Nikanor Teratologen - Assisted Living - A Novel

— No crying! Grandpa shrieked.

Then he pounded their milkteeth out with a mortar.

— Suck on God, he grunted and grabbed the kid with the blondest hair. Here’s a lipstick for you to chew on.

When he was finished with their mouths, he told me to get him a fistful of steel wool. Then he started playing Open the Locked Door with the first kid. The other one curtsied and bowed to Hilding, but a knee to the face took his breath away. After that, Royal showed him how to smoke Sumatra cigarillos and Hilding forced the kid to kiss him down there.

— Try it, you might like it, old Auntie Marlene grumbled when the kid wouldn’t open wide.

— Mind your manners, Royal groaned at the one Grandpa had just released.

— He’s nothing to write home about himself, Grandpa said, winking meaningfully at the urchin and swallowing a fistful of Oxazepam. I mean, his meat is all rotten, he continued, squeezing Royal’s doughy manhood with a look of disgust.

— What did you say about my boy? Hilding demanded.

— The worst thing about you, Hilding, is that you howl when you shit. You don’t even know when it’s over. Get out of my house, asscunt, and take the buggerbitch with you.

— You’re real pissy all of a sudden, Hilding laughed and fondled himself.

— Start walking, Grandpa ordered. Don’t let the door hit you in the ass, you old gypsydevil.

— You know, people talk too much, Hilding said spitefully. And you know what they’ve been saying about you, Grandpa?

— I don’t give a rat’s ass.

— They call you and the boy Pimplejuice and Soursprout, and they say your asshole’s so dogeared it wouldn’t sell at the dollar-store, and that your boy’s so ugly he has to suck invalids just so he can afford the next issue of Korak, Son of Tarzanl You’ve sucked your last dick, Grandpageezer, that I can promise you! Hilding went on cockily, grabbing an old rifle out of the trashbag.

— What the hell are you talking about, Grandpa hiccuped. Have you no sense of decency in you?

— You’re about to find out, old sport. Get ready for a bullet in the twat! Prepare yourself for your last good pounding!

I flew at Hilding and started biting his neckrolls.

— What are you doing, you garbagegrub? he screamed and punched me where it counts.

In the meantime, Grandpa had knocked Royal out with a piece of firewood. Marlene was what you might call a hardened fighter, but I grabbed his dick and squeezed until he laid down his weapon.

— Leave off, mite, Grandpa said, clutching his heart, you’ll be the death of me! You know, Hilding Marlene, you’re the worst thing I’ve seen since Olga Korbut and Ida Nudel sang “Dancing in the Streets” in Babi Yar! plus you’re a real balltwiddler when it comes to the old pushandshove!

— And you’re fucking sick in the head, snapped Hilding.

— Nah, I just got a foul mouth, but I want you to do something for me, Grandpa told him. I want you to clean my hiney. And then I want you to take it all back.

— Tell your funboy to drop my rod first, Hilding sulked.

— As if you’d get off so easy. No, it’s Holmträsk justice for you.

Hilding proved to be a good asskisser, and Grandpa began to purr with enjoyment. But Marlene was tired and hot and got into trouble when he burst Grandpas favorite boil. It was the one he’d got the Pekka Langer Medal from PRO(c) for.

— Go get him!

I went to town on Hilding’s nuts like there was no tomorrow and that stopped him in his tracks. He was too drunk to really feel pain, though. Without a word he dragged Royal out the door, through the empty hall, out the front door, past the trashpile, through the sewerpit, and into their car. Then they wobbled and jerked away.

— Byebye now, and if more like you turn up, we’ll say byebye to them, too! I yelled after the Marleners.

— Now, I knew Hilding was a bastard, but I never thought he’d go and make such a fool of himself. He can’t fuck, he can’t fight, what a fucking buggerbeast! But you did good, boy, he told me, giving me a thumb’s up in just the right spot.

