European Trip 1991 - Part Two

Characters have been combined and events have been condensed. These are my memories; I am the teller of my own story. Certain episodes are imaginative recreation. To protect the privacy of others, names have been changed and characters conflated. Etc.



   I was to be staying with the Martinez family for the next two days until my departure for Paris. The Martinez family consisted of Emilio, the father, his wife Sandra and their two teenage daughters Tina and Vanessa.  This was definitely more of a typical American household and I was shown nothing but hospitality since the moment I had arrived. The aroma of Mexican cuisine permeated the house as it bustled with activity. There were people laughing, girls bickering over the telephone and kids from neighboring units stopping by to see who the new visitor was. As with most base communities, there were plenty of young people around and they seemed to have a unique and admirable bond that isn't prevalent in regular neighborhoods.

  The oldest daughter, Tina, was somewhat attractive and kept sneaking off to call her boyfriend. I was beginning to think that the chances of anything happening between her and I were slim.  The younger one, Vanessa, was not as pretty or social as her older sister Tina but had a pleasant disposition. There wasn’t any spare room in the house so I was going to be sleeping on the couch in the living room. I situated my stuff away in the corner as the girls helped their mother set the table. I was thrilled to be eating something other than pastries and bratwurst. After dinner, the parents retired to their bedroom and the girls and I stayed up late talking and listening to music as teenagers do. They asked about life back in the states and both girls bombarded me with questions regarding current American trends, fashion and music as if I were the ambassador of American pop culture. It was apparent that they had been in Germany for an extended amount of time and were beginning to feel a disconnection with life as they once knew it.

  Things eventually fizzled down that night, the living room was devoid of music and Vanessa had fallen asleep on the floor. Tina and I continued with our conversation in a light whisper, she didn’t hesitate to close the distance between us on the couch. As she kept readjusting her hair, she innocently probed into whether or not I had a girlfriend waiting for me back in New Mexico. Now that her inhibitions had been lowered, I thought it would be an opportune time to ask if she knew anyone there on base that could hook me up with some weed. I mustered up the confidence and asked her. Tina recoiled back, her eyes widened as her jaw dropped open. I was holding my breath, trying to anticipate her reaction. She eventually grinned and giggled as if she couldn’t believe that I was asking her that, I guess my innocent looks and tourist gear had thrown her off.  “Do you have any right now!?” she asked in a now excited voice. “No! I wouldn’t be asking you to hook me up if I had some on me now would I?” We both laughed for a few seconds but her smile was soon replaced with a look of disappointment. She was bummed that I didn’t have any for us to immediately smoke. I could see that she was bored, not bored right then but generally bored with the way things were. Tina wasn’t content with her life there on base in Germany and saw me as an out, an opportunity to maybe add some excitement to her life. “I could introduce you to some guys I know in the morning, they can help you out” she replied.

   The next morning, Tina made a phone call and soon after, we were making our way across base on foot. Traversing through a maze of identical looking housing units, she was introducing me to people that were popping in and out of windows along the way. “Yes! This is him! The guy visiting from the States!” she would say. Finally, we reached our destination and by this time, I had become quite anxious. She knocked on the door, which looked like every other door on that base, and we were let in by a taller white dude with blonde hair. His name was Sean, he was about eighteen years old with a bowl haircut and weird looking mustache. Strange looking guy, he reminded me of Hitler but with blond hair. He walked us into the living room where he and his friend were laid up watching an episode of CHiPs.  I sat down in one of the available chairs facing the television. His buddy, Rueben, was a smaller Cuban guy that was about the same age as Sean. He had curly black hair with a thin moustache and goatee. “What’s up man!?” he said to me through a haze of cigarette smoke as he twirled a butterfly knife in one hand.

There was a familiar tension in the room that naturally comes along when attempting to buy drugs from people that you’ve just met. Sean sat down and threw his feet up on the coffee table. They both started in on me with inquiries like “So where you from?” and “Where you stayin’ at?” I didn’t feel like going through another round of twenty questions, all I wanted to do was score some weed and get the fuck out of there. Rueben, who now reminds me of Scarface from the comedy film “Half Baked,” was lounging on the couch and kept laughing at everything . It was beginning to make me feel uncomfortable. Tina was aimlessly wandering about in the living room, fiddling with random objects of interest. She was wearing a pair of short running shorts that exposed a good portion of her legs.

