by Adam Millard
Well, that’s that, he thought. Typical. Anneke had been the one to tidy the store, to mop the floor, to sweep up the fish-flakes and bird-seed. It was amazing the lengths that some people would go to in order to shirk their responsibilities.
*
“I’ve heard about this great place,” John said. “Once we’re all checked in at the hotel, we have to go there first.”
Mike wanted to sleep. His head hurt, his eyes were sore, and above all else his scrotum felt like it had been sandpapered by Michael J. Fox. “What’s so great about it?” he asked, trying not to sound like too much of a buzz-kill. Either way, he’d do what John wanted to do. For the next three days he was placing himself, somewhat reluctantly, in the hands of his best friend. It was the least he could do to show his appreciation.
But then John said a word, a single word, but it was enough to make Mike realise he was in the not-so-safe hands of an absolute maniac.
“Midgets.”
Mike almost dropped his backpack. “Excuse me?”
“You’re gonna love it,” John said, handing the minibus driver what he believed to be suitable recompense. It wasn’t, and the driver made an obscene gesture as he climbed back onto the bus, muttering, “Toeristische idiot.”
“I’ve seen midgets before,” Mike said. “We are talking about the same thing, aren’t we? Small humans? Don’t like being referred to as midgets, but we do it anyway?”
“You ain’t seen midgets like these,” John said, patting Mike on the shoulder. “Trust me. It’s going to be fucking awesome.”
“Come on, assholes,” Stuart said. Donald and Tony were standing just behind him, pointing at women and mumbling incoherently to one another. “Let’s get this party started.” It was the kind of outdated thing Mike expected Stuart to say. As the youngest of the group – and not exactly a spring chicken at thirty – Stuart utilised words that hadn’t been heard in decades. He was trying to bring “naff” back; said it had just as much potential as “whack” or “peace”.
The hotel, a not entirely elegant affair called De Ene Ster – The One Star, though none of them had picked up on that when the booking was made – was situated in the heart of the city. If they’d had the forethought to visit Trip Advisor, they would have read the following review: Shithole. Don’t stay here unless you fancy a bout of something terminal. We had the double-room, as did apparently the cat-population of Amsterdam before us. We couldn’t move for shit. Even the shit, which was crawling with fauna, had done little baby shits. We found syringes in the toilet, and a mouldy pizza in the airing-cupboard, amongst the dirty towels and used tampons. The electricity was intermittent at best, and the beds (not that either of us had the nerve to sleep in them) appeared to be constructed entirely from termites. Don’t even get me started on service. The old bag downstairs – Wilhelmina I believe the desiccated crone was called – refused to give us a refund, and when we threatened legal action she got her son (who could also be her husband, we weren’t sure) to bully us out of the building. I can honestly say that De Ene Ster is a nightmare from the ground-floor up, and that one star is one too many. The Guantanamo Bay of Amsterdam. Avoid. P.S. I think something died in Room 8.
“Smells like something died in here,” Mike said, choking back tears and vomit.
John, ever the optimist, said, “Where’s your sense of adventure, mate?”
“Where’s your sense of smell,” Mike said. “And look at the state of this.” He’d opened the airing-cupboard, and was now holding what looked like a Hawaiian with extra ham.
“That’s funny,” John said, dropping his bag on the bed. “I didn’t order room service.” He laughed. Mike didn’t. “Aw, come on, mate. This was nice and cheap. I got it so we had more money to blow on hookers and hashish. And look.” He pointed out through the window to what appeared to be a building-site. “Look at that view.”
Mike was looking. He was looking for somewhere else to stay. “You do know I’m not going with any hookers,” he said. “I’m getting married next week.”
“Exactly,” John said, admiring the scenery. A particularly swanky-looking steamroller had caught his attention. “What better present to give to your darling Beth on your wedding night than a dose of chlamydia? A sort of thank you for all those miserable years to come.”
Mike thought about countering but chose not to. It was better not to bite.
