interesting to watch unfold.”

Well, this happened three years ago and the jury is still out on that

one, my friends.

So anyway, while the blonde was taking a nervous look around, a

docile young man with sleepy yellow eyes and a golden robe offers to

show her a “menu”. Now I must admit, myself once being a

puritanically deprived American, that being handed a menu listing all

kinds of pot, hash, joints, spliffs and edibles, in grams and euros, no
less, can be a little overwhelming. I’m a daily smoker and I just

remember smiling a lot and pinching myself while secretly trying to

show the shopkeeper how much of an “hombre in the know” I was. I

swear I was in that first shop for almost five hours, furiously puffing

every strain they offered, because I didn’t realize I could take the rest

with me and smoke it later. So I sympathized with tourist girl; standing

there, awkwardly shaking her limbs while trying to decide what strain

sounded the least provocative and wondering, “Exactly how much bud

was in a fucking gram, anyway? Doesn’t this shit just come in dime

bags? Or was that just in those “hoods” that the destitute stoner

janitors at work always talk about?”

Upon noticing his partner’s silent distress, or perhaps because he just

ran out of hot air, the Artist returned to the front counter, was told to

remove his tacky-in-any-clique tie-dyed French beret`, and snatched

the menu at first opportunity. He compulsively pawed at his hairless

chin, ostensibly considering his options before deciding, loudly, on

three grams of the White Widow, a recent pOt-lympics Gold Medalist

with stark gray fibers and an insane amount of tricones, but has

become market-diluted and poorly grown by middling amateurs since

it’s much-hyped victory, leaving the unbeknownst smoker with a harsh

bite and minimal body high. Heh, sucker.

Watching these “squares” clumsily graduate to “cool” had suddenly

lost it’s edge and besides, my lady of little clothing had just re-opened

her shades, and all the juicy feelings from before have come rushing

back into my head. “Fuck these fuckers,” I thought, “my destiny is

calling!”

But, full of life-disrupting intentions and giggling as schoolgirls with

their first boy-inspired vaginal tingles do, they, naturally, sat down in a

pit right in front of me and before I could figure out where all of my shit

was and get the hell out of there, the blonde turns to me and asks if I

knew what time it was. No big deal, right? Wrong.

“How can he possibly tell you what time it is?” The Artist coughed

after bungling the carb during his inhale.

“Well,“ I, fancying myself a suave mother, noted, “I believe it’s always

time to smoke…hehe…but I have a watch--and a cell phone, so, it’s…

ahhh…”

“Time is part of an invented reality, based on the perspective of the

observer! It’s not real in any useful sense and the time for this

gentleman, ah, ‘smoking time,’ it seems, is bound to be very different

from what you should be doing at present.” He took a breath to fill his

lungs and went on. “And further, we only ever experience the past,

anyway. Our eyes are little squishy telescopes, always searching the

past for clues of life. How many people do you think waste entire lives

only seeing what they believe to be the present? Time is nothing more

than the crossroads of memory and anticipation. It’s no better than

your common adjective. I think, my dear, you should smoke some of

this and you’ll see things my way soon enough.”

The quiet blonde, herself put off by the 800-lb. dumbass in the room,

grabbed the pipe, expertly lit & hit, held it back for another and let out

a cute, heart-shaped trail of smoke clouds. I know I was shocked as

shit, and this was just my first clue to precisely how much of a wild side

this chick was ready to ride. Before the Artist was able to muster up

some kind of full of bull retort, the duo’s smarter half was on the

offensive.

“First of all, sir, time is quite real and I would say it’s discovery is the

foundation of our civilization. Our lives are measured by it, our society

depends on it. No matter how much you want to fight it or fluff it away

with--,” she took a deep third hit, “—magical sounding clichés, there is

a finite day and time where you, me, that goofy guy behind us—

everyone—will be have the same flat pulse as the American

Democratic party. Every second from now till then is just another

depressing click in a pretty dire countdown, so maybe you should at

the very least acknowledge these fleeting seconds and then make the

most of ‘em by not saying such dumbass things. Besides, we just

met,” she said coolly, reaching across the table to brush his fingertips

with hers while slipping the burning pipe into his palm, “you’d do best

to stay on my good side.” Then followed the token bottom-lip-bite, a

playful little smile and the second clue that this one was getting ready
to invoke the true spirit of Amsterdam and let her freak flag fly as far

as her repressed suburban morals would allow.

While smugly reaching across the table to return the pipe, the blonde

revealed a longer view of her person, to which was clipped a laminated

ID badge that read in big red letters, “SCI-CON, VIP PASS.” And then,

in the silence that often follows such a wicked burn, I gave the feisty

egghead a closer inspection and noticed some sciency-type papers

peeking from the top of her faux leather attaché, filled with complex

geometric thought droppings and such. From then on I called her the

Scientist, if for no other reason that my short-term memory was far too

impaired to ever remember either of their Christian names.

