Nikanor Teratologen - Assisted Living - A Novel

— We’ll have to visit the museum and alter history some other day!

We ran … they were still chasing us … Grandpa isn’t exactly Bikila … they were gaining on us … snapping at our heels … breathing down our necks … three sturdy boys in real bluejeans … Grandpa couldn’t catch his breath … he was wheezing like babyhamsters sucked up a vacuum … He stopped … laughed at fear … they started in on him … knocked him down … taunted and threatened him … scrapped in the gravel … the devils … it wasn’t going well … they didn’t give a fuck about me … I found a weapon … a cracked baseballbat … I struck without thinking … crushed the skulls of the two who were holding Grandpa … the third kicked out at me … the bat was useless … I rushed him … butted his crotch with my head … he folded … I headbutted him hard and heavy … when he lay curled on the ground, I started kicking him with my Doc Martens … until he cut the bullshit out … Grandpa finally got to his feet … his suit was definitely ruined … I dusted him off as well as I could …

— That was just mean … what a fuss, just because I took his juicyjuice … he didn’t even want it … But now we definitely need a real drink!

We headed downtown as charliehorses ran races up and down Grandpa’s legs.

— Everything’s closed, Grandpa!

— Calm down, boy … Trust me …

Most of what I’ve written about Skellefteå is stuff Grandpa’s told me. I asked him how he knew so much about the town.

— I had a little lover here … once upon a time, before I was a Grandpa … He was beautiful both above and below … but his ass would get so tender, one time I couldn’t even get my ringfinger up it … If he were still living here, we might arrange an introduction. There are too many dead souls here … evilspirits … more than I can stand, now that I’m sobering up …

We walked watchfully down the street. The buildings pressed together and were several stories tall … Shops and more shops … They sold clothes, jewelry, and household goods … stuff designed to keep up appearances … There were beautysalons, healthfood-stores, and sportsgoodsstores … so many chimerical promises … though a Fridaydoo and a Sundaymanicure will end up rotting in the grave just like everything else … There were whores everywhere you looked … lots were pushing strollers … lips dripping with honey, mouths more slippery than oil … I didn’t give a fuck about the women in this trashtown, I knew I’d survive … I knew that someday the Lord God Almighty would cover their scalps with sores, and expose their nasties for all the world to see … baldskin instead of permedhair, sackcloth instead of fineclothes, brandingirons instead of beauty … Grandpa put a protective hand on my neck.

— Never let them know what your thinking and you’ll be all right! That’s the only way to protect yourself!

It surprised me to see so many of those creatures, all thinking they were human … I’d never have believed it … But they were worlds away … continents away from each other … galaxies receding at the speed of light … These days people don’t have anything to say to each other … if they’d just sit down and think about it, though … that’s what they should write about … They think they know where they’re going … know where home is … placidly go to school and travel abroad …

They have names, jobs, pets, and securityblankets … friends and dependents … you can do without all that … just look at me and Grandpa … Traffic honked and screeched when we approached the crosswalk, but we made it across unscathed … The buildings got bigger … I fingered the upsidedown silver cross around my throat … comfort and security are the things they value above all … but that’s the last thing the world will give you … Up until now, all the world ever gave me was something to think about … a rawfuck every now and then … chronic heartburn … The people who bothered to notice us smirked and grimaced … people only have two reactions when they meet a Grandpas boy … indifference and contempt … Grandpa took off his Bogarthat and dried the coldsweat from his Sydowforehead … then put it back on … they tittled and tattled … Shriveledaunties, puffedu-puncles, snottycocks, insatiablecunts … Persians, Arabs, poodles, clones … Dummies, labrats, internalcombustianengines, sex-bots … Consumers, mutants, patients, lemurs … “The Count,” aka “Martin Bormann,” greeted Grandpa heartily and paraded next to us, lifting his legs a little too high … A retired, germaphobic driving instructor whose name Grandpa couldn’t remem-ber passed us clutching a tissue and looking desperate behind his poindexter glasses … “The King” and “Sweaty” had apparently taken a break from bingo and the lottery … they looked you in the eye and found you wanting … “Gypsy Rickard” and “Gypsy Allan” were heavilypetting two fat constables … Leif and “Mod-dan” were squabbling like so many times before … Leif had just puked on the toystores front steps … Maud looked off balance … Sten and Georg met like nothing was up … they smiled, victims of the same dullwitted maliciousness … “Kurt the Can,” who’d moved up in rank after “Little Herman,” the graybearded dwarf, died, was rooting around in the trash for something to pawn …

