Wings & Hearts

Daylight was fading on the cold November evening, and no-one had called me to ask what we were doing for the evening yet. It was a Friday in the middle of my third semester of College (dead center, Jyrki had said), and to not go out on a Friday night was unheard of. I grabbed the phone off the cradle and dialed Hanna’s house number.

“Hey honey, how are you?” I asked after she answered.

“I was just getting ready to go meet Ville at the tattoo shop.” I winced. It was about time the man had enough money to finish that fucking sleeve (and he claimed he had enough to do that and then some - the man had some unusual ideas about what he was willing to permanently ink into his skin forever), it had been two years in the making.

“Good God, I haven’t been able to reach either of them at all. Am I invited, or am I to rot in the house all night - on a Friday!” It was more of an accusation than a question - was Hanna really going to leave me to my own devices? “Why aren’t they answering, by the way?”

“Well, I’d suppose Ville’s already on his way to the shop. Jyrki wanted to stay inside all night and work on a paper…” She drifted off - I didn’t need to be able to see her expression to know what she was thinking.

“Intervention?” I felt my impish grin spread.

“Let’s. Be there in thirty minutes, I‘ll bring the Jack.”

“Coke and Cigarettes. Gotcha.” I hung up and instantly became a whirlwind of disorganization - every one of my perfectly color-coordinated or alphabetized drawers became a tangled mess as soon as I opened. Why oh why hadn’t I asked for forty-five minutes, an hour perhaps? Half an hour wasn’t enough time for a girl to get ready to go out, ride the metro, pick up ingredients for mixed drinks and cigarettes and show up on time for a homework intervention (a weapon Jyrki had invented to get me out on the town when I had papers to finish and chapters to read, a weapon I was more than happy to turn on the boy).

I donned a pair of “toothpick” jeans, a bright red polo and white accents; a smoke sent me flying out the door in a huff of lateness. Where the hell did Hanna live that she could even get to Jyrki’s in under a half an hour, anyway?

As it were, I was hard-pressed to make it to the flat on time, clutching a brown bag to my chest with a cigarette in my mouth. It was fucking snowing again - I hadn’t thought I would need a scarf or a hat until I had reached the last flight of stairs in my own apartment building, the snow on a window ledge had sent me sprinting for Jyrki’s leather jacket to toss over the light cardigan I had chosen and a white, fluffy scarf. I was incredibly thankful for these items as I waited for Hanna. Even though I was native to Oulu - where it was much colder than Helsinki on a regular basis - I was strangely intolerant of any and all cold weather, a strange trait for any Finn. Hanna was nearly fifteen minutes late - fifteen minutes I waited in the freezing cold before I could buzz up to Jyrki.

“Hey kulta, it’s me. Let me in, it‘s freezing.” The door buzzed open. Hanna darted ahead of me with reckless abandon and an impish grin as she clutched the alcohol to her chest. I followed with my brown bag and cigarette; I took her on the inside corner of the second flight of stairs and she couldn’t rival my superior stair-climbing skills and so I made it to the apartment door before her. I turned the handle -

And immediately tried to shield Hanna’s eyes from the disaster that was Jyrki Linnankivi - standing in a pair of black briefs, thick woolen socks and a scarf (what was wrong with the man - if one is cold, don a jacket, not a damned scarf). Instead of shielding Hanna, I clothes-lined the slip of a girl with my arm and sent her sprawling cartoon-style on her back; she clutched her Jack like a champion, that bottle would never break while in Hanna’s possession, that much was apparent.

“Jyrki! My God!” He had disappeared into his bedroom when Hanna’s presence became apparent. My arm-blocking skills, however, had kept his scarf-underwear-sock wearing a secret from her. “Get dressed, we’re taking you out!” I helped my incapacitated friend to her feet - and in thanks, she made off with the paper bag of coke and began mixing drinks in the kitchen. I wandered back to Jyrki’s bedroom.

“Jyrks, honey?” I thought it prudent to knock before I let myself into his bedroom, just in case he had found some more obscure outfit to put on to replace his prior combination (maybe a leather nurse dress or lingerie or something equally awkward) - I was relieved to find he had made the addition of a pair of jeans and a t-shirt to the scarf and underwear and lost his woolies somewhere in the mess of his room.

“I didn’t think you had brought company, Sini, it’s nice to let a man know these things! Hey, stop that!” Cigarette clamped in my teeth, I had begun to sort his laundry (the source of the mess of his room and the bane of my existence) into piles - darks, leather, darker darks and unsavable/unwashable. I wasn’t a believer in the whole “a man needs a woman to keep him organized” theory, but I often found that I stuck to the mantra simply because messy rooms irked me so.

“Stop what? In my own defense, Jyrks, I didn’t really expect you to be lounging about in your underwear - did your neck get cold but not your chest and the majority of your legs?” I asked with a laugh as I lobbed a leather jacket at him through the room (a feat which took considerable strength).

“But, my paper,” Jyrki deflected the jacket with his palm like he was Highlander or something - there can only be one enormous highlander, jackets cannot defeat Jyrki! - and plopped down on the floor like a stubborn child.

“Come now, a night of fun will help you infuse that boring Chemistry paper with life and movement… Fine. I’ll help you out with it tomorrow?” I crossed the room as I spoke, and plucked the smoke from between my lips so I could bend and plant a kiss on his cheek to make his slight smile grow.

“Sinikka?” Hanna was calling from the kitchen as I pulled Jyrki to his feet (no easy task, given his height versus my own), I left him to bundle up in interest of retrieving my drink.