Speaking of which, I had until then managed to keep myself free of this

boorish back and forth by keeping my mouth and lungs full of tingly

happy smoke. But the heavenly herb double-crossed me when I let out

an uncontrollable guffaw at the slack-jawed look on the stunned

Artist’s face. NFL fans would know the kind of twisted, kicked-in-the-

nethers facial palsy Peyton Manning develops whenever his Colts

manage to fuck up a sure 100$ bet—again. Funny sportswriters call

this eternal gift to their photographer kin of Indianapolis the “Manning

Face.” And this guy’s…well, it looked like he had to swallow a testicle

to get it back into the homesack. Even my nethers ached at the

thought of such painful logistics.

They were stereotypical and sort of becoming entertaining again, but I

suddenly realized that the woman across the way couldn’t keep

sending off the swine looking for a good, shallow time forever. She’d

been waiting too long for our Fated meeting and now seemed the

perfect opportunity to make an embarrassed exit and forget the whole

episode while lost in the never-ending bosom waiting but two windows

south. I had my keys, my wallet, my cell phone telephone and was just

about to locate my Randy’s when the Artist finally digested his swollen

walnut, unfortunately returning his capacity for speech in the process.

“See, even that guy can’t help but laugh at such a cynical, heartless

view of mankind. He’s trying to sneak out before saying something

mean. I bet he’ll tell you himself! Hey friend--,” he called to me, but I

pretended to not hear. “—why don’t you come on over here and tell

my uptight acquaintance that the universe is too wonderful to slice up

into mundane little bits, and that existence is too pure for us to worry

about such a temporary spiritual transitions as ‘death’.”

The Artist spent way too much energy filling sacks of gibberish for me

to totally ignore and since I wasn’t ready to tell him how full of it I

thought he was, I begrudgingly stayed. My balls overruled my

common sense on the grounds of reparations for pain and suffering.

So I lit a proper cigarette and sat down at the only spot that offered a

clear exit strategy, should one become immediately necessary.

Unsure of what to say I just kept on blowing smoke, hoping for one of

those brain-melting highs to sneak up and rescue me from the

responsibility of having to make intelligent conversation.

“So stranger, why don’t you lend your thoughts on the subject,” the

Artist invited with a flamboyant wave of his arm. “Our professional lab

jockey has sacrificed herself to the great nerd Goddess of Infallible

Punctuality. And I’m afraid that without our intervention, her life will

be memorable for nothing more than being easily broken down into

neat little blocks of timed boredom.”

I looked to the Scientist at my right, rolling her eyes and no doubt

wondering why, oh why, of all the crazy characters in the ‘Dam, she let

this whacko show her a time.

If you cut away enough fat from the guys’ pretentious point of view, I’d

have to admit that he did have a point. And while what he said of the

Scientist might be true, you can’t just spend your whole damn life

being a colossal fucking wingnut, can you? Conflict. Damnit, now I

was forcing my self to think of something to smart to say.

“Well, since you asked,” I began smartly, “Time is real in the sense

that it fills the only bank account you’ll ever have that has any real

value; it’s a commodity. Especially since it’s not like there’s trillions of
dollars in gold backing up our cotton monopoly money. Time’s like

that—based on faith. And as we live, hopefully becoming aware that

the account is rapidly dwindling, we should make sure that the time we

spend is equal in value to the experiences we spend it on. Maybe the

only worthy goal of a full life is manipulating this volatile market to our

advantage. We’ve all got skin in the game, anyway, right?”

“Ugh, I can’t believe how ambivalent you two are to this. I’m going to

assume that neither of you have ever heard of Elisha Gray? Didn’t

think so. Elisha Gray was an American inventor, the founder of what is

today known as Lucent Technology, who got his first patent at thirty-

two for improving telegraph reception and owned over seventy at the

time of his death.”

“Here you go again with the morbidity! Death and the 19th century,

how fascinating. Just get on with it...our time is running out,

remember?” The Scientist’s retort to such an ill-advised outburst was

the subtle class of a slender, upstanding middle finger.

“What Mr. gray does not hold the patent for, however, is the

telephone. Some stories suggest his attorney arrived at the patent

office only hours after Alexander Graham Bell’s and thus, despite a

better working diagram, lost credit for one of the most important
modern inventions. I bet time was as real as shit to Elisha, and he

counted every money-losing moment of his life he spent on the phone

with his mother. See, there is nothing you can say that can change the

fact that no matter how long some hippie drug experience feels, while

we’ve been sitting here pondering philosophy and trippy hand waves,

seconds, minutes and hours have marched forward as they always

have, and always will,” said the Scientist, with somewhat of a snarky

tone at the end. “No amount of pretty word-flowers are going stop the

forward progress of time.”

