Pieter Verwoerd, I told myself, if you don’t hurry up you’re going to be late. The A train only runs till 12 and when you miss it, you’re going to have to schlep all the way over to Little Java or worse, North Batavia. Johannes DeKlerk was leaving and it was the last time I would get to see him. He was going to try his luck back in the mother country, to study art among the greats of Rembrandt and Reubens, that I figured what we had back home was good enough for any artist, our towering skyscrapers, our tenements, our parks and the diversity of people living here in the Big Orange, all of it deserved to be rendered into art by a talented hand.
And Johannes had talent. He was not a flash in the pan or one interested only in so-called performance art. No, he was serious and hence he was going away, for how long, nobody knew. But we figured we’d lose him to the easy living there, the prostitutes, the pot, and the absinthe. He would become one of those expats who is disgusted with everything back home. It happened to Hendrik and Maarten, they wanted to go study philosophy in the land of Spinoza, feeling their thought constrained by the chortle of stockbrokers and bondsmen down by Muurstraat. They left last year and I haven’t heard from them sense.
It’s a real tragedy to be losing so many fine young minds to a country that can barely keep itself afloat, but something inside us kept drawing. Even those amongst us who weren’t even Dutch felt something warm inside when looking at pictures of tulips and windmills. Jan Martinez studied abroad in our old country and came back refusing to eat anything but gouda and herring.
I got a bagel with herring on it, thinking of him. I was hungry and the delis were the only things that were quick enough. I went to one next to the Stuyvesant victory statue and made my order, telling them to be quick. The Surinamese men behind the counter snickered at me and took their precious time to take two filets and plop them down between the two slices.
They knew I was late and delighted in keeping me from catching the train. However they couldn’t stop me and I caught the last one heading out to Konynen Eylant, which I would have to pass through all of Breuckelen to get to. It would be a long ride, but least it would let me relax and concentrate on what I was going to say to Johannes, to make sure that he knew I was worried for him, but I did not feel betrayed by his leaving. All the while the names of the familiar stations passed me, Breede Weg, Roosevelt Ave, Independence Ave, Huguenot Lane, New Utrecht…
Finally the train got to the right station and I got off. I dropped two Guilders in the proper slot because my fare was lacking. It was a real ordeal. At first I tried to go through the gate, without swiping my card. Of course it wouldn’t let me through. So then I panicked a bit and walked around in a circle trying to catch my breath. I swiped my card and failed once more. I needed to pay the correct change. Looking at the map by the phones, I tried to figure exactly what was needed to pay for the ride, but I gave up unable to calculate anything proper in my head. My pockets became two Guilders lighter as I decided to simplify things.
Above ground things were cold and the wind was blowing strongly. I gripped my coat and tried to look for Johannes’ apartment. A man on the corner came over to me. I thought he was trying to help me and my fingers stopped getting red and my cheeks started to feel warmer at the thought of being helped. However, all he wanted to do was sell me a CD he claimed he had made, but I refused to buy it. His thick Antillean accent was nearly incomprehensible. Finally I shouted at him to get away and he ran from me, knocking over a trash can in the process.
The streets were nearly deserted as I passed pancake house after pancake house. Each one smelled better than the last and I had to fight giving up and going in to stuff my face with the warm dough. As I was about to give up, finally I found Johannes’ apartment. The place was cold inside too and there were no sounds coming from his room. He had stopped paying rent and the landlord had stopped heating his apartment. But why no sound? I was intrigued.
After a knock, he let me in and I did what came naturally to me, I gave him a big hug, which came as a surprise to Johannes. He wa about to go to sleep, drunk out of his mind. The party had ended early. I suggested we go get some pancakes and I won him over on this. The moon had finally come out by this time and it was a clear path down the fire escape and through the alley to a neon fortress that was still open, serving the prized food that had sustained our ancestors as they built windmills all over this land so many centuries ago.
Benjamin Nardolilli is 21, a student, and lives in New York City, hence the inspiration for this alternative history flash fiction in which the city was never controlled by the English. He blogs at Lo Specchio e La Spugna.
“Under the Half Moon” is a very impressive flash. “The Big Orange,” pancakes everywhere, and windmills across the land – I love it! I look forward to reading more of Nardolilli’s fiction.