Assisted Living: A Novel

by Nikanor Teratologen

  —Hi there, I’m Michael Myers and this here is Jason …

  The two sluts were insolent, giggly … their labiallips were swollen with wine … When the taxi drove up, Grandpa dumped thepissbucket over their heads … They put up a fuss … made a stink … Their nice evening had been ruined … these were women with oldfashioned morals … each of them had worked whole citydistricts on their backs … they descended on Grandpa, delicate fists swinging … he knocked the two shrews out … then we jumped into the taxi …

  —Possibility Square …

  We passed a police car … they were too late … The taxi drivers days were numbered … you could see it immediately … he was depressed … unhappiness dripped from every pore … he looked like he’d singlehandedly shouldered the blame for the genocides in Equatorial Guinea, Rwanda, and Burundi … Ropes and knives, bridges and guns send secret signals to guys like that … Grandpa talked about the Summa Theologica, asked the driver if he really thought that Socrates blew Alcibiades …

  —I don’t know …

  —Can you believe that I’m made up of quark-gluon-plasma! I needed cura but I got usural

  —Uh-huh …

  —Now you’ve wounded me! We gotta make it right …

  —Be quiet, you shit …

  —Did you just cuss at me?! you devil! How’s that for manners! With that sweet mouth, I bet you’re just a babyfucking homo! Plebian! Cuckold! Cirdejerker! Democrat!

  The driver slammed on the brakes, told us to pay and get out …

  —What the … don’t you want to kiss and make up … ?

  —Pay the damn seventy-eight kroner and get out! You’ve crossed the line!

  —I crossed it a long time ago, friend … Fuck me, but you look just like Allende …

  The driver glared at Grandpa in the rearview mirror …

  —You are Allende! Confess it, you devil! You escaped your just deserts! You thought you were safe! But now you’ve met Los Novios de la Muertel

  Just like that the pianowire was around Allende’s throat … in a flash and a gurgle he was dead … We hauled the cadaver out of the car, emptied the cashbox, and then Grandpa burned rubber toward downtown … He forgot to brake at a red light outside of Expolaris … We hit a Renault with an average Joe inside … the cars came together in a tangle of bumpers and trailerhooks … we got out and taught the guy a lesson … then we beat a retreat …

  —Let’s go to Scandic and have a beer!

  It was nearby … big and fancy and askew and it had a glassceiling … they wouldn’t let us in …

  —Come on, Taisto, Grandpa begged, were as good as any of them!

  —It’s got nothing to do with that … the boy’s too young and you’re both drunk …

  —I’m shitsober! I swear! I just had a beer with my sausage, that’s all!

  —No point in arguing … we’ve got our rules …

  Grandpa paused a moment …

  —Can’t we just come in and get warm … See, I look just like Twiggy! and the boy here is a carboncopy of Genet! I know that gay hairdresser, Moshe Bindefeld! I participated in “Glaube und Schönheit”! We aren’t sybarites, if that’s what you thought! I’ve got pubelocks from both Ulyanov and Jughashvili!

  When the bouncer was least expecting it, Grandpa stuck a knife in his belly.

  —One side, seacalf!

  Grandpa sliced a cyclist across the face, flung himself up on his bike, and peddled away … He made the sign of the cross, so I understood we’d meet at the nearest church … I raced past the Canal School, alongside Nygatan … they were after me … two big boors … Kodiak bears … their legs pumped like pistons … their shoes slapped the pavement … I knew it was a matter of life or death … if they caught me, it was all over … they Parted panting … lagged behind … I picked up the pace … they gave up … I kept running … came to my senses … found my way back to St. Olaf … Grandpa was waiting for me in the dark … I saw his ciggiglow …

  —I just knew it, mite … You’re a little Aouita in the rough … now if you could just get rid of those lovehandles …

  He pulled me under the streetlight.

  —Before we go into Etage, I need to have a look at you …

  Sincerely feigned dismay lit his eyes …

  —What a sight! The worst I’ve ever seen! It’d make anyone sick just looking at you!

  —What is it, Grandpa?

