Wings & Hearts

One bag. It was all Jyrki had said I could bring; I saw his one bag and raised him two. Two pieces of luggage - technically one piece of luggage and a carry on plus my purse. So three bags. Only one bag was actually luggage though, so I was under the impression that I had done well for myself, especially since I had a plethora of polo’s, a cache of chinos and a burden of beige. All color-coordinated of course, the bright red bag was an obsessive-compulsive overload, even to me. One piece of luggage to check, one carry on and a purse. That was it, Jyrki would have my head if I managed to pack any more!

But I had managed to stick to one bag, and for that, I was damned proud of myself. Pop the champagne and smoke a cigar, Sinikka managed to be something less than a nuisance and something more than anonymous! I usually fell under either extreme.

I ran a brush over my teeth as I wandered around the apartment I shared with my brother, triple-checking to see if I had forgotten anything at all - which would have been a detriment to the entire trip. God forbid Miss Sini, the perfectionist, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder poster child, forgot anything, it would spell disaster for the rest of the trip! I could see it now - if I had to stop for anything, the boys would probably ridicule me ruthlessly for the next two months, even if it was a damned toothbrush. With that thought in mind, I carefully stashed my toothbrush in the quilted, vibrantly-patterned duffel bag which was my carry-on piece. I fastened a string of pearls around my neck and lit a new cigarette while I answered the door.

“Are you ready? Have you packed everything? You haven’t forgotten anything, right?” Jyrki Linnankivi and all of his enormously tall glory strode through my door, firing questions like Clint Eastwood fired his revolver - ask questions first, wait for answers later. It was typical of the black-haired man. “Well?” I lifted an eyebrow and pointed to the neat stack of bags beside the door he had just walked through. “Oh.”

“See, Professor Ankelo was right. We benefit most from observation.” There was only a hint of smugness in my smile as I corrected him, shouldering the textbook-sized quilted backpack which would serve as my purse and the duffel. Jyrki’s huge hand pulled the handle from the bright red piece of luggage before he raced down the stairs ahead of me (I definitely had the heavier bag, that duffel was full of casette tapes, books and the like to keep me busy on a plane trip, sitting still for long periods without cigarettes and coffee was not my forte). The horn of the black van blared - Archie was eager to get the graffitied (really, it was just a black van covered in haphazardly spray-painted red stencils, but it was the most gothic thing on wheels in Greater Helsinki) monstrosity to the airport in time for our flight. Jyrki ignored my excited chatter about the trip at hand as a method to hurry me along - that much I realized, but his sulking silence was enough to make me pout as I smoked what I believed was the last cigarette I would get before I was bundled on a plane headed to Madrid, Spain.

Less than a month ago, my lovely boyfriend had dropped a bomb on me on the day of our graduation - he and his little project of a band were going on a little tour for a little bit of summer. Only for a little while, he said. Well, a short time to him was two months to me - two months which ended just before the start of my studies toward a Master’s Degree in Organic Chemistry.

Sinikka Helle Lotjonen had turned into a ride-or-die chick somewhere along the line; I had missed the transformation myself but it had happened. I had never thought that I would be the one to pack up all (almost all, I had a pretty hefty piece of luggage) of my belongings and follow a man through the entire fucking European Union. Hell, I had even painted my nails a shade of navy (the closest color to black which would ever adorn my nails) to commemorate the event which was our departure for the tour.

I allowed Jyrki to wrap his arms around my shoulders after I settled myself into his lap in the not-so-spacious back seat of the dingy van; and nearly screeched along with the tires as Archie’s lead foot smashed down on the gas pedal.

“I think I’m going to be sick,” Baize looked like he belonged in a biker gang - he could lead the fucking thing, he was so rough-and-tumble looking - but he had the most sensitive stomach of anyone I had ever met. I shifted slightly so that if he did decide to vomit, Jyrki would end up blocking the vile concoction from ever reaching me. The boyfriend/shield tactic was one of my favorites.

“I need a cigarette,” Spiky-haired Jussi was attacking the cockatoo-like apparatus atop his head with more gel than necessary, he was seated between Jyrki and Baize with the tub of “wax gel” between his bouncing knees.

“Me too,” Timo, a shaggy-haired youth, reached back from the passenger seat to scoop a generous glomp of the gel for his own hair. Geeze, one would think we were on our way to a gig right that very second.

“Thirds.” Archie commented as he swerved around a roundabout.

“If I hear one more complaint I’m going to kill you all,” I muttered as I sent my cigarette butt out the window with a well-aimed flick.

“Oh, feisty.” Jyrki shot Jussi an uncharacteristic glare with his heart-melting icy blues, a look of such intensity I felt it behind my back. Ignoring the look of fury Jyrki transferred to me, I pulled out my pack of cigarettes and allowed Jussi and Timo to each take one; Jussi lit his from the single flame of my lighter and transferred the heat to Timo’s smoke like a professional. We smoked in silence for the rest of the drive, the occasional grunt as Archie deftly avoided traffic accidents and attempted to break the sound barrier on the way across Helsinki.

“So what is Ville’s new band?” I asked out the side of my mouth as Jyrki and I crawled out of the van at the baggage check on the sidewalk of the airport - surprised it still had all of its tires.

“They call it H.I.M., it’s the same shit, just a different line up.” The tall, black-haired man sighed as he passed my the bright red bag which was easily identifiable in a sea of black. I was always the sore thumb, it was simply something I had gotten used to over the years.

“I see,” Literally, I did, as the boys formed some sort of conveyor-belt line involving bag-passing up to the baggage check, Ville Valo crawled out of a bright yellow taxi several cars away from us. From that far away I could tell that Jyrki’s roommate and my long-time confidante was completely hung over, he was just that haggard looking - dark sunglasses, frizzy, unwashed curls and a haphazard-looking ensemble. “Why didn’t you two just ride together?” I asked Jyrki as Ville approached.

