Chester

I wanted to tell this story to you before, but you know how I am, always putting things off until it is too late. But we still have a few minutes and I wanted to set the record straight.

I knew going to Amsterdam was a self-fulfilling prophesy, but it seemed that to avoid it would be even more a validation of the Roshi's words. I was sixteen when I left the monastery, yet twenty years had not dulled the image of his prediction, and I tried to find a plausible way to avoid Amsterdam while not appearing to avoid it. Mind tricks! It was the cheapest way out of Europe. We were going.

After uneventful first night, I thought I might avoid Roshi's jinx. Your mother and I walked the canals and talked about starting a family, at long last. In fact, your name was partly inspired from a poem on the wall of a public urinal: Un'er the moon / this cold night / Chester, manly / did it right. Being on a tour of the region it was fitting to see all the urinals in the Red Light district, if only by necessity. Anders and Lechee served thick warm Flemish beer, hair-on-your-chest beer, beer-moustache beer, draught from a tap pull of carved mahogany inlaid with centuries of palm grease and malt. Full of instant camaraderie and inner glow we walked two or three streets and saw the famous sites one sees in that district, through windows and open doorways. Asking a prostitute for directions is generally unwise, but to do so after asking to use their toilet is foolish; her toilet is her only respite from public life, her sanctum. We never did find our hostel. If it weren't for the regular deployment of public urinals we would have been arrested for vagrancy, or perhaps public indecency.

The floors of each public room slope gently outward, an engineering feat considering their spiral floor plan and sub-sealevel drains. The slope is not readily apparent to the drunk foreigner as he enters the dimly-lit enclave, shoes wet, slipping on the runoff. The buildings reflect sounds from certain frequencies - standing just outside the door you cannot hear a man's urine hit the recessed stall, but you can hear him yell in agony from the third floor window of an apartment a block away. It is as if he was in the room right beside you. At least that's what the two men told us as they carried me up the stairs to their room. Both were transplants to Amsterdam, one German and the other Greek; they opened a shop together, selling leotards and custom-fit hosiery. Is there a demand for that, I asked? Sure, sure, untapped elsewhere but unstoppable in this town of activity and exploration. How many circuses do you think Amsterdam has each year? Fifteen! The Greek poured another Scotch while he bandaged my head - it had stopped bleeding around the third shot. Find a child and ask, what do you want to be when you grow up? He blew smoke from his European cigarette in a puff. The Strong man! Pah! he slapped his arms.

An empty feeling rose to consciousness as the last of the whiskey cut in. What was I forgetting? I checked - my wallet, my watch, my glasses, tickets for the flight in the morning, my hat... my wife!

Do you know where my friend is?

Oh, it is ok. She is sleeping. Beside a pile of boxes she lay on rolls of black spandex, arms wrapped around her coat like a doll. Behind her was a makeshift assembly area with a door as sewing table, the door pull still attached to the door frame. I couldn't believe my luck! I had been unable to find a decent tailor before my trip, and my pant cuffs were rolled up and held with safety pins. If the flight weren't so early the next morning I wouldn't have risked waking her, but she seemed to sleep fine in the group room of our hostel. Our hosts were amenable, not perturbed in the slightest by my wish. Who else but Roshi could have foreseen this moment? As I hemmed my pants in Amsterdam I realized - made manifest - the last of Roshi's predictions.

I hope you can understand and forgive me, when you are old enough. I know this won't make sense now. But I will give the old Master a chance to do with you what he was unable with me - to show the cause and effective eradication of suffering.