  —You probably look like this all the time! But I never look at you this closely! No wonder they wouldn’t let us in! … you’re Elephant Man in the flesh … or maybe the sexhungry monster in Tobe Hooper’s Funhouse … we’ve got to do something about this …

  We hid behind the churchyard wall … after a little while two blond, nineteen-year-old shebeasts came strolling along … infuckme outfits … chatting like naughty kiddos on the way to a Christmastreeplundering … Grandpa blocked their path …

  —Greetings, Judith and Salome …

  They stepped into the street, to hell with Grandpa … Resolutely, he grabbed their manes and cracked their skulls together … a few times … there was a squishypopping sound … their eyebrows and lips split open … they fainted … Grandpa drew out his Game Skinner and began to scalp one expertly … with conquistadorian flair he held up a blooddripping blonde wig …

  —When you put it on, make sure the blood soaks your hair … that way it’ll stick …

  While I did that, he rooted around in the little floozy’s purse for her makeupcase …

  —Let’s see, a bit of red and black on your humdrum face and you might reel in a little MS-cock, if you’re lucky …

  He fixed me up under the streetlamp’s deadwhite light, and then I caught a glimpse of myself in the case’s little round mirror … I looked damned … in a different way than usual, I mean … I changed into the girl’s black eelskindress, put on her suedejacket, hose, and pumps …

  —There you go, now you’re a fullfledged whore …

  We made our way into the city … humanity babbled around us … A Sunday evening makes you want to trashtalk your country more than St. Bernhard and St. Goytisolo combined … Grandpa sang “Der Tod sei unser Kampfgenoss, wir sind die schwarzen Scharen!” We passed a fat, ugly statue … stores … Kid and Nervefiber … Blast-Furnace Bazaar … Salamander Optics … Inside a doorway, Lars “Humpy” Holmgren was on his knees, trying to give a pal a blowjob … Rönnmarks … Thylins … Dåmus … around the corner past the Sparkbanken … Etage … Malmia … Into the lobby, which stank of dirty living … ropes formed barriers … we took the lefthand path, as we always do … the bouncers nodded their understanding … Grandpa shelled out two hundred kroner … they let us in … I left my jacket with a humanoid behind the counter … got a little plastic ticket as a reminder … We went downstairs … afrojudaic rhythms were pounding … the light was glaring … people were playing roulette … the room looked promising, it was packed with boys … G andpa recognized a few initiates and winked … he’d brought me to the temple of pleasure and love … It was dark, smoky, warm, and fleshpacked … rotten and raw … idols and progeny … Jungle rhythms thumped … waking vulgar desires … a shething was singing like she was in pain … why don’t you touch me … waa-a-oa-a-a-aaa … A maze of stairs led up and down to the dance floor … We formed a Boar Snout and shouldered our way to the central bar … scooted in next to Tomas Sandström and UfFe Samuelsson, who robustly caressed each others hardused cocks through their stonewashed jeans … Judge Stäglich was in a heated discussion with Mailer, Ärkesnärt was looking on, three Greenlanders, Kennet, Rolf, and Kjell tried to outdo each other in piggishness … Grandpa ordered a drink …

  —A Fanfarlo and a Horla, please! Those are absinthes!

  They didn’t have any …

  —A Mafarka and an Uomo finito then!

  They didn’t have those either …

  —Two beers on the house! Just joking!

  A skinny, stuckup redhaired primadonna poured the beer …

  —Nine
ty-six kroner.

  —Couldn’t you give Zebulon and Bombi Bitt a break …

  —No …

  Grandpa sipped the foam and then took a couple of gulps … bared his goldteeth …

  —Tonight will make the Battle of Catalaunian Fields look like Sunday school!

  He had to shout to be heard over the music …

  —I haven’t felt this pumped since they shot Kennedy and MLK!

  Grandpa bent toward a shy, sweet boy with a deshimaric expression, the kid looked like he was trying to become a part of the mineral kingdom … Grandpa recited Mallarmes “The Afternoon of a Faun,” toasted him, and turned back to me …

  —I’m going make the rounds … Wait here …

  He forced his way up the stairs to another bar … doling out punches and benedictions … mockeries and hypocrisies … parodies and repartees … people eyed him askance … I leaned on the rail overlooking the dance floor … It was jampacked … flooded with bodies … they jerked and twitched spasmodically … they looked like they were doing jumping jacks … it thumped and throbbed … some poor bastard was singing: “she has sperm in her hair that only I can see” … While I was standing there, a tall, balding man in wirerimmed glasses and a jetblack outfit came up and touched my breasts … he didn’t have a prayer … He smelled like Absolut Citron, insisted he was Ignatius of Loyola, a member of the Leibstandarte, and a necrology student in Uppsala …

  —Can I give you an enema …

  -No, thank you …

  —Abdominal abominations! he shouted. Back off, bitch! Can I at least take your temperature?

