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Belgian Border Incident
By Howard Behnken
It happened between my junior and senior year of
college. I went to Europe with a group of Humanity students
for college credit. A week each in London, Paris,
Switzerland, and Rome and then a month on my own,
wandering. In Paris, I met Marcel and Ekbart who were
visiting from Amsterdam. They gave me their number so we
could meet and party in Amsterdam, Mecca of marijuana and
home of legal hashish. I could hardly wait.
My memories are hazy at best. We checked out the red
light district. I look at bananas differently now! We
smoked cigarettes with hashish in the bars and drank all
night. But my favorite was eating hashish brownies and
walking through the Van Gogh Museum.
| Marcel and Ekbart tired of this, however, and suggested
that we go back to Paris and pick up some French gals.
Okay, I thought, sounds like fun. They chose to hitch hike,
and I hopped on the 1st train I could find that was bound
for Paris. The train was densely crowded. No vacancy until
the last one. There I found a small couchette occupied only
by a small woman, dressed all in blue. Sliding the door
opened, I introduced myself as a big loud American. She
spoke no English, of course, but we both shared French as a
second language. I found out that she was a Nun on her way
to visit some Sisters in Paris. After explaining who I was,
she welcomed me to the cabin, and we settled in for the
ride. This’ll be cool, I thought, I get to practice my
French and meet someone very different from me. Then things
got weird. Somewhere near the Belgium border, the train mysteriously
stopped in what appeared to be a wheat field. Then some
military vehicles containing dogs and soldiers with machine
guns came quickly along side of us. An intercom informed us
that the Belgium DEA was conducting a search for drugs, and
to please have our passports ready. Wow, okay. |
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While searching through my bag, I noticed things weren’t
where they should be. Weird. I finally found my passport,
though. It was right next to two hashish brownies. More
weird. These aren’t mine, what the… Oh my God, not ten feet
away were soldiers with dogs that wanted to eat people with
drugs. Marcel and Ekbart must have put them in there as a
surprise…what a nice surprise under normal circumstances.
They probably thought, “Howard will be completely stoned by
the time we meet in Paris.” My first instinct was to throw
them out the window but I decided to eat them instead. I
jammed the first one completely in my mouth. Mistake, too
dry. Got Milk? No.
The Nun started asking me some questions as I watched the
soldiers hassle some punk rockers across the aisle. Why
won’t my mouth salivate? The Nun keeps talking. “Oui,” I
say so she will shut up! Hurry, swallow! Gulp, finally
done! I reach for the other space cake and it’s not there.
I’m rifling through my bag once again when I notice that the
Nun has my brownie, and she’s half way through with it. I
give her this look and she starts to hand the brownie back
to me. “Non, non allez! Mangez, go and eat,” I say. She
must have asked for the illicit morsel when I was panicking
earlier, and I had evidently given her the go ahead.
Just then, the door to our cozy cabin flies open, and a
surly Belgian is eyeing us. He looks at the Nun, then at me
and asks, “Are you American?” “Yes,” I say. He grunts and
slams the door closed. Wow, crisis averted. Blood pressure
returning to normal. Audible sigh. No one is going to
prison. The train starts to move again. It’s just me and
the Nun; the Nun who has just finished eating an entire
hashish brownie! It is then that I realize that I’m going
to hell. I see myself standing at St. Peter’s Pearly Gates,
he’s going through my life file – good son, excellent
student, got a Nun stoned – the floor opens up and I start
falling down into the flames. That’s it, game over, dude
But it didn’t play that way. Pot brownies are like a
slow train coming. As we came onto them, our French got
better, we got the munchies and bought everything off the
food cart, we laughed, we joked; we shared each other’s
toothpaste. Then she got serious. She said she felt the
presence of God in the room. He must have sent me to her to
help spread the word of the Lord to the youth of the world
since I was a communications student. And I keep thinking,
no, you’re just stoned. But how can you tell a Nun that her
rapture and vision is merely drug induced?
By the time we reached Paris, we were in hysterics.
Everything was extremely profound and extremely funny. I
had to collect her things and mine which had become
scattered throughout our cocoon. Laughing, I scooped her up
and brought her to the exit where 6 Nuns were waiting on the
landing. With a slight nudge, I pushed her toward her
world, and I discreetly left toward mine. At 8pm, I was at
the steps of Notre Dame, but Marcel and Ekbart never showed,
so I never got to thank them for the brownies.
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