Helsinki Blood

1





June had come to an end. I seldom went out, mostly because mobility was so difficult, but it had been such a bad day—Kate had been gone for around two weeks. I was depressed and in awful pain—that I thought fresh air and sunshine might be good for me, help me gain some perspective. Mental health care workers often recommend just getting out and about to raise spirits. Dumbf*cks.

I hadn’t had a haircut in a couple months, went to the barber around the corner and got it cropped military short, as it’s been for more than thirty years. It revealed the scar that runs four inches across the left center of my head to the hairline over my eye. The ugly gunshot wound on my face was no longer bandaged but not healed. Looking in the barber’s mirror, I thought of my severe limp and knew all I needed was a long black leather trench coat to look like a cliché Gestapo torturer in a B movie.

Afterward, I went a little way down the street to Hilpeä Hauki, my favorite bar. I believed it might be therapeutic for me. It’s a cozy, quiet place—they don’t even play music—that specializes in imported beers, and the same faces appear almost daily. Conversations went on around me, but speaking wasn’t required. People often just have a beer and browse through the daily newspapers or sit in silence if they don’t feel chatty.

The patrons almost all know me, or at least of me, and wouldn’t ask questions about my injuries, so I felt comfortable being there. I sat in “the dogs’ corner,” so called because customers are allowed to sit in the squared-off area near the L-shaped bar with their pets. A water bowl was under a side table next to the door. The staff even keeps dog treats handy. I ordered a beer and a kossu—the colloquial for Koskenkorva, a kind of Finnish vodka—and sat on a stool at the bar.

A young drunk guy came in. He was loud, attention-seeking. The bartender, a half Finn, half Brit named Mike, refused him service. He called Mike a vittu pää—a cunt head. Mike is a big guy and used to dealing with such behavior, but I stuck my nose in anyway. “Shut the f*ck up,” I said, “or I’ll come over there and beat you to death.”

The a*shole was four paces away from me. He checked me out and laughed. “Listen, crip, the only thing you’re going to beat me in is an ugly contest.”

I felt myself seething. Mike leaned over the bar, looked at me, shook his head no. I saw that I had reached down and was going for my backup piece, a Colt .45 with a three-inch barrel in an ankle holster. I didn’t realize I was doing it.

“Bad day?” Mike asked.

I came to my senses and pulled the cuff of my jeans back down over my .45. “Yeah, I guess so.”

“Why don’t you come back on a day when you feel better.” It wasn’t a question, I was being kicked out. “I’ll buy you a beer the next time I see you.” He said it in a caring way, I couldn’t be mad about it. And besides, he was right.

I got up to leave.

Without deigning to look at me, A*shole said, “See ya, Frankenstein.”

I stepped toward the door as if leaving, but turned and swung my cane two-handed like a bat. Scored a perfect kidney shot with the back of the gold lion’s head handle. A*shole went down like a rock, screamed and curled up into a ball. I gave the folks in the dogs’ corner a small salute, wished them pleasant evenings and hobbled home.

On the way, I decided that in my current emotional state I was dangerous, not fit company for other humans. I decided to go into self-imposed isolation. It didn’t last long.