 “So Tina tells me that you guys can hook me up with some weed” I said in a very direct fashion. Almost immediately, Rueben erupts into laughter like some kind of wild hyena. “Get a load of this kid Sean! LOL! He’s hilarious right!? Right Sean!? LOL!” he yelped as he repeatedly looked to Sean for reassurance. Without taking his eyes off of the television set, Sean takes a drag off of his cigarette and tells me in a calm voice while exhaling smoke “Relax man, just chill out for little bit, we’ll get to that.” They looked at each other, chuckled and shook their heads in revulsion to my display impatience and lack of etiquette.

  I settled back in my chair, took a deep breath and slowed my pace. There was a sudden knock on the door, Sean leaped up and peered the peep hole. “Vanessa!? Hey Tina, your little sister’s at my door.” He unlocked and opened the door up, there stood Vanessa with her arms folded “Mom wants you to come home right now Tina!” she shouted from the doorway. “Do you remember how to get back?” Tina asked me as she made her way towards the door.  I assured her that I wouldn’t have any trouble finding my way back and they both scurried off down the hall.

Sean returned to his recliner and dug into the front pocket of his jeans. His cigarette was hanging from his mouth and ashes were dropping onto his t-shirt. He finally retrieved a small disk shaped object that was wrapped in tin foil, about the size of a silver dollar. He placed it on the coffee table and slowly began to unwrap it. “You ever smoke any hash kid?” he asked me as he reached over and commandeered the butterfly knife from Rueben. “Uhh no man, just..just weed” I responded. “Heat the stove up Rueben!” exclaimed Sean as he partitioned off small pieces of hash with the butterfly knife. Rueben jumped up, grabbed two knives from a drawer in the kitchen, positioned them in the rings of the stove and fired it up. We all huddled around and waited for the knives to heat up. It was exciting, this was completely new to me and the whole process seemed bizarre. Once the knives were hot enough, Sean carefully prepared my first knife hit of hash. “This stuff right here is Moroccan hash.” He placed a small chunk of it on the hot blade of one knife and then immediately squished down on it with the hot blade of the other knife. As he mashed the two blades together, the hash began to smolder. I used a cardboard tube from an empty paper towel roll to capture and inhale the rising smoke. Holy fuck! I felt the affect almost instantly after the first hit. It was potent stuff and after a few more rips, my head was spinning. I was used to smoking dirt weed from New Mexico, not premium quality, full melt hash from Morocco!

   We ended up smoking a rather large amount of hash that afternoon. They then invited me with them to the local theater on base, where we met up with some female acquaintances of theirs. After being introduced, we purchased our tickets for the matinee and headed inside. These girls weren’t anything special and I was so ripped that even if they were hot, I wouldn’t have been able to make any advances. After the film, we all walked over to the bowling alley and hung out in the video game arcade. Rueben and Sean kept secretly pointing to one of the girls and making sexual gestures with their hands, “She’s a tiger man! I think she wants you!” Rueben whispered to me with a duplicitous grin. I was still pretty high from the hash and the lights and sounds coming from the video games had me in a daze. The girls eventually got bored and left, we stuck around to play a few more video games and then bailed. On the way back to Sean’s place, I explained to him that I was catching a bus to Paris the next day and would like to take some hash with me. It was dark out and we were walking through what seemed to be a baseball field. “Yea man, sure, that’s cool” he said as he took the last drag from his cigarette and flicked into the night.  When we made it back to his place, I gave him forty American dollars and he broke me off a few grams. I thanked them both for showing me a good time and told them that I would be in touch once I returned from Paris.

    I have no recollection of how I managed to find my way back to the Martinez house that night but I made it back. By then, I was suffering from a severe case of the munchies and was trying not to make any direct eye contact with anyone there in the house, fearing they would notice my red eyes. Of course Tina was hip to everything that was going on, she was pacing around the house, chatting with her boyfriend on the telephone.  I had a few bites to eat and watched some television on the couch. Before it got too late, I situated the hash and pipe away in my fanny pack and turned off the television.  As I lay in bed that night, staring at the ceiling, I tried to imagine what Paris was going to be like and began to mentally prepare myself for the journey.

