Prologue
The Prayer Card
“Bless me, Father, for I have schvitzed,” the young löyly said, out of breath as he slumped into the unbosoming closet.
“Löyly, when didst thoughst last schvitzeth?” Guru Cleave von Shvitzensitter III replied, as per the divine liturgy.
“Your Grace…” he said, a mixture of faith and fear tumbling from his mouth, “I didst schvitzeth previously… on the sixth day last.”
“And didst thou schvitz long and know thou weredst shvitzing long?”
“Thou didst…?” the suddenly nervous löyly mumbled.
“I didst?” von Shvitzensitter III asked.
“You didst?” the löyly replied, his whole body now a question mark. “No, thou—by which I mean I—didst.”
“Indeed. And didst thou heat thyself for a devil’s half-score in each session?”
“Umm… how… long is—”
“Fifteen minutes, löyly; we’ve been over this a number of times.”
“Yes… of course, right, of course… I didst heat thy—myself,” he said, smiling inwardly that he got it right, “for a devil’s half-score each time… Your Eminence.”
von Shvitzensitter eyed the young recruit skeptically. Like he’d caught a whiff of expired milk.
“And in the name of balance and equanimity and fairness and self-possession and Pekka Palokivi, didst thou cool thine jets in the coldest water available following your devil’s half-score?” the universally loved and respected Prophet of Sweat asked.
The löyly thought hard because he was pretty sure he shouldn’t fuck this up.
“I didst, Your Muckedy-Muckedness,” the löyly said proudly. “In ocean water of the western shores of the Coast Salish. As you may or may not know, Your Big Kahunaness, it is Kale-monath, and the water is the coldest of the whole year.”
“Indeed, indeed. Kale-monath is a bitch,” the guru said, instantly flashing back to the cabbage days of 1614. He shivered.
Collecting himself, von Shvitzensitter III said, “Excellent, young löyly. You do your father proud.”
The löyly sat up straighter, confidence pulling the hunch from his shoulders.
“Do you have any questions, löyly, before we part?” von Shvitzensitter III said, his eyebrows raised to indicate there were to be no questions.
The löyly knew there should be no further questions, so his hesitance puzzled them both.
“Who first schvitzed, Your Big Enchiladaness?” he blurted.
They both gasped simultaneously.
Questions, while encouraged in the formal literature of Schvitz Club, were strictly forbidden. Wide-eyed, the youthful löyly flashed back to his first Council of Brunch at the Denny’s on Douglas. The place was packed to the rafters with soon-to-be-hungover (not to mention unemployable) history in art students that day. The atmosphere was tense, the food: average to good. The meeting was called to order at 7:30 in the afternoon.
“Don’t ask us any questions, löylies, we don’t have any answers,” said Schvitz Club’s co-founder, vibe coordinator and archivist Matti Virtanen as he scarfed his Grand Slam.
Egg vaulted from his mouth and stuck the landing on the rim of his coffee cup.
“That’s not a euphemism,” he continued. “You gotta figure this shit out yourselves, so don’t ask us. Just pay your weekly emolument and get on with the schvitzing. Otherwise, there could be devastating repercussions. Devastating!”
Although often vitun löylynlyömä (“fucking steamstruck,” as the Finns say), Virtanen hadn’t exclaimed before or since in this löyly’s presence, so this was no joke.
The löyly clicked back to the present and realized von Shvitzensitter III was smiling magnanimously, the worst kind of smile in Schvitz Club. He winced at his own ballsyness.
A hare-brained amendment to the charter in 1752 meant von Shvitzensitter III was obligated to fabricate a wild story that may or may not be true in answer to the löyly’s question, so the fifty-oneth Grand Poobah of Schvitz Club was mildly panicked. He’d always followed the rules and never asked, so he didn’t have a fucking clue about the bloody back story! However, he’d been schvitzing for four score and sixty-two years, so his façade betrayed nothing.
“A bold question, löyly. Pallit kasvaa—your balls grow—” he said, stalling.
Then it came to him. The prayer card.
“Löyly, Schvitz Club has a long and storied history. From the ancient Romans to blah blah blah … you’re going to have to come back another time because I don’t know. In the meantime, take this prayer card,” he said, sliding a 5” x 7” card into the milk chute and quickly shutting the door, lest the löyly catch a glimpse of his divine countenance. “After you’ve next shvitzed, slide it into the milk chute between us and knock three times. I will retrieve the card and recite to you the first chapter in the history of Schvitz Club. It’s … an … oral tradition, of course, so you can imagine that I need to get my notes together and contact the appropriate authorities to authorize the author blah blah blah… etc etc etc… you see what I’m saying of course…”
The löyly understood. He picked up the card, turned it over, cast his eyes upon it.