Nikanor Teratologen - Assisted Living - A Novel

Grandpa fell quiet, kissed me hard on the mouth, put me down, and stood up.

— Its getting colder, he said, gathering up his heatingpad and trudging on.

The ravens launched themselves heavily, silently, into the air. I followed after, and it was like I was walking through a mist … into that darkness, silence, cold and loneliness …

This is where we come from, that is where were going, so we might as well start breaking ourselves of the habit of living …

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Нuldra — an elusive forest nymph in Scandanavian folklore

zingaros — gypsies

urnings — homosexuals

bedlamites — madmen

navvies — day laborers

Claqueurs — hired clappers

quislings — traitors to ones’ country

lotitos — Michel Lotito, the famous metal-eater

wankhers, dirdirs, and pnumes — see Jack Vance

haruchai, skest, and jheherrin — see Stephen R. Donaldson

coalbiter — idle youth

bunco — fraud

barghests — legendary, giant black dog with huge teeth and claws found in the north of England, particularly around Yorkshire

abhumanist — see Jacques Audiberti

kurucarriers — kuru, also known as “laughing sickness,” is a neurological disease made famous by an epidemic that broke out in Papua New Guinea in the mid-twentieth century; the disorder is believed to have been spread by endocannibalism, or the eating of the dead of one’s own tribe

Helusians, Oxioners, and Finlanders — Helusians and Oxioners are the tribes that Tacitus found “beyond existence,” where the known world ended; they “have heads and faces of men, but the remainder of the body is a wild animal.” As sharp-featured Cornelius concludes: “quod ego ut incompertum in medio relinquam” inkslinger — tattoo artist cockmaker — maker of bridges or pallets for watches and clocks Teja — Last of the Ostrogoth kings in Itay, led the desparate fight against the Byzantine army in the years 552–553.

Gelimer — last king of the Vandals

— As long as you can make others suffer, there’s no reason to throw in the towel, Grandpa exclaimed jovially.

He sat in a rocking chair sewing on a Confederate flag. Ein Heldenleben was playing in the background and Larri Isokyrpä and Torsten Murkström were just saying thanks for the coffee-kind of ironic, since Grandpa had mixed strychnine into it and it was just now starting to work. You have to find something to do, you know, when things get slow. Anyway, Larri lived a while longer, looked me in the eye, tossed his head, kicked a bit, but it didn’t help. That guy was a loudmouthed jerk who’d rearrange the face of any kid he could catch, making their two nostrils into one. And now they lay there, blueberryblue about the lips, and Grandpa put aside his handiwork and came up to them.

— We are here today to mourn my two dearest friends, who’ve up and left us with raging hardons … Lets start with Torsten, he said, kicking the corpse hard in the ear … Torsten Murkström signed off at the unrespectable age of sixty-nine …

Grandpa folded his hands in mock solemnity, he was wearing a pink nightshirt and fuzzyblack poodleslippers.

— His arrival into the world was a nasty surprise to his parents. His family scraped a living by making scenes in public … Torsten was known early on for his slowwit and charmingservility. At a young age, he’d already learned to fart on the sly and smoke ciggibutts …

Grandpa struggled to keep his face serious.

— He spent his whole life trolling the cabins of charcoalburners and logfloaters, trying his best to satisfy them all … He’d suck cock for a spoonful of fishentrails and an oldfashioned spanking … It was his life’s calling to make a bad situation worse. He sowed oats and reaped sourmash … He enjoyed strumming on his kantele and sipping motyl … When he was stripped of his commission in the Cock and Cassock Society, he got old real quick … he had a habit of sitting with his head in the oven … he finally worked up the courage to ask Tellemar: How the hell do you do it? … he looked for the answer in the Siikavaara Bible … in vain … Torsten never married, but remained faithful his whole life to Upper Kågedalen … His chief mourner is a walkingstick … Torsten wants his headstone to read: “Thanks for nothing” …

Torsten was laying on his stomach on the tiles. Grandpa grabbed his head and twisted it so hard his neck broke.

— Look at me when I’m talking about you!

Then he turned to Larri.

— Dowser Larri Isokyrpä was finally allowed to peterout after a long and weary struggle with that terminalillness we call life … Larri was squeezed out of his Grandma’s womb under an uprootedtree in Myskträsk … He was the first in a long line of stillbornsiblings and he learned selfsufficiency early on … A procession of oddjobs and shortgigs passed him by … He was a THX-doctor, a Quaker, a rathawker, a puppywhipper, a snowman’s trunk … He married Ms. Glädis Noppa … and later on the nationally celebrated onanist Hardy Honkala from Gråliden … Frau Hardy kicked it at fifty-three … Life was often like a Rubik’s cube … Nonetheless, this remarkable man somehow found the strength to teach himself dipsomania! His vocabulary swelled to the tripledigits, he discovered words had more than four letters, then came his big, fat chance: a temp job as an outhouse asswiper in Råslyet, a kilometer and a half south of Västbäck … Larri worked hard at his many highly desirable jobs until his body finally failed him … he devoted his last seventeen years to outliving his children … He was a lifetime Jagoda’s Witness … His interests were many, but to name a few: stroke, pogroms, the lambethwalk, kiddie’s diddles, Siberianroulette and Hylands hörna … As a society member, he was unparalleled … his courses in bedwetting and gangrape were especially popular … The burial will take place under chaotic conditions … Donations can be made to the Dirty Geezer Fund …

Grandpa grabbed me by the neck and cackled Grandpalike at his own creativity.

— You know what we’re going to do now, child of mine?

— O no!

— First I’m going to take a long, hot manbath … And you’re going to make me coffee. Then we’re going to go outside and get a little fresh air. Why don’t you take out the Iron Crown of Lombardy and my Ripper suit … Methinks I want to look nice today …

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Ein Heldenleben —“A Hero’s Life,” tone poem by Richard Strauss motyl — expiremental mixture of petrol and alcohol used to power Swedish military vehicles during World War II

Tellemar — Hasse, Swedish radio host of the show Ringså spelar vi (Call us, and we’ll play your tune) from 1969–1988.

Siikavaara Bible — The Siikavaara sect, or Korpela movement, was started by Toivo Korpela in the 1920s

THX-doctor — THX, or thymus extract, was a natural remedy developed by the Swedish veterinarian Elix Sandberg; he claimed that THX could help with immune disorders and could even fight cancer

Hylands hörna —“Hylands Corner,” a popular Swedish TV program that ran from 1962–1983

Iron Crown of Lombardy — crown worn by Lombard rulers

Ripper suit — hunting clothes

—“Yet she became more and more promiscuous as she recalled the days of her youth, when she was a prostitute in Egypt. There she lusted after her lovers, whose genitals were like those of donkeys and whose emission was like that of horses” … Ho there, boy, Grandpa winked bawdily and dunked a sweetroll in his ginger-beer. Looks like we need to hop down to Egypt to troll for some real cock. Around here there’s hardly enough to live on.