I had just finished my fall semester at the university, and I was looking for some way to relax. I was 21 at the time, and the monotony of the previous semester had taken its toll. The cycle of getting up, commuting to my lectures, sitting down and listening to my professors for a couple of hours, then going home and doing some more college stuff had gotten to me.
I was ready for a change of pace.
So, I set sail for a better future (albeit only for a little while). A future where my responsibilities would be so distant, I could easily pretend they had never existed at all. This better future happened to manifest itself as a small island just off the coast of the Netherlands.
Why was the promised land an island in the Netherlands? Well, as a side gig, my cousin loves to DJ. His gigs can be in all sorts of different places. This particular time, he had arranged to work in one of the two nightclubs on the island for a week. That’s why, when we talked about hanging out that summer, he suggested I come with him to Ameland (that’s what the island is called).
At night, I could come to the club where he was DJing, and during the day, we could relax on the beach.
I was a little hesitant at first, seeing as I wouldn’t know anybody and he’d be busy DJing. But then I thought, “Ah, fuck it, it’ll be fun.” So, I decided to go.
And I can tell you, as I got closer to the trip, it started to feel more and more like it was going to be a magical time of freedom and partying.
Ahh… I can still feel the excitement of embarking on that journey. It feels like you are leaving all your worries behind, with nothing but a brighter future ahead of you.
I can feel its invigorating pull right now…
Anyway, where was I? Oh, right. My semester had just ended. So, I hopped on a train heading north, and I rode it all the way to the coast. There, I switched to the ferry that would take me from the last sliver of solid land to the little island a little further out into the ocean.
Upon arriving, my cousin took me to the house we’d be staying in. It served as the sleeping quarters for all the nightclub staff. And not only that, it had a lovely nickname too: They called it the “crack house” (or so my cousin told me).
It was a pretty accurate name.
The house itself was small and narrow, and generally, things in it were both old and worn out. Basically, it was in the kind of shape you’d expect when you give a house to a couple of twenty-somethings to stay in while they work at a nightclub on a vacation island.
I’m not saying these twenty-somethings weren’t nice people. They were. They were relaxed and open-minded, and they didn’t get all bent out of shape over little details. It’s just that among those details, apparently, were things like cleanliness and not living in chaos.
That’s what I discovered by walking into my room and finding all sorts of interesting things under the bed. I saw a piece of sausage, the shell of a peeled egg (in a plastic bag), a couple of used tissues, and possibly some pencils.
I had to admit… I was impressed. These people didn’t take the responsibility of living in the “house of crack” lightly. No no, they made sure it earned its rep. I mean, sprinkling eggshells under the bed? That is some serious attention to detail.
Even though that wasn’t what I had pictured, I didn’t come here to admire people’s cleanliness. So, I got up, put all of those discoveries into a box called “going to pretend that doesn’t exist,” and went downstairs to join the group for lunch.
Once 11ish rolled around, we started making our way to the club to open it up and get everything ready for the night. Everybody got real busy doing all sorts of bar things so I became real busy finding something interesting for me to do. This happened to result in me taking a closer look behind one of the bars. There, I then quickly found myself restocking the fridge with Desperados and Heineken beer because, well, my free time was noticed.
Then later on, when people started coming in, I once again tried to figure out what to do with myself, as all the people I knew were occupied. So, what do you do when you’re at a bar with strangers? Well, I have to admit, I wasn’t being particularly creative. Because my answer was: drink and talk to strangers.
But I also had some other ideas of what to do with my time. You see, this club was visited by a mix of locals and the children of German families who came to enjoy the island. And I guess the owner of the bar realized that a significant amount of those children wouldn’t be 18 yet. Because you only had to be 16 to get in.
Of course, in the Netherlands, you aren’t allowed to drink yet at that age. But what you could do is buy non-alcoholic drinks. Not to mention that you already might be very able to attract some other people to the club, some of whom are probably going to be allowed to drink. They might even offer to buy you some.
See? Everybody wins.