—“Little Herman” was the better man …

— Yeah, he had a certain something … Called everyone idiot, thought animals were smarter than people … fought assholes with his cane and made himself a cardboard hat … His cynical little brain didn’t even weigh a halfkilo … he was like a windup toydoll …

Tempo and Domus, the department stores, were right in front of us … but we weren’t welcome there … Grandpa had pinched a lawnmower and a freezer, once … The building was so tall that I got dizzy and reached for Grandpa’s hand … but he didn’t tolerate that kind of touching …

— Let’s go down to the citypark and look around … if nothing else, there’s probably someone sleeping it off on a bench … a stolen fuck with a comatose drunk can’t go wrong …

Video Lime had moved … it probably hadn’t gotten any better, so we spared ourselves the headache … they never had what we wanted … The best they ever had was Salö, Caligula, The Omen, The Evil Dead, The Silence of the Lambs, stuff like that … a little on the light side, but not half bad … You’d never find Suspiria, Trauma, or Tenebrae by Argento … no Cannibal Holocaust or The Texas Chain Saw Massacre … Grandpa had gone in and begged them to buy some quality familyfilms like The Children from Frostmos Mountain, Shiteating Teenies, Ass in a Virgin’s Ass, Carcass Rapist, Grampus Fucker, Marmot Mayhem … But no such luck … A photo shop had set out a truly merciless display of color pictures showing ugly mugs and corpses in varying stages of decomposition … Sluts in whitegowns and graduationcaps preened coquettishly … It was a goddamned menagerie … Absurd bridal pairs … the last couple out … the bride’s I-got-the-ring smile, the groom’s studied selfcontrol … Toddlers with moist, pouting mouths … Rundown, dressedup fortysomethings … Four generations, each worst than the last … All trying to smile and act like everything’s normal … One photo was cool, but unbelievably gross … a little mayqueen with terrified eyes sucking a goldbrown cock so hard she had grooves in her cheeks … it looked like Mishima’s … or maybe Issei Sagawa’s …

The Bay Leaf Bookstore was advertising the newest titles for fall … a stationary display … New releases from our folkhun-griest graphomanes … Ivar LOB Johansson’s monumental Only a Whore … Mora-Martinsson’s gripping Grandma Gets Married … Vilgot Mobergs fit-for-the-fire masterpiece Your Piece of Ground … And then some stale leftovers they’d oh-so-lovingly left out … Jesus Gardell s Mel Mermelsteins Hen Party … Claus Östergrens Bleda … Maran Kandre’s Baby’s Baby … They had Povel’s and Tages Love Letters … Taubes and Cornelis’s Love Letters … And Tages and Ainas Hate Letters … They were tryingto push Kjell-Olof Fälts memoirs, All These Fucking Shitdays … and Lazar Kaganovich’s childhoodmemories … And Traci Lords’s Inside My Cunt … The window on the other side of the door had books that were more to my taste: Boforprizewinner Eliot Cannetti’s lively novel The Confusing … Bruno Skult s crisp Cinammon Shops … And Robert Walser’s cocky Jakob von Gunten … Sven Hassel’s Kommando Reichsführer Holmlund … Tolkien’s Lord of the Cockring … Lovecraft’s Cthulhu (a true story) … and the Tintin comics, the best thing the worst terror on earth has brought us …