  —I said no …

  He folded his hands in a parody of prayer … Then he slurred out “lord of silence, supreme god of desolation,” wrote “Make love, don’t fuck! The soul of a woman was created below Jesus Christ I beg your pardon you indescribable tramp …” on a napkin and stumbled on, looking for a woman to love him to death …

  Grandpa came back from his adventure, elbowed aside some little windbag …

  —What a drag! I had to lace some glasses with cyanide up there, this place is just crawling with heteros!

  Despondently, he examined the rocking and writhing clumps of flesh lit by the flashing lights way up on the ceiling … the song ended … the next number was a slow one … Steers hit cows up for a dance … it was disgusting … it’s only Gere and Swayze who respected gender boundaries … they danced hip-to-hip, mouth-to-mouth … If I could only find words, to tell you I’m sorry … A big, bushybearded, greeneyed man of indeterminate age shoved his way to the railing … He smiled a shy, miserly, unpleasant smile at Grandpa … he had on a black shirt with a big silver Thor’s Hammer around his neck … Levi’s 503 . . fucking jew-jeans … still, he had a nice ass … hard to say if he was sad or mad … Grandpa went up to him … laughed condescendingly … kissed him tyrannically … they got to talking … two of Satan’s own … they seemed mighty friendly … their conversation lasteda while … I gave a couple of guys high up on the permillascale the brush off … tossed my hair and smoked like a girl …

  They parted with a handshake … Then Grandpa yelled in my ear …

  —Nikanor’s one of a kind! There’s no one who can taunt cunt as disgustingly as he! When he was young and soursweet, he sullied his magnificent vandalcock in more than a few rancid hellholes, let me tell you! He likes to think of himself as an intransigent refractor! That is, until the next bout of cuddlesickness hits him! Then he shifts into overdrive!

  —God creates work and Old Nick stress …

  —Exactly! But he’s a good guy, just a little weak and indecisive … If anyone can describe the way the world works, it’s him … Odin speaks through him … right now he’s working on “Lovesong to the Maneating Animal,” plus a distortion on “The Biological Abnormality of a Woman’s Need to Breed” … He’s the last true Nietzschean … a courteous, lecherous voyeur …

  The music begin again, “My Home Town” by the Wankadies.

  —Time to stir the pot, mite!

  Grandpa asked everyone in sight to dance, but they said no … then he guzzled their beer … a storm was brewing … There was a crowd at his heels … a bunch of beefyoafs … giantbabes … young-pups … They didn’t attack, because he looked so frail … but they told him to pay for the beer … Grandpa gestured and joked … the trashier tramps laughed … the swankier skanks drew back … the mob closed its ranks … drowned out Grandpa with scurrilous words … suddenly he was holding a silenced Glock … he started with the loudmouths … three of them fell with holes betweentheir eyes … Grandpa headed for the exit and I followed … it was hard to make progress … I slit my skirt up so I could go faster … Grandpa shot a bouncer in the belly … stabbed a pair of leviathans … We sprang across the square … Grandpa reloaded in flight … turned and shot down the two who were chasing us … more were coming … We sprinted past a kiosk … a dark car was making a turn … Grandpa wrenched open the back door … waved his Glock … three passengers threw themselves out … we hopped in … Grandpa told the guy to drive like Holy Mary was giving birth in the backseat … tires squealed … past the policestation … onto the E4 … going the wrong direction … north … I mumbled the end of the 137th Psalm, the same thing Signar dreamt about: “O Daughter of Babylon, doomed to destruction, happy is he who repays you for what you have done to us—he who seizes your infants and dashes them against the rocks” … The driver got into the right lane at the Kanalgate intersection … no one was following us … we were headed home … away from the city of woe, eternal pain, the population of loss …

  —Well, that’s an evening that will go down in history … it was so fucking boring … Everyone and everything was just nasty and ugly … it takes your breath away … it bowls you over … shocks you to the core … They’re like the Viet Cong and Hezbollah all rolled into one … I’m not used to that kind of reception … And you, you asspicker, you’d defend them, wouldn’t you, he said to the driver, shoving the gun into his neck.

