When I was a young guy and first moved to Helsinki, I bartended in rakalat like this on occasion to make ends meet. The beer glasses are cheap and thick-hard to break-but the surface tension of the glass is so great that when they shatter, they explode.
I laugh along with them, good-natured. With my left hand, I hold up my pint in front of Fuckwad’s face and squeeze. He looks at me, smirking and quizzical. I squeeze harder, the glass goes off like a bomb, shatters into a thousand pieces. Beer and glass fly away from me toward Fuckwad, into his face and across the room. He recoils in his chair and gawks disbelief, face beer-soaked and covered with tiny bleeding cuts.
His friends shoot upright to their feet and back away. John and I remain seated. I glance around. Arska still lounges on the bouncer’s stool. He winks at me, amused. The bartender gapes, says nothing.
Fuckwad’s eyes brim with tears. “You fucking asshole,” he says, “you could have blinded me.”
I pick little glass shards out of my left hand and flick them at him with my right. “That was the idea,” I say. “Didn’t work.” I pick up another pint. “I could try again.”
He trembles and raises his hands to his face. “Please no.”
“I asked you nicely. Give me the boots.”
He tries to jerk them off as fast as he can. He turns his chair over and pitches to the floor. He keeps tugging at the boots.
I get up, stand over him and wait. I let blood drip from my hand onto his head. He offers me the boots.
I take them. “Get out,” I say.
His eyes dart, looking to his friends for backup, but they’re chuckling again, this time at his humiliation. He rights his chair and pulls himself back into it. He gives me a pitiful look of appeal.
“I said out.”
He whimpers. “It’s minus fucking twenty-five degrees.”
I nod toward John. “If it’s good enough for him, it’s good enough for you. I’m going to stand outside and watch. You’re going to walk until I can’t see you anymore.”
He gathers his courage and little remaining dignity, and starts to take his coat from the back of his chair.
I shake my head. “No coat.”
He lurches toward the door. I give John his boots and follow, and John tags along behind me. I thank Arska, step outside, ball up some snow in my cut hand and watch Fuckwad hurry along the ice.
John stands beside me. “I didn’t know it was possible to crush a beer glass in your hand,” he says.
“Me neither,” I say.
He puts an arm around my shoulders. “I’ll never forget this.”
“Me neither.”
“I don’t know how I can ever repay you.”
“Be a brother your sister can be proud of. Be her friend.”
“I’ll do my best,” he says.
“Tell her you missed your Sedona Wests and bought them back from UFF,” I say.
“I haven’t been around much. Nobody noticed they were gone.”
I check my watch. We’re near the house. Jari and his family are coming over for dinner tonight. I have just enough time to groceryshop, go home and check on Kate, and still make it to Filippov Construction and tail Linda when she gets off work.
32
It starts snowing hard again. John tags along while I groceryshop. We go to Alko. I buy a couple bottles of wine and two bottles of Koskenkorva. I tell John to hide one in his suitcase and sneak drinks to stay level, warn him not to let Kate catch him boozing alcoholic-style, especially in the daytime.
We go home. Kate and Mary are watching Dr. Phil. A bad sign. Kate hates Dr. Phil. It tells me Kate prefers listening to the good doctor to conversation with her sister.
I say hi to Mary, kiss Kate hello and touch her belly. “Learning anything from Phil?” I ask.
She mimics him. “Haaaney, what yoo got yourself is a drankin’ problem. Watcha need to dooo to cure yoor problem, haaney, is quit yer goddamned drankin’.”
She does a good imitation. It makes me laugh. John sits down to watch TV with them.
“What’s for dinner?” Kate asks.
“Karjalanpaisti.”
She smiles. “Dee-yummy.”