   The Martinez family drove me to the bus station early the next morning. I was a bit groggy and felt like I had a hangover. When we arrived at the bus station, there were many other Americans there that were also waiting for the bus. It wasn’t long before the bus arrived and we were on our way.  It was about a four hour bus ride to Paris, I slept most of the way. I woke up to the passenger sitting next to me poking at me and saying “Hey wake up kid, we're in Paris now!” I stretched my legs out, rubbed my eyes and leaned over to look out the window. The first thing that I immediately noticed was the how filthy the place was. There was trash, graffiti and shit everywhere! I was stoked on the graffiti but a little taken back by the amount of litter that was strewn about in the streets. There were newspapers drifting about and plastic bags clinging onto fences. The driver stopped the bus in a central location and gave us all a time to meet back. So I pretty much had all day to wander around Paris, take photos and smoke hash. All that I had to do was make sure that I was back in time to catch the bus back to Germany. At the top of my list of priorities, was finding a place to eat some decent food. I hadn’t made any new friends on the bus and wasn’t looking to either. I operate much better when I am alone. As I began searching for a place to eat on foot, I became nauseated by the overwhelming stench of piss that was thick in the air. I soon lost my appetite, gave up on my search and opted to smoke some hash for lunch.

   Following the flow of foot traffic through the city, I found myself approaching the Eiffel Tower.  Now here’s the funny thing, I didn’t give a flying fuck about the Eiffel Tower. The skateboard film “Video Days” had just been released earlier that year which depicted skateboard legends Jason Lee and the Gonz skating a drained out pond underneath the Eiffel Tower. I was much more interested in seeing this pond rather than the Eiffel Tower. I stopped in Parc du Champs Mars to smoke some hash before advancing any further on the tower. Parc du Champs Mars is a park that is located underneath the Eiffel Tower. I found an empty bench and packed my wooden pipe with some hash. There were people everywhere, it was insane! I was trying to be as discreet as possible.  I was in no rush and had a great view of the tower from where I was sitting. Yes, this was it! Taking hash rips in Parc du Champs Mars while gazing at the Eiffel Tower. It was truly a surreal experience and I was savoring every second.

 I eventually wandered over to the tower and began looking around for the pond. Funny now that I think about it, there were hundreds of people all around me that had traveled many miles to come see this tower and there I was searching for, what would seem to most, an irrelevant pond in comparison to the Eiffel Tower. It was kind of like the scene from the film “Pee Wee’s Big Adventure” when Pee Wee is at the Alamo asking to see the basement. It didn’t take me long before I found myself standing in front of the pond. Of course, it was now filled with water but I was positive that it was the same pond that Gonz and Jason Lee had skated in “Video Days." I stood there studying the curves of the concrete rim that was exposed just above the water line. “Dude, that’s where Gonz did that huge frontside grab over the hip!” I thought to myself. I marveled at the pond for a little longer and took a few photos of the Eiffel Tower. I didn’t even bother taking a ride up to the top. I was content with just seeing that pond and decided to keep moving.

   I stumbled upon some boats that were docked nearby so I purchased a ticket for a cruise through the heart of Paris on the Seine River. A slow moving river that flows from Dijon in the Alps, the Seine River joins the sea at Le Havre on the French coast. As we floated through the city, I saw some of Paris’s most famous landmarks including the Notre Dame, the Louvre, the Musée d'Orsay and the Pont Neuf which is the oldest bridge that crosses the Seine. It was a very relaxing cruise and I was thoroughly enjoying myself. By the time we got back to the Eiffel Tower, it was almost time to meet back at the bus. On my way back to the bus, I stopped to grab a sandwich and something to drink. It was almost like I had taken a mini-vacation within my regular sized vacation. I had a great time though.  Paris was a beautiful city but I wasn’t sure how much longer I would be able to stomach the horrible smell. I met back with our group and boarded the bus and just like that, we were on our way back to Germany.


To be continued...