This City Is as Cold as Your Heart

It was winter in Helsinki again and everyone around me grew sadder and angrier. Winter was not a good time for us Finns even though Finland is known for it’s winters. The winter months were absolutely miserable to anyone and everyone that lived in Helsinki, including my rockstar/drug addicted dad, especially my rockstar/drug addicted dad.
Mikko Fagerholm is known in Finland as being an 80s rock god with a tragic story. He was guitarist of a super famous Finnish glam metal band that was quickly becoming popular all around the world. He hung out in America a lot with his friends from Mötley Crüe and various other bands, and by hang out I mean did drugs. He was on top of the charts, on top of the world, and as high as a kite. On a flight home after a show in France, he met a beautiful young flight attendant named Stéphanie Blanchard, and they hit it off immediately (which probably included fucking in the airplane bathroom), because I was born nine months later. After my mother had me, my father decided that he was having too much fun to be a father and left us.

Three years later, my father comes back into our lives and says that he’s changed.
Two months later, my mother is dead of a heroin overdose.
I was only three at the time and don’t remember much about her or what my parents were going through, but I do remember the cold snow freezing my feet as they lowered her coffin into the ground.

Winter is a bitch.

Ten years later and here I am, accompanying my father, who has just started a band of his own, to his shows where half naked, drunk women throw their bras onto the stage and try to get in his pants. Also known as… awkward.
Mikko 2.0, the band, is currently doing a residency at a bar in Helsinki. Tonight is night four and after avoiding the first three shows, I am finally suckered into attending the show.
My dad sees me attending his shows as a way of bonding, I guess. To me it’s pretty torturous.

Tonight I settled on The Golden Compass as my book of choice. I always tote a book around with me at these things because hearing the same songs hundreds of times over the course of your lifetime is just not that fun.

At this particular venue, I am usually found sitting in a corner close to the women’s bathroom with book in hand. Not the greatest place to sit but one of the most secluded and quiet.
Plus, I don’t look too weird with all the crack-heads running around.

As soon as we arrive at the venue, my dad kisses my forehead and rushes to the bar to get sloshed. I head in the opposite direction, pushing my way through all the people starting to pile in, before I am grabbed around the shoulders. My heart stops and I wonder if I may have peed my pants a little bit.

“Don’t be scared, Melena, it’s me.” I recognize the voice as my uncle Nikki, “You would think that you’re scared of running into someone here.” I pretended to not hear his maniacal laughter as I turned around to hug him.

“Soooo, how have you been, baby doll?” He slurs his words and I can tell he’s already been shooting up in the bathroom. He was clean for quite a while but then made the mistake of visiting my not sober father here in Helsinki, where he was reintroduced to his first love, heroin.

In my thirteen years of existence, my father has never once tried to get sober, even after heroin took my mother to the grave. I admired Nikki trying to get clean for his kids and silently hated my dad for screwing that up for him.

I shrug, “I’m as good as I can be with a drug addicted father.”

He nods and squeezes me close to him but doesn’t say a word. And then he’s gone.

“See you later,” I mutter sarcastically before continuing my trek towards my reading spot.

I sit down and open the book, occasionally getting kicked by sluts with hooker heels going to the ladies’ room. They just glare at me and go on their slutty way.

The band eventually begins to play and I stay with my head in the book until the very end, though I’m not too sure what I was even reading. Something about polar bears… I stay in place until most of the concertgoers are shuffling out before attempting to make it backstage.

Backstage is a horrifying place. There are groupies, drugs, alcohol, and dickhead band guys all intermingling in a big group of horrible.This group greets me as soon as I walk in, but I push through them easily before reaching my father.

“I want to leave.” I say, short and sweet.

He sighs, “Kultaseni, we have to stay for a while. They all came here to see me, we can’t just leave.”

“Way to be an ass. You do realize that you’re in a band, right? The world doesn’t revolve around you.” I probably sounded like a huge brat, but that was the only way to get through to my father.

He ties a rubber band around his arm, getting ready to shoot up, and waves me off, “In a few minutes.”

I pout and sit down on the abandoned couch across the room. My eyes close and I try to forget where I am. That works for a few minutes, but of course is disturbed my some slut falling right into my lap. She giggles and tries to stand up to no avail and ends up falling right on her huge, fake butt. Now it’s my turn to giggle, which earns a glare from her, “Don’t laugh at me, ugly bitch!”

She tries to stand up again and actually succeeds. This is my “Oh shit!” moment. I panic as she starts towards me. I’ve never been in a fight before! Of course, I’ve seen so many over the years but none actually involved any physical harm to me.

Her hand lunges at my throat, I dodge it but not fast enough because the next thing I know she has me pinned to the couch, choking me. I kick from underneath her but she sits on my legs, leaving me completely helpless. There’s too much commotion going on in the room for anyone to notice that this groupie is choking me to death. I gasp for air and continue trying to pry her hands off of my neck. My vision starts to fade and I know that it is hopeless; I am dying at the hands of a slut that wants to sleep with my father.

The last thing I see is a strange guy with long, curly brown hair and stunning green eyes standing over me, before I am knocked unconscious.