Joop walks into the club, bringing in a waft of cold
air. And a girl, always a girl—this time, she’s blond, in a short white dress. Barely twenty, I’m
guessing.
Joop unbuttons his coat. I give him a nod from behind the
coatroom’s counter, but he doesn’t seem to notice me.
The girl flips her curls behind her back, and I see Joop watch her, out of the corner of his eye. He whispers something to her. They walk over to the coatroom.
“Let me introduce you to Luke.” Joop has his hand at her back.
“Karen.” She doesn’t extend her hand.
“Pleased to meet you,” I say. The Amsterdam winter air lingers in the club’s entryway, and I look forward to retreating to the back of the coatroom, where it’s
warm and quiet.
“Luke’s American,” Joop says in his heavily accented English.
“We’ve been friends since the club opened,” I add. “Over thirty
years, right Joop?”
Joop looks away.
“I’ve never lost a coat.” I watch Joop run his hands along Karen’s back. “Perfect
record.”
“Wow.” Karen looks bored, and glances over my shoulder into the coatroom. “Can
I stick around?”
“Sure,” I say, waiting for Joop to object to his pretty girl coming into the coatroom with me, alone, but he doesn’t.
He just pecks her cheek and disappears behind the smoky doors
of his club.
Karen sits on the counter and slides into the coatroom. Long
legs, tanned. A few decades ago, I would’ve chatted her up,
but now, I just want to be alone.
“It’s bigger than I thought,” she says, surveying the room. “How
many coats do you get a night?”
“Two hundred, on the weekend. Half that during the week.” I stand in the middle of the room and watch Karen run her pink fingernails along the coats, pushing numbers together that I like to keep separated. “Don’t do that. You’ll
mess up my system.”
She looks over her shoulder with a mocking smile. In the back
of the room, she finds my small radio. She turns it on, wrinkles
her nose at my jazz and changes the station. Hysterical beats
and bubblegum explode in the room, as she turns up the volume. “That’s
better.”
I walk over and turn off the radio. “Maybe you should go inside
the club. Go see Joop.”
“I like it here.” Karen looks me in the eye, challenging. Sizing me up. “So you’ve
been hanging up coats since the seventies?”
“Right.”
“Jesus.” She walks along the back wall of the coatroom, where I’ve hung some posters of concerts, jazz legends I’ve seen play. Karen frowns when she sees the mattress on the floor. “What’s
this for?”
“Joop lets me stay here, since I lost my apartment. Rent in Amsterdam, you know.” I
blush. A middle-aged man, living in a coatroom. I see her thinking.
Laughing at me.
“He’s a softy, Joop.” She shakes her head when she sees my duffel bag. “No
sense for business.”
A customer drapes a black wool coat over the counter.
“Let me try,” Karen says and walks over to take the man’s coat. She smiles and leans on the counter, stretching the white fabric across her braless chest. She forgets to hand him a number to collect his coat later, but he doesn’t
notice. He just watches her hang the coat with a dirty half-smile
before walking away.
“This is kind of cool,” Karen says to me.
“You forgot to give him his number.”
She shrugs, looks around the room. “You’re missing all the fun in here,” she says. “You can’t
even hear the music.”
“Why would you want to?” I like the quiet. The club’s music gives me a headache, and the dull conversation is even worse. I used to love the nightlife, but now, I don’t want to have anything to do with it. It’s a different world at night, less light, fewer rules, more shadows to hide in. I’ve
seen enough. I like to stay in my coatroom.
“You could put a window right there.” She points to the wall that connects to the club. “That
would be so awesome.”
“Karen.” Joop leans on the counter. “I’m leaving.”
She rushes up to see him. “It’s only three,” she says, mussing
up his grey hair. She kisses him on the mouth.
“Nice to meet you, Karen,” I say.
“I’m not leaving,” she snaps over her shoulder. To Joop, “I have a great idea. We could put a window right there.” Karen motions to the wall. “Maybe connect a platform to it or something, so I can dance.” She
flips her skirt in a mock dance, and I can see her underwear.
Red and skimpy.
Joop sees it too. “Sounds great, baby.”
“Joop,” I say from the back of the room, where my mattress,
my music and posters surround me. My life.
“I need to talk to you tomorrow, okay?” Joop doesn’t look
me in the eye.
Karen kisses him and he heads out.
My friend. The man who gave me job even though I wasn’t legally
allowed to stay in Holland. Joop paid my medical bills when
I was in the hospital with appendicitis. Let me live in the
coatroom. Let me shower at his place.
“This place is gonna be great,” Karen muses as she walks away
from the counter.
I take an empty hanger. Feel the wood warm in my palm. I watch
the metal hook as I lift the hanger behind Karen’s back, and
I ram it into her blond hair, and into her skull.
