My college roommate found me one day with my bicycle upside down, resting on its handlebars and seat on the kitchen floor. I was spinning the crankset, watching the rear wheel blur as the chain pulled across the derailleur.
It clicked every time it passed through.
“Listen to that.”
He leaned over.
“What am I listening for?”
“That. Here. Spin the wheel for me.”
He grabbed a pedal while I found a hex wrench and began adjusting the derailleur.
“I hear you’re going to rent a bicycle in Amsterdam,” he said.
“Yeah.”
“You’re serious about that?”
“Why wouldn’t I be?”
He gave the pedal another turn.
“I don’t know. Amsterdam’s a little different.”
“That’s what they tell me.”
“Have you ever ridden there?”
“No. But in junior college, my architecture class spent a week talking about it. The whole city is built around bicycles. They practically don’t allow cars into the center at all.”
He laughed.
“What?”
“Nothing. Just wondering how that’s going to work out for you.”
He let the pedal turn another few times. He’d studied abroad three times himself and traveled much of Europe. He usually had a suggestion or two whenever I mentioned a place I planned to visit.
“You should go to a show while you’re there,” he said.
“A show?”
“Yeah. In Amsterdam. You should see it.”
I hesitated. This wasn’t really my sort of thing.
“What kind of show?”
“Casa Rosso … you’ll figure it out.”
I turned the adjustment screw a fraction.
“I ride plenty. A hundred miles a week, probably more. School, groceries, endurance training. I don’t even own a car.”
The clicking changed. I leaned closer, watching the chain move across the gears.
“I think it’s good enough.”
He let go of the pedal as I set down my tools.
~
I had deliberately booked a Christian hostel in the middle of Amsterdam’s Red-Light District.
It felt like a compromise.
Curiosity had insisted I stay there.
My conscience preferred the fish logo hanging above an otherwise anonymous doorway tucked into an alley.
I’d arrived just before midnight after a day of planes and trains. The kitchen had closed hours earlier, but the guy behind the desk flipped on the lights and pointed me toward the breakfast supplies.
“Help yourself.”
I ate a large bowl of cereal, dropped my backpack beside the bunk, and headed back outside.
In the hour I’d been away, the neighborhood seemed even busier.
The narrow streets filled with bicycles, tour groups, and people drifting along the canals. Then I noticed the windows.
Women stood inside rooms built directly into the buildings, each framed in glass like a storefront display. Red lights glowed above the doors. I’d heard of Amsterdam’s Red-Light District before, but somehow I’d never pictured it quite so literally.
Jet-lagged and overwhelmed, I did what I always did in a new city.
I reached for my camera.
The nearest window flew open.
The woman inside hurled a bucket of liquid at me.
“No pictures!”
The window slammed shut again before I could apologize.
I stood there dripping, staring at my camera.
The liquid looked like water.
It didn’t smell like anything.
I decided not to ask too many questions.
~
The theater door opened into velvet and red light. Curtains hid most of the room from the entrance. I stepped through them and stopped.
A woman was hanging upside down above the stage.
Someone in the audience laughed. Another performer shouted something I couldn’t understand.
The woman dropped, caught a rope, and swung across the stage.
I found a seat near the back.
I stayed there through acrobats, dancers, jokes, and performers in various states of undress.
I watched the people around me more than the stage, trying to figure out when I was supposed to laugh.
Then a performer pointed at me.
She beckoned.
I looked behind me.
Nobody.
She pointed again.
I stood.
She met me at the edge of the stage and took my hand.
Under the lights she seemed taller than she had from my seat. She led me toward the center, turned me toward the audience, and started the music.
Then she leaned close.
“Don’t you dare touch me.”
I stopped moving.
She took my hands and placed them on her shoulders.
Then she began a simple dance.
Step.
Turn.
Step.
I missed the turn.
She tried again.
I was late.
The audience laughed.
She smiled, took my hands one last time, and finished the routine herself. Then she pointed toward the stairs.
I went back to my seat.
A hundred empty chairs surrounded me.
I watched the rest of the show from there.
Then something familiar happened.
The same joke.
The same music.
The same movement onstage.
I looked around.
The performer in a glittery outfit was doing the routine I’d watched earlier.
A few minutes later, the acrobatics sequence repeated too.
I checked the time.
I had been sitting there long enough to watch the show start over.
I got up and left.
Again, I skipped the bar.
~
The next day, I waited at the edge of the bike lane outside with one foot on the pavement and one clipped over the pedal.
My map, clipped to my handlebars, hung limp in the damp air. On it, I’d highlighted a path to the Rijksmuseum.
It wasn’t particularly far.
Bicycles streamed past without interruption. Thousands of them, shoulder to shoulder, slipping between one another without slowing, signaling with a flick of the hand before merging into another current already moving just as fast.
I waited.
When I finally found an opening, I pushed off and pedaled hard. A bell rang behind me. Then another. A woman passed on my left, close enough that I pulled my elbow in.
I kept going.
The cycle lane widened as I rode into the city. In places it was wider than the road beside it. Delivery vans waited at intersections while bicycles streamed past. I followed the rider ahead of me, then the one ahead of him.
At the next junction, three bicycles crossed in front of me. I squeezed the brakes. A man behind me rang his bell and went around. I started again.
I followed the canal for a while before turning into a narrower street. The street names were tucked onto building corners, written at angles I couldn’t read until I’d already ridden past. I checked my map at a junction, found the street I wanted, and set off again.
A few turns later I rolled into Dam Square.
I stopped among the pedestrians and unfolded the map. The street I’d just come through wasn’t where I expected it to be. I traced the route with my finger, turned the map around, and looked up at the buildings.
A bicycle bell rang behind me. I stepped toward the curb to let a rider pass.
Then I folded the map, put it back in my pocket, and got back on the bike.
I missed the next turn, too.
This time I rode to the corner, dismounted, and walked the bicycle onto the pavement. I stood beside a shop window with the map spread across the handlebars. A couple stopped behind me. Someone rang a bell. I folded the map and moved on.
The Rijksmuseum eventually appeared at the end of the street.
I rode past the entrance before finding a place to pull over. Bicycles were crowded against the railings and racks outside. I found an empty space and squeezed mine between two others.
The rental clerk had given me two locks.
“The wheel lock isn’t enough,” she had said.
I locked the rear wheel, then threaded the second lock through the frame and around the rack. I pulled on it twice. The keys went into my pocket.
A man beside me was working a combination lock. He spun the numbers, pulled the shackle, and tried again.
I checked mine once more.
The museum entrance was across the pavement. People moved through the doors in small groups, carrying bags and folded coats. I looked back at the bicycle, then at the two locks.
I took out my camera and photographed the rack.
Then I walked toward the entrance.
Behind me, a bell rang, followed by the scrape of another bicycle being pulled free.