Something Broken, Something Extraordinary
(An excerpt from Jodi's book)
By Jodi Pierce

To Order Jodi's book contact the Steiger International Office

I was walking down our street in Amsterdam to pick up some groceries when I noticed a group gathered around the canal.  The grocery store was on the edge of the Red Light District, so it always made for an interesting trip because of the people I would meet on the way.  I neared the group, trying to figure out what had attracted them.  Suddenly I saw it.  There was a dead body in the canal.  It wasn't the first time I had seen something like this. Today it was a prostitute. Another time it had been a junkie. Apparently the prostitute had gotten into a fight and been thrown into the canal.

My life seemed so far removed from the safe, suburban neighborhood in America where I grew up.  It was the strangest sensation, walking around Amsterdam, doing normal, everyday things in a very strange city.  Someone would approach me and my sons to offer us dope or hash and I would think, How on Earth did I get here?  And how is it possible that I like it here so much?  Friends would come from the States and want to see how we lived.  I would show them around the city, and it would strike me just how much I loved being there.  But then again, it was a city where I could get a great cup of coffee and sit by a beautiful canal while just a few feet away a junkie shot heroin into his veins.

Once, while I was in our apartment, I looked out the window and saw some drug dealers shoving my husband around on the street below.  Our neighborhood was like a mini-Harlem, full of junkies, prostitutes, and drug dealers.  We didn't own a television but we never needed one because there was always something to watch right outside the window.  Often times, just to get into our apartment, I had to push some guy away from the door because he was using it as a toilet or leaning on it while making a drug deal.  One day I had to wait for someone to finish vomiting on the door, which was even worse.

And that was only the first door we had to get through to reach our apartment; it led into an alleyway.  There was a space under that first door, so if it had been used as a toilet the urine would run into the alley.  This meant I had to take my time and step in just the right places to avoid tracking it into our apartment.  It usually smelled so badly, though, that I couldn't help running to the next door.  Once I got past the alley, it wasn't so bad; I only had three more locks to open before I madeit into our apartment.

It was a two-room apartment; the first room had a bathtub, and was the best part of the whole place.  The second room was lined with mirrors and had one very big bed attached to the wall.  The former tenants had been junkies and prostitutes, and from what I heard, it had been a nightmare to clean the place out.  When we arrived it was clean, but it wasn't very hard to imagine the things that had gone on before we lived there.  We didn't live alone, either.  The apartment had mice, which didn't bother me too much, as long as they stayed away while we were home.

Every once in a while, the crazy world we were living in did get to me.  We lived above an Indonesian restaurant.  One day when I was pregnant, and already feeling sick, the smells from below made me feel even worse.  I thought I would lie down for awhile, so I reached into our closet only to find a dirty, inner city mouse resting very comfortably on my clean robe.  I don't know why I chose this particular moment, but I had had enough.  I screamed and scared everyone: the mouse, myself, and most of all, my husband David.  He was in the shower at the time, and when he heard me scream he thought someone had broken into the apartment.  He came running out, completely naked, with shampoo still in his hair and in his eyes too.  He looked like a madman and if I hadn't been so sick it would've been pretty funny.  Neither of us thought it was too funny at the time.

We loved our life in Amsterdam, but there were some pretty crazy moments.

One day in particular I will always remember.  There was a guy in his twenties on a houseboat very near our apartment.  He stood on the boat, facing the street.  As I walked by him, I looked at his face and was stunned by what I saw.  His eyes were lifeless.  It was eerie, like staring at a dead person.  His face was gray and blood dripped down his arm, where a needle was still stuck.  I have never forgotten him.  In Amsterdam everything is possible; it's known for its tolerance and freedom.  People come from everywhere to experience that freedom, but I think they need to walk by this guy on the boat first to see what Amsterdam really has to offer.

To Order Jodi's book contact the Steiger International Office