— Let’s kill the kids, I said, mainly because I wanted Grandpa to myself.

We went in, leaving the starry sky to cast its spell over the ashgray landscape. One kid was already dead, but the other tried to fight back. Grandpa knifed him and let him bleed out.

— Tomorrow we’ll put them in the trashbag and toss them out with Hilding’s gun.

Grandpa went around and turned off the lights and then we went to bed. Grandpa washed up with jewfatsoap and gypsyshampoo. I gurgled with ammonia. After that, we were almost ready for bed.

— Say a prayer to my old Grandpa in hell, Grandpa ordered, pulling a poliosweater over his head.

— He who knows what a child is, fuck me because I’m small, wherever I go in this world, fill my hands with shit, Satan comes, Satan goes, he loves sheepdick, that’s all, I recited.

— I don’t have any energy for flirting and fondling, mite, Grandpa said after we’d crept under the pigskin. Stick a cherry-bomb up your ass and light it.

I had to do what he asked, because he’s a hard man. Afterward, he licked my sweetspot.

— Fall nights are like a kid’s ass, always wet, he mumbled before he slept.

He snored like a hornytoad. Softly, I stroked his beautiful head and dried the tears off his dry, cracked chin. Then I crept as near him as I could, pressed my body close and shook with silent sobs. I hadn’t been this horny since my dad’s mom died.

__________

Greve Hamilton — Swedish pipe tobacco

Abd Ur Rama — a fakir who turned up in Skellefteå in the 1930s and liked to stick long, coarse nails through diverse body parts

pitchhat — a gummy leather cap that sticks fast to a child’s scurfy, lice infested skull; when it’s pulled away, it takes both hair and dandruff with it

weaner — anti-suckling device used on calves

metho — denatured alcohol

epileptric …—literally “prince sausage,” a small Swedish sausage

Bukuttingi — literally “high hill,” one of the largest cities in West Sumatra

Rascher — Sigmund: Nazi doctor who carried out altitude and cold experiements with deadly results in the concentration camps

Gundestrup cauldron — Celtic archeological find

Gosta “Snoddas” Nordgren — Swedish singer and actor

Olga Korbut — Belarusian gymnast

Ida Nudel — Soviet-born Israeli activist

Holmträsk justice — the way of the fist

Medal from PRO(c) — an award instituted by the breakaway faction of the Public Retiree Organization, PRO-cocksuckers; given to the cock-sucking fogy with the fattest and ripest assboil

The one thing I remember about living with my dads mom is that she liked to keep an even tone. She had a habit of suppressing laughter … I think Grandma was obese … complex … addicted to smokes … she knew what people were about, gave them all they could stand … she never talked to me, what would be the point of that … not that it made any difference … she took me in so she’d have someone to blame … she was enough and more than enough … she knew a thing or two … folded up toward the finish … she’d have had plenty left to take out on other people, if she hadn’t been so goddamned horny … everyone said so … they were right, though it sounds strange … we had it good, though … I and she … she and I … we just shut each other out … nothing was ever planned in advance … she wrung each day by the neck … sometimes she was sick … nothing to do then but starve … she’d sit with her head under the faucet … running cold water for hours … for days … she never told anyone what was wrong … she had a nose for slaughtersites … good grub to be had there … it was enough … since I received, I kept my mouth shut … she was a midwife once … when people got all upset at her, she just stonewalled them … she didn’t give a fuck … no point in getting your dander up … let them keep on keeping on, if that’s how they wanted to play it … that’s just how she was … I was safe … nothing ever changed … day and night, summer and winter … there was just a kitchen and a Grandma … a silence like outerspace … she did the best she could … it was the way she was made … it was all she’d ever known … she wouldn’t tolerate baloney and hogwash … if things weren’t normal, she made them that way … order and manners never killed anyone … she didn’t want to be a bother … didn’t want to make a fuss … just wanted to keep an even tone …