Wings & Hearts

“Oi, vittun! Sit still Jussi, or I’m going to end up slicing off your ear!” They rhythmic clip of Hanna’s scissors ceased as Jussi squirmed beneath her. I could almost hear her nails digging into his scalp as she attempted to steady the child-like man. Hanna and I, as unofficial band stylists, were making a valiant attempt at preparing the five men for their first concert - and despite all of their best efforts, we were doing quite well. I was able to give a fair impression of someone who actually knew something about the “goth” style the boys were trying on for the show - more black than I had ever seen them all in at once.

“I just can’t fucking believe you guys are making fucking me do this, ei vittun saatana” Jussi accused, as if the people who were really making him chop the horrible mop of brown, curly straw he called hair were still hovering in the room. The had become bored when Hanna cut off a nine inch long ponytail of hair and shoved it in the trash can with disgust. I could only laugh at Jussi’s antics as I passed by the kitchen in time to hear Hanna reprimanding him for fidgeting.

“Have a cigarette, Jus. It‘ll all be over soon.” I tossed the remains of my pack at him while I crossed the house once again - as I had been doing for nearly an hour - from Jyrki’s room to Ville’s room and back with a stick of eyeliner and a container of black eye shadow in one pocket of my borrowed jeans and a brace of studs and a pair of pliers in the other, two red bandannas and two black bandannas hung from the belt loops. I felt like a harried mother chasing after her children - even though I was chasing after the men to “goth” them up some more, as if their black leather and black band shirts weren’t enough.

I had chased Timo and Pasi down for eyeliner, each had allowed me to slather it on with varying levels of protest as they “leathered up” in Ville’s bedroom and bathroom. I had tied a folded black bandanna over Timo’s dark mop to hold it out of his eyes, tucked a red one into Pasi’s back pocket, added extra silver studs to each of their ensembles, and both had been thankful of my services. A sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach told me this would probably not be the case with Jyrki and Archie.

Chaos greeted me in Jyrki’s bedroom; Archie jumped about the room in a vain attempt to fit his underwear-clad ass into a pair of Jyrki’s leathers - which were obviously too small for his legs, and Jyrki hadn’t even gotten dressed yet - he held two pairs of black pants up to me, begging me to tell him which ones were right.

“God, I don’t know Jyrki, you’re spinning them around like you think I can get a good look while they’re in motion!” I snatched both pairs from him and threw one back. “One is both the same.” I sighed, as Archie finally managed to pull the pants up to his waist; I waited for the crunch of splitting seams which never came.

“Ok. I have bandannas, studs, and black makeup. Who’s first?” Jyrki raised his hand impishly. “Don’t be silly, you have to get dressed first babe. Archie. Sit.” Archie looked at me as if I had suddenly turned red, sprouted a pair of horns and was dancing about in lederhosen rather than asked him if I could put his makeup on (in retrospect, putting makeup on men did sound quite odd).

“Hell no, you’re not putting that makeup shit on me!”

“That’s what you say now, and when you look like you don’t have eyes on stage because they don’t stand out from your face at all, and that fact keeps you from getting ladies,” I lifted an eyebrow as I secured a red bandanna around the sleeve of the jacket he would be wearing. “You so certain now?”

“No makeup.”

“Fine.” I sighed, turning away slowly. “You’ll regret it.” He didn’t say anything more, so I crossed the room to where Jyrki was deliberating over shirts. “Wear the Jack Daniels shirt.” I pulled it from the ruckus of balled-up shirts in his dresser drawer and laughed at his stunned look.

“How did you do that? I would have had to pull out each and every shirt!”

“It’s a different shade of black than the rest, honey.” I pressed the shirt to his chest and allowed him a short kiss before I shot off to the closet - I selected the leather jacket he was going to wear and sat on the bed with it, attaching more studs to it methodically (after working on Timo and Pasi, I was damned good at putting studs in leather). I felt Jyrki’s lips press against the back of my bare neck after a few moments at work.

“You’re amazing, sweetling,” I spared him a smile before I snatched his leg to tie a black bandanna around it.

“Makeup time, then?” A sly grin worked itself across my face as he sat down on the bed - a gesture I took to be a sign of submission to my makeup skills (or lack thereof). I hadn’t finished one eye before I heard a shout from the kitchen, followed by a string of curses in more languages than I could imagine. “Belts. Gloves. I’ll be right back, dear.” Jyrki pouted as I swept out of the room.

Jumaluta, today was screwed-up enough to make me swear up and down the hallway in exasperation (of course, I didn‘t, but I could have). Not a single thing had gone right since I had been so rudely awakened by Jyrki at nearly eight hundred hours - eight in the bloody morning! I hadn’t realized I was fresh out of cigarettes until we were nearly to Jussi’s house (I forced Jyrki to stop at a corner store), Jussi was hung over and we could barely drag him back to Jyrki and Ville’s apartment (again I had stopped at a liquor store for liquid encouragement to battle his hangover with), Archie was in a pissy mood and had broken a bass string earlier (I hear something about the new string not being stretched properly for the concert), Timo and Pasi were late and Pasi was not to be referred as Bazie (I called him the artiste formerly known as Pasi). To top it all off, I still hadn’t had my morning coffee - and it was nearly sixteen hundred hours!

The kitchen looked as if it were the site of a massacre - hair and blood everywhere. The great cat massacre, perhaps? Jussi and Hanna stood at opposite ends of the room screaming a string of curses at one another so profound that I was certain the pair had lapsed into the Russian Mat language of obscenities. I snatched my cigarettes from the island of the kitchen and lit one, before I entered the fray.