That is, unless you drink too much of what you’re offered and therefore get to experience what it’s like to throw up in your parent’s vacation home.
Or, you end up buying too many drinks (because you’re drunk) and then get to wake up with a lot less money in your wallet than you remember having.
Luckily, in both cases, you can comfort yourself with knowing that at least one person profited from you being there: the owner of the nightclub. Doesn’t that make you feel better?
Well, what I was getting at was this: since I speak both Dutch and German, I thought I could put my communicative powers to use. I decided to help the bouncer. He was a likable guy, who I’d met earlier in the “drug cartel hideout” and he was willing to introduce me to the world of bouncing. It was too early for anyone to be really drunk and misbehave, so I didn’t get the opportunity to throw someone out. Which was unfortunate because a part of me had secretly been looking forward to that.
To still give you an idea of what it probably would have looked like if I had, I asked ChatGPT to create an image of one guy angrily throwing another guy out of a nightclub in a wide arc (in a comic book style). Here’s what it came up with:
Since that wasn’t what I had in mind, I asked ChatGPT to emphasize the “throwing” part. Which lead to this:
I don’t think that’s what it would have looked like, either. I don’t even own a blue tank top.
After having to put that fantasy on hold, I got to experience what bouncers actually do most of the time. Which is standing around. But don’t you think for a second that I didn’t take that seriously too, because I did. I stood there with my arms crossed, feet planted wide, my best try at what I hoped would be an intimidating look on my face. Oh yeah, I meant business. Whoever came up walking to the club, I looked at real piercingly.
And now, I can’t say this for sure… but it is very possible I managed to intimidate a couple of the sixteen-year-old girls who walked by. I am so proud of myself.
Then, my responsibilities increased. I started checking ID’s. Fueled by the confidence I had gained by scaring some young girls, I didn’t mess around. I even took two ID’s at the same time. I was all in.
Unfortunately, I got so caught up in doing the math of figuring out whether or not they were sixteen, possibly even already eighteen, I forgot which girl gave me which ID. Damn you, simple arithmetic. I had to guess and just randomly gave one to each.
After continuing to wrestle with elementary school math for a while, I let the bouncer get back to checking the ID’s.
After a tiring first day, I made my way back to the house of cleanliness and fell sound asleep.
Over the next few days, I learned that even though the staff left around 11 pm to open the club, there wouldn’t really be any people in it till around 1 or 2 am. Thus, I took the opportunity to relax a little in the now-empty “house that smokes crack” before I made my way to the club myself.
I like people, but constantly having the same ones around tends to drain me. And them all having to go and get things sorted in the club was the perfect opportunity for me to put my feet up, crack open a beer, watch something on TV, and enjoy nobody talking to me.
This became a very cherished ritual for me. Because most other times were so noisy, it almost felt serene just to sit in silence for a bit…
Something else that was beautiful, was the island itself. On one of the later days, my cousin and I discovered some wild horses on one of the quieter parts of the island. They just stood there, peacefully grazing, running around, enjoying their freedom. It was amazing to see.
Though they were a bit tricky, these horses. Because they looked like they wanted you to ride them much more than they actually did. Which they didn’t want at all. Oh well, they were lovely to pet nonetheless. Here are some pictures:
And finally, here is a random incident that happened:
One time, my cousin got a request to play some ABBA song. As usual, he said something about working it in when he had the chance. Then, a little later, when the song came on, out of nowhere three people dropped their pants. Two guys and a girl were now standing in their underwear, facing the dance floor. I was very confused. I tapped my cousin on the shoulder to show him what was happening, but by the time he turned around, they had already covered themselves again.
I had to explain it to him: “I’m telling you, out of nowhere, they just dropped their pants… No, I don’t know why either!”
After gathering some more data, we found out that this was one of the things they had agreed to do among themselves: Whenever an ABBA song came on, the three of them would drop their pants. I am not totally sure why they decided to reach this agreement, but for some reason they did. And it could be my imagination, but it seemed like ABBA songs became quite popular that evening…