James Thompson: Helsinki Blood

J uly eleventh. A hot summer Sunday. All I want is some goddamned peace and quiet. Now my house is under siege, I have an infant to both care for and protect, and I’m forced to do the last thing I wanted to do: call Sweetness and Milo, my colleagues and subordinates, or accomplices-the definition of their role in my life depends on one’s worldview-and ask them for help.

I’m shot to pieces. Bullets to my knee and jaw-places I’ve been shot before-have left me a wreck. Only cortisone shots and dope for pain enable me to get around with a cane, speak and eat without wanting to scream. I’m still recovering from a brain tumor removal six months ago. The operation was a success but had a serious side effect that left me flat, emotionless.

My feelings are returning as the empty space where once a tumor existed fills in with new tissue, but I only feel love for my wife and child, and intermittent like for one or two others. My normal state and reaction toward others is now irritability. My wife, Kate, suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder and has run away from home, out of control of her own emotions, and abandoned me.

These combined problems, any one of which would drive a person to distraction under the best of circumstances, cloud my judgment and affect my behavior. My judgment and behavior were already clouded. I feel so certain it will all end badly that it seems more a portent than an emotion. Auguries and omens of catastrophe seem all around me, just out of sight, but every time I turn to face them, they disappear like apparitions.

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. Dumbfucks.

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 cliche Gestapo torturer in a B movie.

Afterward, I went a little way down the street to Hilpea 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 paa -a cunt head. Mike is a big guy and used to dealing with such behavior, but I stuck my nose in anyway. “Shut the fuck up,” I said, “or I’ll come over there and beat you to death.”

The asshole 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, Asshole 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. Asshole 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.

Six thirty p.m. Pizza delivered, waiting for hunger to build. Check. Tranquilizers, pain medication and muscle relaxants ingested, so that I could work up to eating it. Check. Half tumbler of kossu on the side table beside my armchair, to amplify the effects of the dope. Bottle on floor beside me. Check.

Only an idiot pays attention to the warnings on medication stating that it shouldn’t be taken with alcohol. Any fool knows tranks and dope work better with booze. The dope wasn’t that strong, just tablets with thirty milligrams of codeine and some Tylenol, max eight a day. I eschewed stronger painkillers because they guaranteed addiction and detox, the last thing I needed to add to my list of problems. Tranks are addictive, but were necessary to relax my jaw enough to eat or speak. As the doctors taught me, I had to balance functionality versus nonfunctionality.

By that point in my life, I was expert at pain management. The buzz and pain relief the alcohol generated was enough to get me by. I’d gone to the manufacturers’ websites of all the medications and worked out how many I could take of each per day, in conjunction with alcohol, without destroying my vital organs. I discovered double-checking medical advice was a necessity after once going to terveyskeskus , the public health clinic, also known as arvauskeskus -the guessing center-with a simple flu. Had I taken the medication as directed, I would have required a liver transplant.

Katt, my cat, was fed, watered and litter box cleaned, in case I passed out. Check. I was ready to settle in for another stoned evening of introspection. For some reason, I felt a desire to tour my self-imposed luxury prison first.

Behind the living room in our fourth-floor apartment, a low dais next to the kitchen, our dining area, has a big oak table that seats ten, so we can have dinner parties. The kitchen has brushed-stainless-steel fixtures. The refrigerator and induction stovetop are state-of-the-art. Not the best money can buy, but not far from it. The bathroom is a tad small, but bigger than is common in apartments in Helsinki. It has a small electric sauna in it, and like many people, we use it more for drying clothes than sweating in steam heat. We have two bedrooms, one for Kate and me, with an oversized and almost too comfortable bed-I sometimes have to force myself out of it to face the new day-and one for our daughter, Anu.

In front of the dais is a long couch that faces an entertainment center. When you’re sitting on the couch, a bank of windows makes up the wall to my left. Floor-to-ceiling bookcases-which I built myself-make up the right side of the room. They’re chock-full, overloaded with books and music. My CD collection numbers over five hundred now, and my vinyl records number near a thousand. My man’s chair sits to the side and in front of the couch, near a large window, angled toward the forty-two-inch flat-screen television and stereo in our entertainment center. In summer, this is poor placement for the chair. The window faces east and gets the full blast of morning sun until the building across from me blots it out. The sun penetrates the drawn, thick red curtains, makes them glare like the front window of an Amsterdam whorehouse, and the light beating through them makes me swelter.