James Thompson: Helsinki Blood

When the cleaners called and said they were done, I called Sweetness back.

Sweetness showed up with his girlfriend, Jenna. She’s sixteen, a teen beauty, five foot nothing, has lush white-blond hair that hangs to her ample bottom, and is brick shithouse built, like a miniature Brigitte Bardot with more curves. She’s also his third cousin once removed. Jenna follows him puppy-dog style wherever he goes. He doesn’t appreciate Jerry Lee Lewis jokes about their relationship.

She has pale white skin, cherry red lips, and large breasts that look almost comically out of place on such a tiny woman. I wished he hadn’t brought her. Pain and worry hadn’t lessened my attraction to women, and she was a potential distraction.

Sweetness is only twenty-two, a happy-go-lucky giant of a man-his size would frighten children like an ogre if not for his baby face-but he’s an alcoholic and a dangerous sociopath. Jenna and Sweetness: Beauty and the Beast.

They brought enough food, beer and booze for an army. Jenna emptied the bags and started filling the fridge. All the food was meat and eggs.

“Jenna goes where I go,” Sweetness said. “And with Anu in the house, Jenna can help take care of her. I don’t know anything about babies. Jenna insisted.”

I thanked her. “What’s with the food? You feeding wolves?”

“We’re on a solid-protein diet,” she said. “No carbs. Except for alcohol, of course.”

“Of course,” I said.

The traditional Finnish breakfast is rye bread with cheese. Maybe with some lunch meat, cucumbers and tomatoes on it. Nowadays breakfast is often bacon and eggs. This fad is driving bread companies out of business. No one seems to get that most between-meal snacks are solid carbs-cookies, chips, et cetera-and they lose weight on protein diets because they cut the snacks out, not because meat causes lean, healthy bodies. I didn’t care. I could eat eggs and burgers.

“You look like shit,” Jenna told me.

I said nothing, just shrugged.

She’s spent plenty of time here and made herself at home. I heard her talking on the phone.

Sweetness took a flask from the pocket on the leg of his cargo pants, had a slug from it and offered it to me. I shook my head no. He put it away. In sealing the deal for his relationship with Jenna, he promised to quit carrying it and stop drinking all day long. He’s in love with her. He’s in love with booze as well. He was too young to see he couldn’t have both and would have to choose between them.

Jenna noticed the look on my face when I examined the slash the shard had made in the top of my armchair. She knows how fond I am of it. “I can mend it,” she said. “You’ll never even know it was there.”

I wanted to get on the phone and start looking for Kate, but decided to wait and chat with Jenna and Sweetness for a bit. It had been a while, and especially given all they were doing for me, it only seemed polite to do some catching up. The door buzzer rang. Sweetness answered it. Mirjami, object of my desire, was in the hallway. She looked at me and her face sagged. I must have looked so awful that it frightened her.

“Jenna called me and told me you’re in trouble. Invite me in,” she said.

“Do you need an invitation?”

“When I left, I told you to call me if you want me. You haven’t called. The devil is on the doorstep. You have to invite her in before she can cross the threshold.”

It got a laugh out of me. “Come in.”

Mirjami is Milo’s cousin, and stunning. They sometimes went out together, as friends. She thought it was cool because they never waited in lines at nightclubs or events. He flashed his police card for special treatment at every opportunity. He theorized that beautiful women competed, and if they saw him with Mirjami, it would make them want to take him away from her. He told me he would fuck her, cousin or not, if she would let him. “That’s why God made birth control,” he said. As a group, we’re a tight-knit, incestuous bunch. I view it as a good thing. We can trust each other.

Mirjami coming here evoked mixed feelings in me. She’s a registered nurse, a born nurturer, and she cared for Kate, Anu and me after the fiasco on the island in Aland that led to all our misery. She loved me-I didn’t know why or if that still held true-and, despite my refusal to have sex with her, insisted on sleeping in the same bed with me.

I asked her to stop more than once. I was too doped and too injured after getting shot up in Aland to do anything about it. In my condition, I didn’t care where she slept or who slept beside me. She would wait until I was asleep before crawling into the bed with me, and get up before either Kate or I woke.

Kate was in her dissociative stupor and, as far as I know, had no clue Mirjami was trying to steal her husband. Not long before Kate came back to herself, I told Mirjami in gentle but no uncertain terms that I was married and intended to remain faithful to my wife, that she was wasting her time. If anything, it made her love me more. “Unrequited love is sad and beautiful,” she said.

She entered and sat on the armrest of the chair, looked me up and down with a speculative eye. “You’re not getting better, are you?”

I looked up at her. “No.”

Beautiful Mirjami. Tall, thin and lithe. Long russet hair pulled back. Lovely, coffee-colored, almond-shaped eyes and a dark golden-brown tan. Because I felt no emotions during the short time she lived here, I didn’t realize that I missed her until she showed up on my doorstep again. I still didn’t feel anything for many people, but she sparked something. Lovely though she is, it was her humor, playfulness and kindness that I missed.

“How bad is it?” she asked.

“Bad enough so bending my knee at all is excruciating, and the bullet in my face tapped some nerves. It makes it hard to eat or talk.” I pointed at the medicine bottles and boxes on the end table beside my chair. “This shit helps. And kossu .”

She pulled up my pants leg, careful not to hurt me. I hadn’t rebandaged it yet. “It looks like it’s healing properly. It’s just that the wound was so bad. And I can’t see what it looks like inside. You need to have a specialist get in there and have another look, see what can be done. The same goes for your jaw.” She went through my meds. “You should take stronger painkillers.”

“No, thanks.” But the mention reminded me to take my afternoon dope.

“Then call your doctors and make appointments. If you’re in so much pain, there may be problems.”

“They’ve done all they can.”

“If you don’t, I’ll call an ambulance.”

“You win. I’ll do it later.”

“You’ll do it now.”

Fuck. I called my neurologist brother, Jari. My problems weren’t neurological, but it would placate her. I explained my situation. He said he would look at my X-rays, speak with my doctors, and come over later to check me out himself. I reported. Mirjami nodded satisfaction and went off to check on Anu.

Sweetness took out the trash, and I looked around. The place was clean and tidy, and except for the broken window, hadn’t been this nice in weeks. The window was no big deal, it was warm outside. The drug combo kicked in and I drifted off to sleep in my chair.

The door buzzer rang. I woke up and looked at my wrist to check the time, then remembered I had reduced my watch to tiny expensive fragments. I checked my cell phone instead. It was six forty-five in the evening. Mirjami had scooted into the chair beside me and had Anu in her arms. It seemed, as far as our relationship went, or rather lack of one, nothing had changed for her. For me, it was just one more problem and irritation to deal with.