“Do you have your ears pierced?” Her question took my by surprise as I sucked on my fag and reached for the cup of Jack and Coke that her extended hand held.

“Why do you ask?” The question was wary, I could sense that if I replied either way, Hanna was going to have some harebrained scheme to somehow get me in some sort of trouble with my ears. I wasn’t certain how it would happen, but I was entirely sure it would simply because Hanna was that dastardly.

“Yes or no?” I shook my head no - of course I didn’t have my ears pierced, why would I? - and instantly regretted the movement as the corners of Hanna’s mouth turned up into her trademark impish grin.

“What do you have up your sleeve, Hanna?” Jyrki asked as he retrieved his drink. I busied myself from the thought of what Hanna was about to put me through by putting the alcohol and soda into their respective paper bags, along with a few spare plastic cups from the infinite supply Jyrki and Ville kept around the kitchen for the sake of partying like rock stars.

“Oh, nothing, nothing.” I rolled my eyes - Hanna, up to nothing? She and Ville were the worst practical jokers and pranksters I had ever met, Hanna more so than her boy.

Half an hour later I found myself in a chair facing Jyrki, Hanna and Ville, and cursing the misfiring brain cell that had decided telling Hanna I didn’t have my ears pierced wasn’t a bad idea after all. The taller brunette had busied herself with making my drink a bottomless pit of Jack Daniels - the cup hadn’t an ounce of coke in it by the time we reached the tattoo parlor and I had been forced to clutch at Jyrki drunkenly for straight-line-walking support. It was a wonder that the ‘Vamps never got in trouble with the police for being drunk in public - we were always drunk and nearly always in fucking public.

“I don’t think I wanna do this. I don’t think I wanna do this,” I slurred and tightened my grip on Jyrki’s enormous hand, nearly pulling him into my lap with the sheer force of my grip. But Hanna had talked me all the way into the damned chair, and I had already paid money (good money, which could have been used on coffee or cigarettes like the one I crunched between my teeth) for a set of twinkling rhinestone studs; I also had a feeling that the man who was sterilizing the first needle would be extremely upset if I jumped ship, it had taken him forever to place the prospective holes to my liking.

Oh god. A man with a needle was about to punch holes in my ear (in his defense, he hadn’t wanted to given my obvious inebriation, but Hanna’s powers of persuasion could move mountains).

“Get me more alcohol!” My chest fluttered as Hanna handed me a cup with a good bit of Jack in the bottom - I slugged it like a shot and asked for another before the strange heart defect I had recently (very recently) developed could kick in again.

“You know, you don’t have to do this sweetling,” Jyrki soothed as he stroked the hair from my face. The look I gave him conveyed the pressure I felt - if I didn’t just grow a pair and get my ears pierced, Hanna would never let me live down the moment I chickened out. Like she needed any more ammunition for her relentless teasing. I choked down another shot of Jack and held my smoldering and gnawed-on cig in between the fingers of one hand; I clutched Jyrki’s hand as is my life depended on remaining in his grasp with the other hand.

“I’m ready.”

“You sure?” The pierced asked, poised with a needle. I gave a terrified nod before my neck paralyzed itself into rigidity - what had I been thinking, letting Hanna talk me into this, I was afraid of needles for God’s sake! College, really? All the extra education in the world hadn’t yet helped me develop common sense!

The man’s fingers firmly grasped the first earlobe in his hand, and punched the needle through the bare skin. The pain was… not excruciating like I would have thought; a slight pinch as Hanna had promised. It wasn’t the pain though, that drew my attention, but the fact that there was a needle in my skin - going straight through my ear! I grasped Jyrki’s hand tightly, the cigarette in the other was slowly bending, tobacco slid from a hole in the paper onto the floor.

The second ear hurt more! How in hell had Ville managed to sit still for that enormous tattoo? Needles! Argh! I gripped Jyrki’s hand tighter, preparing for impact…

And there was none. I was able to unscrew my eyes and glance around like a spooked horse, trying to find the hidden second man with the hidden second set of needles, but there was none. Nobody tried to tackle me down to the chair when I sat up, nobody shoved me down when I shakily reached for the second shot of Jack, Jyrki saved me from spilling it all over myself, but I was otherwise free of the execution chair.

“Th-thank you.”

Ville took the crushed cigarette from me and disposed of it in the nearest ash tray - it still burned despite the abuse it had undergone while I had been in the chair. The curly-haired man’s arm was completely wrapped in a piece of trash bag, taped down at the wrist, elbow and shoulder.

“Come on love, have a seat.” Jyrki was directing me to another chair - a normal chair, one not reminiscent at all of the stories based in the US where they put their prisoners to death by lethal injection. Not reminiscent at all. I sunk down into it as my knees buckled. “More alcohol, she needs to be drunk-er!”

Hanna was all too happy to make me a mixed drink with the remaining Jack Daniel’s and a dash of Coca-cola.

“We were going to go to Mary Malone’s if you’re not too traumatized honey pie,” Hanna teased as I snatched the drink from her hand and attempted to slurp as much of it down as I could before I began to cough and splutter at the slow burn of the liquor in my stomach. I might have nodded (I dunno because my entire body had gone numb, not just my face), but whatever motion I managed to make, Jyrki and Ville yanked me up by the armpits and rushed me out to the street to empty my stomach.

I could feel the Jack tumbling out of my throat, but could also feel Jyrki’s hand on the back of my neck and on my arm, Hanna’s soothing hands holding my hair out of my face, Ville’s steadying hand on the flat of my back. A set of damned good friends to be certain.

When I was done puking, I shoved a slice of bread (which had materialized out of nowhere) down my throat and we made our way to the Irish pub down the street.