“Nonsense! Of course the Sun will turn, and around it the Earth, and

from that we get an idea of how much sunlight or darkness we’ll get,

but what I am saying is that that only part of the equation that matters

for us lost humans is our perception of local astronomical events.

Whatsoever are you going to do, cheri, when the Sun stops burning?

Will that be the end of time? And if so, what was the point of counting

all those seconds again?”

***

In a way, we were having the kind of playful debate you read in turn-

of-the-previous-century novels about Parisian aristocrats trying to bed

each other on the way to Spain. Except I couldn’t tell how playful this
back and forth was, or if there’d be any satisfactory conclusion to it.

So I rolled one last doob and passed it around the table. I also watched

intently at the casual change in the Artist’s eyes—they were suddenly

focused on something fascinating behind me, he had the look of a man

about to crash his car into a Starbucks while watching a curvy young

skirt slinking her way to biology class. I know that look; I could pick it

out of a fucking lineup.

The Scientist was finally beginning to get a buzz, I thought, when she

jumped up and yelled, “Eureka!” But that wasn’t all. “You’re right,

you silly little peacock of a man. Time is made up. And you know how

I know that? Do you?”

“Because, you’re a scientist?” The life-size NBC logo exhaled

sarcastically.

“Damn right! Scientists invented time so that you lazy dumbasses

would know when to apply for your federal grants. And we didn’t stop

there, no! We went ahead and figured out fire and airplanes and

physics and all kinds of shit, even when it may have cost us our lives.”

The Artist was about to note that his kind, too, have felt the harshest of

discrimination, but even he wasn’t stoned and stupid enough to step in

front of this freight train.

“Scientists are the outlaws! We bring knowledge to humanity. The

knowledge of, of…Possibility! The knowledge of free energy and

abundant food and big fucking televisions and we do it for no more

than what your flaky high school art teacher makes. And she got a

summer off every year. Damn,” she suddenly declared during a rush

of adrenaline to the loins, “I feel so horny!”

She plumped down in her chair, passionately flushed, and stanking of

skunk. Her rant was pretty hot and for the slightest of seconds I let my

mind lose focus of the beautiful prostitute across the street and that

wonderful life together I was planning only moments—or was it hours?

--ago.

“Well, boys, if either of you aren’t going to take advantage of this ‘neat

little block of timed boredom’ then I’m going over there to that

gorgeous hooker across the way and see if I can’t figure out how to

make her clock stop.”

There was a wink, and it was over. Everything, everywhere came

crashing down on me. Immobile, I could only watch as the Scientist

left the Temple. I watched the girl in the window’s face light up like

Hanukkah as the two met eyes. The glass door opened. They kissed

in the window and as the shades drew, I saw their soft hands move
down each other’s bodies to the well of forbidden femininity. Damn.

Well, forbidden no longer, I guess. Just to me.

The fatal blow to my once-mighty high was the god damned Artist,

guffawing like a buffoon and asking if I had anything to say about

“that!” And began making lewd, open fisted hand gestures.

Well, I did have something to say. And it was good, too. I had a whole

big thing on how scientists aren’t the outlaws. They are the

safecrackers, I was going to say, busy trying to break open the

titanium safe of truth. If they work hard enough, with all their tools,

they’ll sometimes be able to see inside the safe. But since the true

combination is unknown to science, all they’ll find are smaller and

smaller safes, each one harder to crack than the last.

And then maybe I would stand and bellow out—for dramatic purposes,

of course—The artists, on the other hand, have the combination! Once

upon a time, they saw inside the safe, but didn’t understand what it

was they saw. Art ever since has been the attempt to understand that

moment from our ancient past. Nowadays, the artists are too afraid of

unlocking the truth, only to have science understand what it is. So

they just keep up the illusion. Or they’re too poor to open an account

at the bank where the safe is kept.

Either fucking way, I didn’t say any of that crap. I was comatose for a

few moments, but when I came to, I stood up. Without a word I walked

out the front door. I put on my hat, locked the door to my rented flat
and went to the airport.

Years have passed without me ever returning to that place. I don’t

know if I could ever willingly relive that week of lost mornings. The

heartache of possibilities never realized has kept me away, as well as

the incoming right-wing government and the pending legalization of

pot in California. But it’s the romantic part that matters, and the

lesson that time, like all things, is as real as we make it, but we do

make it. We just have to remember that we are the masters, not the

other way around. A pretty daunting thought to overcome, for sure.

The grass is just for all the anxiety I got that last week in Amsterdam.