“Jussi, Hanna! Please stop! For the love of all things holy, shut up!”

“She cut my ear! This is bullshit! I didn’t even want my hair cut in the first place!” Jussi turned his shouts to me as I puffed serenely on my fag. Hanna expressed her displeasure with Jussi in much the same way - at the top of her lungs.

“He wouldn’t sit still, it’s not my fault he’s a fucking tweak! Ei, vittun!” I assessed the situation briefly while I sucked on the filter of my cigarette.

“Hanna, take this. Go turn on the stereo - no, I don’t care what you put on, just put it on loud enough to drown out the shouting. Then you can put studs on Jyrki’s jacket. I’ll finish cutting Jussi’s hair, and then I’ll put the dye on. No buts! Go!” I quickly shoved my stud kit and the makeup into Hanna’s nicked and cut hands (she too had sustained a beating from Jussi’s fidgeting) before I turned to the boy with half a haircut. “Well, you’re not going on stage looking like that, I’ll tell you that right now. Come here.”

A pair of cartoon-character plasters and a few snips later and I had managed to subdue Jussi’s squirming and had been able to advance to applying black hair dye to what little hair remained of his enormous lion’s mane.

“We’re done - that wasn’t horrible was it? Go get as dressed as you can. No, don’t change you shirt until we finish your hair, you dolt!” Really, the boys were no better than children, I should have been paid for my services. With a sigh, I proceeded back to the bedroom where Jyrki was in hopes of maybe putting his makeup on myself - it would have been nice if Hanna had refrained from putting makeup on my boy.

“Come here my sexy darling,” This was not the case (Hanna was not well versed in the code of conduct of all girls), Jyrki had a thick smearing of eyeliner around both eyes rather than just the one I had finished.

“You left him with half a face, Sinikka!”

“You and Jussi were about to knife each other!” I sighed in exasperation before I allowed Jyrki to wrap his arms around my shoulders. “Hey honey,”

“Hei, kulta.” His lips touched my forehead - a habit I never wanted him to break. For a few moments, as I stared up into those ice blue eyes and he into my slate grays, it felt as if we were actually alone in the room, as if today hadn’t sucked enormous whale balls. “Let’s do this thing,” He said finally, and with a peck on the lips my whirlwind of a boyfriend was off again, and so was I.

“Hanna, what is this crap you have for me to wear?” I called - Hanna had made an attempt to force Archie into makeup and had been far more successful than I with the stubborn man. She answered from the bathroom.

“Cool clothes. No polo’s, no khaki. You have to try and fit in sometimes, Sini, tonight’s as good a night as any to give it a try,”

“Fine. But I’m not letting you near my head with that teasing comb of yours,” I slipped into Hanna’s loaned black cigarette jeans (my diet of coffee and cigarettes and frequent walks up many flights of stairs had sloughed the padding from Oulu right off my small frame). She had left me some sort of strange shirt - off the shoulder, I figured out after a few misfired attempts of putting my head through the sleeve. My favorite leather jacket of Jyrki’s was to go over the shirt, there was even an array of jewelry for me to wear. I tied a red bandanna around my leg like I had seen Jyrki do so many times.

“Hanna?” She whisked her way into the room, already halfway dressed in her own black attire.

“Ah, Sini, you look so great!” I scowled at her, a cigarette between my lips as she attempted to do my makeup - black and red, just like she had done her own eyes. Great, I was going to be a carbon copy of Hanna all night (I would have rolled my eyes at the thought but a sharp eyeliner pencil was in dangerous proximity to the peepers).

“Thanks, it’s all your fault,” I beamed at her as well as I could through all of the makeup. “Did you get the dye off of Jussi’s head?”

“He’s high and dry - doing something with a straightener and a shit ton of gel in the bathroom right now.” My eyes widened briefly at the thought of Jussi with slicked back hair, but Hanna read my mind and set me straight. “He’s doing some crazy spiky thing.”

“Ah. Must I wear all of this jewelry?” I prodded as I watched Hanna slide bracelets down her wrists.

“Yep. And take that thing off!” She pointed a crooked finger at the little silver Chanel necklace I had worn in a vain attempt at normalcy.

“Aww, really? You’re a cruel mistress, Hanna.” I managed to fit the bracelets around my abnormally large hands - nothing ever fit well on my wrists if it could fit past my hands, I never wore bracelets because of it - slid too-tight rings on my fingers, and added a few necklaces to my original piece.

“Off.” Hanna made as if to rip the thing from my neck.

“Fine! Fine!” I slid the dainty silver piece into a skintight pocket and bolted out of the room before Hanna could inflict any more damage on my dwindling sense of fashion.

“Jyrki, kulta, look what she’s done to me!” I cried in mock horror as I escaped Hanna’s dastardly clutches, cigarette in hand. “I look like Sandra Dee in Grease!”

“No, no, the hair’s not big enough!” Jussi attacked my head from behind - his hands scraped over my scalp in an attempt to make my flat hair float about my head in a manner reminiscent of Hanoi Rocks and Motley Crue; a failed effort.

“Get off my head!”

I ended up running from Jussi - right out the door, down the stairs and onto the street before he gave up. Bootsteps followed the pair of us out into the cold night air, I was thankful for the added warmth of Jyrki’s side when he finally drew to my side.

“Ready to rock?” I answered with a pained grimace as we boarded the metro - guitars, black and all.