“Dude, you can’t come to Amsterdam, the sex and drugs capital of the world, and not get your dick wet. That’s like going to Syria and not getting blown up.”
“Mate, I really appreciate what you’ve done for me, I do, and I’m going to have a great time…” He glanced around the room, at the mouldy, cold pizza in his hand, at the diggers out front building a sister-hostel for De Ene Ster. “…Yeah, it’s going to be awesome, but I don’t need pressure from you. I expect it from those dickheads next-door, but cut me some slack, bro.”
John sighed. “Okay. I promise. I won’t make you do anything that you’re uncomfortable with. I just don’t want you to go home, settle down nice and cosy with the missus, and be sitting there one day, with your Financial Times on your lap, wondering what might have happened if you’d let yourself go a little.”
Mike laughed. It was an unfamiliar sound, and slightly startling. “Dude, when was the last time you saw me with a newspaper?”
“You get a subscription with the marriage-certificate,” John said. “Along with unlimited vouchers for piano lessons and the Build-A-Bear Workshop. Are you sure you’ve thought this through?” He smiled, making light of the question, though Mike could see he was serious.
“I love Beth,” he said. “Which is why I wouldn’t do anything to hurt her. I already lied to her about this.” He gestured to the city beyond the stained and fingerprint-ridden window. “She thinks I’m in Blackpool, for fuck’s sake.”
“Ah,” John said. “Which goes to show that you’re not ready to give up on this wild ride just yet. We had to lie to her, mate. She would never agree to let you go to Amsterdam. What kind of sick bitch packs her husband-to-be off to Amsterdam for his stag-do?”
“Don’t call her that.”
“Don’t blame yourself for lying to her, is all I’m saying. If she trusted you, which she obviously doesn’t, then we’d have been able to take you to Whoreville, Yoo Ess Ay without her getting her knickers in a bunch.”
Just then the door flew open, so suddenly that Mike considered diving for cover.
“Let’s go catch us some midgets!” Donald said, striding into the room, swinging his donkey-dick around like Charlie Chaplin’s cane.
*
Johan, owner of Smokey Jo’s on the Rembrandtplein, couldn’t believe what he was being told. At first he thought it was a joke, but he could now see the sincerity in Armando’s face.
“You serious?” he said, removing his oven-gloves and slamming them down on the countertop. “You fucking serious?”
Armando looked uncomfortable, and had every right to be. Johan wasn’t a guy with who to fuck. He had a fearsome reputation; people had a tendency to just disappear around him. Armando wondered what was in the basement of Smokey Jo’s.
“I’m sorry, mijn vriend,” Armando said, nervously scratching his head. “People have been having bad reactions to it. One guy’s head inflated to twice its normal size. Grew so big it jus’ popped, like a fucking blackhead. I’ve been assured of a full refund—“
“Oh, you have,” Johan interrupted, feigning joy. “That makes everything alright then, doesn’t it? In the meantime, I’ve got eighteen fucking space-cakes not fit for human consumption on the off-chance my customer’s heads might explode.” For a human, he’d taken on a very peculiar hue.
Armando shuffled anxiously from one foot to the other. The last thing he wanted was to discover what was in the basement. “Look, I’ll make it up to you,” he said, though he didn’t know how.
“How about you go and find me some replacement hasj so that I don’t have a bar full of pissed
off patrons, and in the meantime I don’t jam my foot up your ass so far you’ll be tasting fucking leather?”
That, Armando thought, sounded like a good deal. He turned to leave.
“And get rid of all these fucking cakes,” Johan said. “Can’t believe I’ve wasted all morning baking these. Come in here talking ‘bout exploding heads…”
“You want me to throw them out?” It didn’t sound like a dumb question until about a second after it passed his lips.
“No, I want you to eat them. I want you to take one and give it to your moeder, and make her eat it until her head comes off. That would be suitable punishment for giving birth to such a useless kut.”
Armando loved his mother, so he decided not to do that. Instead, he unloaded the ovens of dodgy space-cakes, bagged them up, and took them out to the trash.
*
“Squeak.”
