Romeo of Delft

Romeo of Delft by Audrius Razma 

I learned love like spy games on Delft's streets, pretending to be someone else.

I registered as a paintball shooter, then shot into the back of a blue homeless jacket mid-exchange, taking the silver dealer's Don Perignon. Another morning in a Delft café, unregistered player and seller, laptop wired, grey poker-chip case heavy with international uranium. I ripped that case from the winners. My future wife called, showed her breasts on camera, selling me "the dealer" before I returned to the arena. The waitress's hands shook at the silver suitcase in a black bag — thirty minutes, empty, zero.

An old Dutch woman sucked her cigarette, purchasing me like a vampire beside her bald partner. The old man who wired the arena knew me; the blond Dutch travel adviser knew me too. I touched a white card to a white scanner — thunder sparked gold. Dutch team.

Later in Antwerp, I set my strength for the Dutch like Prince Philippe. I poured beer for the homeless because I'd sold two old cars, left an autographed Bible for girls to call me god, and walked hand in hand with a stranger to the station. Two French women, Dutch Ginger is not my Ginger. Belgian Ginger from medical studies is my Ginger. My Dutch ginger spread her legs wide open — but nothing to gain. Only when she left did my bomb go off.

I left a dead rat outside Antwerp University as a warning. They can get poisoned like white lab rats from narcotics — like this rat, from venom. They speak about her gone from the medical faculty, as she was dirty as spread in her studies. That is what happens when you speak badly about Ginger.

And all the while, I was thinking of my Belgian Ginger, in a Belgian prison.

The Delft Dolls play caravan music for market passers. Antwerp French Harmony plays for station passers. That is the atmosphere I felt.