WHAT BETTER PLACE TO be on the eve of destruction than back in the Dutch debauchery capital, Amsterdam. I’ve been partying hard for three weeks now and am still going strong as we build up to the grand finale.
Where’s David McCallum? I laugh to myself. He’s probably in a reinforced concrete bunker with a big bag of super skunk, stuffing his fat face with popcorn, watching Sky News and waiting.
Last week I had a dream that the Day of Judgment was upon us and the streets of Amsterdam were ablaze, with its famous buildings crumbling into the Damrak. So I took this as a sure sign of impending doom. So with this in mind I sold my car, my bike, and all my joinery tools. Thus giving me plenty of spending money for my final days on planet earth. To ease my transition to the afterlife I have heavily increased my usual intake of powder, pill, and potion in readiness for the final curtain and my descent into hell.
As midnight approaches, I imagine the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse on the piss around Amsterdam’s red light district with their satanic steeds, high on ketamine and laying waste to this modern-day Sodom and Gomorrah.
Stupidly enough, the last memory I have of any sort of destruction is that of a heavily tattooed biker chick shoving a sour-tasting tablet into my mouth, washed down with two large shots of absinthe.
* * * *
I always imagined hell to be a hot place for some reason, but I mysteriously find myself frozen to a wooden bench next to the duck pond in Vondelpark, clutching a snorkel tube and wearing a pair of 3-D glasses. What the fuck happened? I check my phone: thirty-two missed calls, fifteen messages, Jan. 02, 2003. McCallum got it wrong.
* * * *
A tram bell rings loudly as a barge passes slowly down the old canal, and I make my way home with an epic hangover but very much alive as another winter’s day in Holland enfolds. I stop by the old café for a few well-needed hair of the drowned dog lagers and spot McCallum on the large plasma screen wearing a robe and sandals in some kind of Bible film. “Godverdommer,” I swear in Dutch. Even with the bad German dubbing, I still get the gist of the story. He’s Judas. The betrayer. Paid thirty pieces of silver for betraying poor-old Jesus and betraying me for that matter with his apocalyptic fucking bullshit.
I can’t help but watch as he throws the coins into the fire and dives in after them. Big Ronald the barman, shakes his head, cursing, and switches quickly over to the Embassy World Darts at Frimley Green. As Raymond van Barneveld scores a 180, the crowd goes wild and I smile to myself, looking forward to a whole new lease on life.