  —Please, I don’t know what you’re talking about … but I’ll take you wherever you want to go, just don’t hurt me …

  —We want to go to Hebbershålet … You know where that is?

  —Somewhere around Hebbersliden …

  —It’s the Land of the Hyperboreans … can’t be reached by land or sea … It’s airyanem vaejo … swetadvipa …

  —Just tell me where to go …

  —To the journey’s end …

  Me and Grandpa sat quietly and watched the darkness race by. The coniferoustrees embraced their lost sons … In Hebbersfors, Grandpa hold the guy to stop … shot him in coldblood … with coldblooded courage … a lot is excusable, when you don’t get worked up … We nicked a couple of bikes and rode to Västbäcks Bridge … cross at your own risk … Then we went home, just as cold, tired, and loveless as before … We crawled into bed, both agreeing it would be a long, long time before we went clubbing or pubbing again.

  __________

  PUBLICATAE ENIM PUDICITIAE NULLA VENIA—“The loss of chastity meets with no indulgence”

  FURTHERMORE, SINCE THEY DID NOT THINK, ETC.—Romans 1:28

  BIKILA—Abebe, champion marathon runner from Ethiopia

  SYDOW—Max von, Swedish actor

  MISHIMA—pen name of Japanese author Kimitake Hiraoka

  ISSEI SAGAWA—murdered a Dutch classmate while attending school at the Sorbonne in 1981, eating part of her corpse; having returned to his homeland, he is now free and enjoys a cult following of sorts (books and films have been made about him, rockbands sing his praise)

  MALLEUS MALEFICARUM—1486 treatise on witches, by Heinrich Kramer, Inquisitor

  SOMETHING BUSTLED IN THE HEDGEROW—see “Stairway to Heaven” by Led Zeppelin

  JACQUES DE MOLAY—Grand Master of the Knights Templar, burned alive on the order of Philip the Fair

  HERMANN VON SALZA—Grand Master of the Teutonic Knights from 1210–1239

  SIEGRUNEN—Waffen-SS history
journal

  TEIRESIAS—seer punished with blindness by coweyed Hera when he claimed that women enjoy the “love act” incomparably more than men

  AIF—corruption of AIK, the town of Skellefteås beloved hockey team

  JOCKO NYSTRÖM—Joakim Nyström: tennis player from Skellefteå

  ERIKA NORBERG—Swedish journalist

  MATS WILANDER—Swedish tennis player

  MALMSTEEN—Swedish heavy metal rocker

  IVAR LOB JOHANSSON—Ivar Lo-Johansson: Swedish author, wrote Only a Mother

  MORA MARTINSSON—Helge Maria Swarts, also known as Moa Martinson: Swedish author of Mor gifter sig (Mother Gets Married)

  VILGOT MOBERG—Vilhelm Moberg: Swedish author, wrote A Time on Earth.

  JESUS GARDELL—Jonas Gardell: Swedish author

  KLAS ÖSTERGREN—Claus östergren: Swedish author, wrote Attila

  MARAN KANDRE—Mare Kandre: Swedish author, wrote Bübins unge (Bübins Child)

  POVEL RAMEL—Swedish entertainer

  TAGE DANIELSSON—Swedish author and entertainer

  EVERT TAUBE—Swedish author and entertainer

  TAGE AND AINA—Aina Erlander was married to the Swedish prime minster, Tage Erlander, for fifty-five years

  CORNELIS VREESWIJK—Dutch singer-songwriter, put out a tribute album to Evert Taube entitled “Cornelis sjunger Taube” (Cornelis Sings Taube)

  KJELL-OLOF FÄLT—Kjell-Olof Feldt: Swedish social-democratic politician, wrote a memoir entitled Alla dessa dagar (All These Days)

  LAZAR KAGANOVICH—Soviet politican, known as the “Iron Lazar” for the zeal with which he carried out Stalin’s orders