Thursday, October 25, 2012

Bear with me

"zo stoned als een garnaal"

--

It was scheduled for last week - "speak with D". It stands for a Hebrew name, literally translated as "Bear". Not a code name, just a well known Israeli character in Amsterdam.

Lazily, I'm getting up from the sleeping bag near the heater in the living room, and ride to his office.
I fear he'll ask me "What would you like to work in?"
I am an immigrant, any job would do for now. My dream is to work in the cinema and is quite far enough from my present self. Actually I fear the dream, not the question. Running away from it led to other objectives (such as find yourself living in another country making a living and friendships) in search of greater self reliance and confidence.

After sharing the script writing dream D' shared his movie-like immigrant's ascension story: 16 years ago a young man, with no passport other than an Israeli one, came here without knowing anyone yet with a strong belief that things will go well. He first went to a hotel, booked a room for a month, and bought a lot of dope. Once in a while he'd got out to a grocery store and sometimes inquired about a job. Mostly he was stoned, but still a believer.
His hotel neighbor was a successful prostitute. One night she got into a quarrel and got beat up. He was nice and caring and made her some tea, helped her out. Kindly enough, she paid a favor back and set him up working for a restaurant, knowing about 5 phrases in Dutch and inviting potential customers to get in.
The restaurant was owned by an Egyptian fella and had an Egyptian chef who did not care for Israeli D'. He'd always ruin his break meal on purpose which led D' to quit (rather than wanting to kill him). He found another job working in renovations. He noticed all the workers are eating separately on their break time and one day decided to gather them all up for a proper meal he bought for them all. For the first time, the foreigners of different origins sat and ate together. It became a routine.
D' assembled the crew and managed to get it a reconstruction job. His team did it so cheap and efficiently, in a shorter time than expected, that he went on establishing a construction company. In time he initiated a project of maintaining and renting out apartments for owners and another project of purchasing and selling. Thus, he has became the well respected mediator, the one who gets the job done and knows everyone.
One thing I particularly liked about him is how he learned to speak Dutch and Arabic off the street. I felt comfortable with the bear. It is not for no reason that people trust and love him, nor that he loves and has faith in some sort of a supreme force, as I suppose he does.

As he was busy with phones and people, I was talking with his plants master, my first to know Serbian person. I liked him since he was both crazy and simple. What I mean is that things were quite clear to him regarding the hells his countrymen have known. His mind is all too made up about communism, Albanians  NATO, Germans, and more. Come to think about it, these people got fucked over and by so many sides, no wonder he says they revolted against the police and made personal arms legit.
Minding fucking, he also told that homosexuality is strictly way off any Serbian norm. The straight traditional people are so convinced that according to his tale, two gay Germans were kissing together in a pub and a guy took out a knife and stabbed them. "The fact that they are Germans was extra".
Forgiveness is a harsh virtue, and just as unacceptable as any other shit endured in their history.

At some point of his telling, he then mentioned he was once caught at the border from France to Italia. He had a lot of marijuana at the time but was only halted for not having a passport. His weed was returned to him and he even smoked at the border-police station. At this point I understood he uses MJ so I suggested we smoke one now. He then offered me what he was smoking (I mistook it for merely tobacco). I only took a few puffs but it was strong enough.

All this while I am waiting for D' to finish his phones, however when he does, he must attend some errands and he takes me for a ride. Some day to choose not to take my jacket with me... Hack the wind chilled my face to tears and my body to shake! We get on the scooter and go to several places he has businesses in. His mind is generally multi-occupied. He talks on the phone, call after call, while riding, sending a kiss to the cycling Rabbi from across the street and once in a while converses with me in the back.

Being a bit buzzed this whole meeting and riding from one place to another - it felt like tripping. That feeling I liked so much about traveling - meeting new people, getting to new places, unveiling new situations, opening for new opportunities, revealing totally new histories ... It all sums up to people just liking one another. This bear, he is an honestly human liking one.

It might just be that the next day I feel all these possibilities are denied and give false hope, but for this day... I learned it is nice to smile optimistically again, to regenerate energy by believing eventually things will go just fine. Even if my main achievement for a month is to get stoned.

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