“Who two?”

“You and Ville,” I sucked on the third fag of the day like it was a situation of life and death.

“Oh, right. Well, we wouldn’t have all fit. Would have had to leave Jussi behind or something.” It was sweet that Jyrki would never have dreamed of leaving me behind - he had practically shit himself the day I decided I would accompany he and the boys. “We need to hurry,”

“Since when do you care about being late?”

“Have you ever been on an international flight, Sini?” I tilted my head inquisitively, as if to say “what a stupid question, my love,” but settled on something a little less hurtful to state out loud. It was funny how often I found myself editing bone-cutting quips into motherly chiding with Jyrki; and it needed to stop. I was definitely not his mother (oh no, she had some strange hair, that woman) and he definitely hadn’t fallen in love with me for my ninja-like skills in self-censorship.

“No, Jyrki, we went over this. I’ve never been on a plane.” Ville and his “boys” had joined the gothic hodgepodge which was The 69 Eyes, checking baggage like pros. One would almost think that they all had done this before.

“I knew that.” I couldn’t help but roll my eyes at him as I stomped on smoke number three and lit fag number four - try as he might, Jyrki would never be able to store every little conversation we had away in his expansive, chemistry-filled brain, especially not when the blood necessary to run that organ was quickly pooling elsewhere.

“Ei Vittun, you’re going to die of lung cancer young lady!” Surprisingly, it wasn’t the anti-smoking Jyrki who lectured me, but spiky-haired Jussi, who swiped the cig from my overly-relaxed hand. “I’ll take it off your hands!”

“Hey! You little brat!” I didn’t bother with an attempt to snatch the thing back - Jussi had already “danced” away (as was his way, he was a quick little bastard) and there was no telling where those lips had been in the past hours (I had once seen him kiss a shifty-looking broad on a street corner on a dare from the men, and I was more than certain she had been in possession of at least eighteen different kinds of lip fungi).

An impossible amount of luggage spewed from the back of the van; bags of assorted shades of black were produced from nowhere, five (?!) guitar cases, and a mysterious-looking duffel bag that just might have been big enough for Jussi to fit into if I decided to check him if he got too annoying. I considered the though as I watched the boy jump around with my cigarette in his hand, and it became more and more attractive as he began to look more and more like a chattering monkey with a hand full of shit.

“Kultaseni?” Jyrki’s large hand pressed against the small of my back as his lips pressed against my earrings (Hanna had[ managed to get me to pierce them again - I could wear large diamond-looking earrings in the first holes and pearls in the second holes, or vice versa, or dangly ones in the first hole and something interesting in the second, it was a wonderful thing!) as he murmured in my ear. “Why are you looking so cruelly at Jussi?”

“Cruelly, you say?” I felt a devious smile twitch at his lips through my earlobe (who would have thought earlobes were so sensitive to expression), and knew my smile mirrored his as I took a drag of my fag.

“What’s on your mind,” It was a sing-song-y threat, almost; if I didn’t tell him what I was thinking, he would ravage me until I did, which was almost enough to keep my lips sealed… if we hadn’t been in a public place.

“I was just considering if Jussi could fit in that duffel there… we could check him as luggage and all sleep soundly on the flight. Or perhaps we could stick him in a cage and pass him off as a monkey,” The black-haired man clutched my waist as he began to laugh uproariously, gaining startled looks from his overly-gothic band mates.

“Oi! We’re going to be late for the flight for fuck’s sake!”

Which set the entire group (we had been joined by Ville’s sorry-looking group while I was attempting to curse Jussi to the coldest depths of hell or something) into a spastic half-seizure in an attempt to get to the check-in table in time.

“Oh, settle down. I’ll be checking us in at the counter.” I didn’t think any of the boys had heard me in the race to check all of our bags as quickly as possible, but I made my way to the Finnair cashier - a bright young woman with a broad smile greeted me, and then proceeded to give me such a difficult time that I finally gave up and wandered back to the disorganized chaos outside.

“You aren’t done yet?”

“Yes we are! Everybody inside!” It was like a preschool teacher making an attempt to control a bunch of Neanderthals - Jyrki looked as if he was about to be swept up in the “crowd” (of nearly ten men) which charged to the counter I had just turned away from.

Minutes later, I waited in line with my shoes off to be patted down by a burly-looking woman for shivs and the like - because I appeared to be more of a criminal than the ten men dressed in chains and leather that I traveled with. It was horrible - I was passed through a large x-ray machine and figured a full body-cavity check was next in line before the people let me go.

“God, let’s just get going,” I murmured in response to Jyrki’s exclamations of disgust at how the security had singled me out of the group. “They were just doing their job.”

“Because you look so suspicious!” Jyrki wrapped his arm around my shoulder as he grumbled, we trailed behind the rest of the rowdy bunch until we got into the gate - and were immediately ushered onto the plane by a disgruntled-looking stewardess who informed us of just how close we had cut it.

“We have to sit here for five hours?” The seat was no wider than my ass - which wasn’t very wide at all; in response, Jyrki faked a smile and settled his head on my breasts.

I could only look out the window, and hope the plane would land before something horrible happened - like Jussi swinging from the ceiling or the pianist of Ville’s band fainted from fright (I could hear the man called Burton hyperventilating into his barf bag somewhere behind me). I managed to pull my cassette player from my purse around Jyrki - who was already fucking asleep! - and hit play. Perhaps Talking Heads was a little too upbeat to help me fall asleep, but I found myself humming along with “Psycho Killer” before I could consider changing tapes. It was going to be a long flight…

Oh! Peanuts!