“Squeak.”
“Squeak.”
The conversation had run along those lines since they’d dragged their saturated asses out of the Amstel. Cold, wet, and very annoyed, the hamsters had found somewhere to settle until they were dry; somewhere they wouldn’t be trod on or punted by little hooligans wearing Feyenoord shirts.
“Squeak,” one of the white ones said.
Another one replied with, “Squeak.” In all honesty, they could have been planning to assassinate Prime Minister Rutte and nobody would know about it. People wandered by, unaware that at their feet, concealed by the large green container belonging to Smokey Jo’s, six not-quite-right hamsters were deep in discussion over what to do next. It wasn’t as if the police were after them, some secret arm of the law tasked with hunting and exterminating rogue rodents. They were finally free of their cages. They’d had to bite a man half to death in order to escape, and then of course there was that poor woman, splattered across the windscreen like some giant bug from a David Cronenberg movie, but it was a small price to pay for freedom.
A loud bang from behind startled the hamsters, who crowded together, ready to fight to the death, or at least bite the living shit out of anyone who tried to pick them up. Two large, sandaled feet approached them. The creatures ground their teeth in anticipation. The toes looked filthy, but if it came down to it none of them would hesitate. Besides, they were starving. They’d eat the crotch off a low-flying vulture, given half a chance.
“Squeak,” one of the gingers whispered; they were hamsters, but that didn’t make them stupid.
The feet stopped right next to them. The rodents could practically smell the Limburger.
There was a metallic chink overhead. The hamsters prepared for the worst. A voice said, “Oh, well that’s just fucking brilliant. Does nobody empty this?” A plastic bag landed at the sandaled feet, before the person they were attached to cursed in Dutch and walked away.
For a moment, none of the creatures moved. Whether they were counting their blessings, or taking a moment to compose themselves, it was difficult to tell, but eventually five of them singled out the smallest and sent it to investigate the contents of the bag.
“Squeak,” they said, egging it on, sending the little white fur-ball off into no-man’s land, alone and unprepared. As it slowly traversed the foot and a half between trashcan and plastic bag, its life flashed before its eyes. Memories of the cage, and before that Mother eating three of his sisters and two of his brothers. Ah, those were the days. Happy days. And now he was off, heading towards dangers unknown, trembling like a shitting dog as the others – friends? Fellow escapees? – offered squeaks of encouragement. With each step, the hamster heard the words, Why me? Why me? It became almost hypnotic, and before the little creature knew what was what, its snout was pressed up against the plastic.
“Squeak,” one of the others said. Don’t just sniff the fucking thing. Chew through it.
Yeah, the white hamster thought. If ever there was a time for the old adage, Rather you than me, it was now. Still, he’d come this far; what kind of fraidy-cat would back out now.
He opened his maws, exposing upper and lower incisors that were more than sharp enough to do the job. He bit, gnawed, chewed, spat out bits of plastic that were in no way tasty nor nutritional. And then something remarkable happened. The rodent’s mouth began to fill up with something sweet, something unfeasibly delicious. The hamster had never tasted anything like it; brown sugar, chocolate, almonds, hashish…of course, the hamster didn’t know this. All he knew was that it was some good shit, and that he was now loath to tell the others, at least not until he’d had his fill.
“Squeak,” a voice said from the white hamster’s side. Before Whitey knew what was happening, all six of them were tearing at the plastic, rending through it with razor-sharp incisors. The bag contained something special, something impossibly flavoursome and…somehow wrong.
After a few minutes, all six of them were full, rolling around on their backs, stomachs distended, cheek-pouches bulging, chirping and giggling at one another. There was plenty of the yummy stuff left, and by God they would work their way through it all if it was the last thing they did.
*
“So let me get this straight,” Detective Koenraad of the Amsterdam Police Detectives Bureau said, flipping his notepad into the open position. “Hamsters did this?”
Guus nodded. “That’s right,” he said. “I believe the hamsters attacked the driver, causing him to crash through my shop window and squash my wife, before making a run for it.” He couldn’t understand what was so difficult to grasp about his story, but that was the fifth time he’d had to repeat himself.
