Read Online Happy Baby by Stephen Elliott - Free Book Online

shoulders and thick black hair. It was his baby she got rid of.
    “She’s going to have to leave,” Toine says. It’s the afternoon already and we’re near the Oude Kirk having dinner. It’s been raining. The window is open and a priest is sitting with a table full of papers. He’s not unfamiliar. There’s a line of homeless waiting for the church to give them soup. The Oude Kirk is surrounded by prostitutes, some of them men, who cannot afford the more expensive windows near the Bulldog or the Achterburgwal. It’s Toine’s favorite place. Where the old meets the new, he says. Just behind the church is a public restroom, a tin cubicle that hides you from the street and a hole in the ground with a pipe that pours straight into the canal. It’s Monday, the slowest day.
    “What’s wrong?” I ask. “She’s pretty and smart. She loves you.”
    “She’s half Asian and I’m Dutch,” he says by way of explanation. I look at his cheeks to see if he is alluding to something else but his face doesn’t give anything away. A door opens and a large man steps onto the cobblestone, his hair slicked across his head and his shirt tucked in. The prostitute he just visited stands behind him in the doorway, waiting for him to leave. The large man smiles benevolently and makes a big show of kissing the lady he’s just paid. She nods then closes the door and pulls the curtain across it. She takes her place in front of the window.
    “That’s bullshit,” I say and he shrugs. “That doesn’t mean anything that she’s Asian.”
    “Tell that to the Japanese. Say it doesn’t mean anything that you are Japanese. Tell the Spanish their nationality is irrelevant, a genetic accident. You’re still married, aren’t you?” Toine asks. “You left your ring somewhere.”
    “I gave it away at the Taj Mahal, in Atlantic City.”
    “Good. I’m glad to hear you’re a gambler. I have a wager for you.”
    “I’m not a gambler.”
    “But you come from gamblers.”
    “My father and my grandfather. But not my mother.”
    “You watch that black prostitute Adel. What is it about her? Why don’t you ask her to marry you? She can finish a customer in less than ten minutes. That’s six fucks an hour. You’re lucky she doesn’t have a pimp. She asks me why I let you stand there in front of her window every night. She says you scare away customers, and I tell her I am not your brother or your keeper.” Toine’s watching me and I’m staring back at him. “Forget it,” he says. “I’ll leave. You and Jessie can stay together. That’s best.”
    “I don’t want Jessie,” I say.
    “Why don’t you tell me what you want?” Toine waits expectantly. I start to say something, but it gets caught between my ears and my mouth. I grab the table. Toine leans his head back and laughs. “Stay in Amsterdam as long as you want,” he says. “It suits you. Look at the old priest. In the middle of all these whores and all he hears is pissing.”
    The streets are quiet now, only a few puddles of light from windows still open for business. Two street performers lie sleeping in jesters’ hats, curled around the rail at the end of the bridge. Between the district and where we live there are four waterways and a set of tracks from the Terminus. I pass the new district where the new hostels are and the cafés are named for rock and roll bands—Café The Doors, Café Pink Floyd, where the tourists are still sitting on the porch quietly smoking marijuana. I’ve read that half the population of Amsterdam are illegal aliens.
    At home I hang my jacket in the closet. My shirt is out. I pull my belt from my pants. “I’ve been waiting for you,” Jessie says as I’m closing the closet door. She’s standing in the small kitchen, smiling calmly, her makeup washed across her face from different directions. The knives are out and arranged by order of size along the cutting board. She hands me a beer already opened and I take it from her. She’s