Koenraad offered his two friends from the Uniformed Patrol Division a roll of the eyes. In turn, they stifled giggles. It was all very unprofessional, and Guus made a mental note to write a strongly worded letter to the Chief of Police. “Meneer Barnhart, I don’t know what happened here, and I’m humouring you simply because I believe you are suffering from shock, but I will need a more sensible explanation as soon as you’ve gathered yourself.”
“I’m telling the truth,” Guus said. “The driver, just before he died, told me that the hamsters had attacked him, that they were evil. After watching a van bodily dismantle my dear Anneke, I can see what he means.”
One of the uniformed politieagenten plucked the woman’s head from the van. “What should I do with this, boss?” he asked, holding Anneke’s severed bonce by the hair.
“Well, you can start by getting her out of her grieving husband’s face,” Koenraad said. “Honestly, don’t they teach you idiots tact?”
Guus added the insensitive faux pas to the list of things to put in his letter, before saying, “Look, I don’t know what else to tell you. There are six murderous little bastard hamsters out there, probably lauding it up as we speak. I’ve got a delivery-van parked, illegally, might I add, in my shop, and I’ve got to sleep alone tonight because my wife’s in Lord knows how many pieces.”
Koenraad flipped his notepad shut. He’d only been doodling, anyway. “Okay, we’ll have a team out here at some point this afternoon to tidy up this lot, but if you’re saying that hamsters are responsible for this, then I’m afraid there’s very little we can do. It’s not like there’s a prison for rodents.” He smirked.
“There’s no bunny borstal either,” one of the uniformed fools added, surprisingly to little effect.
“So that’s it, is it? You’re just going to let the little blighters get away with it. My wife of forty years, murdered in our anniversary, of all days, and there’s nothing you can do?”
Koenraad nodded. “That’s pretty much the gist of it, Meener Barnhart. Please accept my commiserations, but you know what you should do now?”
Guus didn’t, and his countenance must have revealed as much.
“Get yourself over to the red light district. You’ll feel better once you’ve had some boobies flapping in your face.”
As Detective Koenraad and his gang of uniformed monkeys left Animal Corner (now with seven pigeons and two stray cats), Guus contemplate
d what he was going to do next. He couldn’t stand idly by while six evil hamsters ran amok through the city. Technically, they belonged to him; he had a receipt to prove it, though it was covered in van-driver blood and was now part of a crime-scene. He couldn’t – wouldn’t – allow the little furry fuckers to cause any more harm. He gathered his tranquiliser gun and a box of darts from the store-room. It was, he thought, more challenging than hunting elephants or rhinos, but he was a pretty good shot, able to knock a mosquito out of the air from six feet.
“You’d better run, you poor-man’s gerbils,” he said, loading the rifle. “Daddy’s coming to get you.” It was cheesy, but unless you were an over-the-hill movie-star, vengeful one-liners were almost impossible to pull off.
*
John had been absolutely right. Mike had never seen midgets like this before. What they were doing on stage was physically impossible, not to mention borderline scandalous.
“See,” John said, leaning back in his chair and sipping at something luminous. “Fucked up, huh?”
That was an understatement. Mike had just sat through two hours, in which he’d witnessed a gargantuan – and possibly inbred – man juggling naked midgets, naked midgets wrestling one another into unconsciousness; one game involved a paddle with nails in it, which resulted in several of the little fellas being rushed to hospital, bleeding profusely through myriad holes. It was entertaining in the same way as a George Bush Jr. speech; you couldn’t help but watch, no matter how cringe-worthy.
“This is fucking awesome,” Tony said, leaning in to the table and almost knocking the empties off. He exchanged a high-five with Donald who, for some reason or other, was now wearing a Dutch bonnet and very little else.
“Can we get some more drinks over here?” Stuart said to a passing waitress. She smiled. “Your name wouldn’t happen to be Heidi, would it?”
