Nikanor Teratologen - Assisted Living - A Novel

Well I remember how Holger looked and sounded when I broke the news to him. He was even paler than usual and was weepy as an orgasm.

“My Nordic brain just can’t wrap itself around the fact that Wolrad could behave in such a despicable way toward an innocent child.”

“So it’s certain that you don’t know anything else about the matter?”

“Just as certain as the sun rises in the north.”

None of the men could be convinced of his guilt. But the sexual-offense wasn’t the only serious charge. For example, Holger was cited several times for the persecution of minorities. I sat down with him a couple of years later, when he came sauntering in on a charge that he’d been trying to instigate a pogrom.

I’m reading directly from the interrogation report:

“So, Holger… perhaps you know why you’re here?” “You call, I come a-runnin’, massa.”

“Stop right there! Now, a pious little auntie called in and told us that you were bragging outside Bauta Gym in Kusmark about how you bathed in Jewblood during the war and how much you’d like to relive those good old evil days.”

“What?! You think I have anything against Jewdevils? Me, who’s always preached circumcision and bloody offerings! Besides, one of the best lovers I’ve ever had was a hooknosed, curlyhaired kosherslaughterer, whateverthefuck his name was.”

“You’re supposed to have said that they should be roasted in their own fat.”

“All I might’ve said about Jeeeews, is that they’re nice and greasy. . Shit, I got my Weltanschauung from Lukåcs, Jiminy Cricket, and Marcuse!”

“Here’s the deal, Holger. If we get another report that you’re threatening the inferior races with beatings and gassings, we’ll have to set you straight in court, that’s just the way it is. Agda Meir isn’t the first we’ve heard from.” “Lots of people are envious that I’ve got the gift of gab, the eyes of a serpent, and the body of a mannequin.” “You’ve sworn to call down sorrow and damnation on everything from Samis to niggers, and a lot of it reminds me of that German character… you know… ummm… what the hell’s his name…”

“Heini Hemmi?”

“That’s the one … but what I wanted to say is that you have to hold your tongue about how the swarthyhost must be exterminated, and so forth, because this here is a Free Church district, and people have enough trouble just keeping their privates clean …”

Otherwise, Holger Holmlund was usually too drunk and horny to give a damn about politics and religion. As to drugs, we never could pin anything on him when it came to moonshine and dope. If I call to mind all the fruidess accusations against and investigations of Holmlund, it’s striking how skillful he was at squirming his way out of them — there were hardly ever any reliable witnesses and he usually had someone whod vouch for him. If nothing else, Henning Sjöström always backed him up. If we just take the second half of the sixties, we have: Sex with a minor … pettytheft … misappropriation of movi-estarphotos … misuse of difficult words … coitusinterruptus … exposing a slackcock … serving foreign spiritual powers … subversion … scootertheft … prankcalling … arson … genocide … needless neediness … badmouthing popularlyelectedofficials … elitism … enginetampering … murderfucking … unlawful giggling … scandalous braggadocio … blasphemy … bestiality … disturbing the peace of the grave … cannibalism … serious assault … incest … loquaciousness … failure to commit suicide … sex with the overaged … drunkenness … melancholy … lightheartedness … hermaphroditism … failure to move beyond the analstage … indigestion … hightreason … making rudegestures at the grievanceofficer … violentresistance … poorgrooming … instigation of Satantic sadism … possession of a forbidden analstimulator … massmurder …

That last one makes for a strange story. Holmlund and some southern queerbeard nailed together a house of worship in Gran, where they subsequently lured old and decrepit shrews by promising them spiritual guidance and Extreme Unction. In and of itself, that wasn’t illegal, but when a roving shiteater by the name of Assar Lalla happened by and saw Holger and the foreigner performing a shitfaced bloodeagle on a crookbacked oldcunt, he sprang over to the policestation and we drove off in a riotcontroltruck. It was a lovely September day, when nature’s at deaths door. Sirens blaring, we screeched to the turnaround. Holger and the other geezer came out on the bridge to see what was up.

“So, Holmlund,” said a respectable old inspector, who used raw porkshanks instead of diapers, “where’ve you stashed all the poor wretches you’ve offed?”

“But Hugglund!” Holger twittered and bravely struggled to wipe away his Polish grin, “surely you know me well enough to see how gaga I am about my fellow man? The women who came to my and Poglavnik’s chapel were saved, ask them yourself.”

“We’ll get to that, but now why don’t you be good boys and take your clothes off.”

They did that and the inspector paid their orifices a little visit. The queerbeard looked ancient, but he rasped out some perverse rubbish when the inspector started poking around in his outstretched asshole. He got a baton to the nose, which sent him to the ground.

“You aren’t thinking about beating up an oldgeezer who doesn’t even know if God exists or not?!” Holmlund objected.

A pimply subordinate kneed him in the crotch.

“Holger and Ante, I wanted to let you know that you’re suspected of torture and murder. So why don’t you hang around for a coffee and a chat,” the inspector rumbled.

“Whatthefuck,” the queerbeard jabbered.

“Alrighty,” Grampa said and put out his cigarette with his tongue.

We held them for three days and three nights, and we put clamps on their urethras so they couldn’t piss. They weren’t allowed to sleep and were forced to listen to Barry Manilow while they were in their cells. But the old cows in the rootcellars around the synagogue unanimously insis ed that Holger and Ante were virile and sweet, and that they could preach the shorthairs right off you. None of them had witnessed any violence. At the same time, Assar Lalla, the only witness, disappeared for good in the unexplored mangroveforests in the innermost part of the Bay of Bothnia. Since we hadn’t found any graves or bodyparts in Gran, the two reprobates got off. Not too many days passed before the satanicsynagogue burned down and a dozen invalids perished …

“Do you know anything about this, Holmlund?” the inspector asked over the telephone.

“Even less than I know about the femaleorgasm and the origin of the ovenuniverse!” he answered.

So the matter was dropped.

There were hundreds of accusations against him, but none of them ever got to court. If I pick up the list again at the start of the seventies, we have: molestation of elkhunters … premature ejaculation … excessive wit … implausibility … mimicry … shyness … vampirism … teratology … reevaluation of all values …

__________

rikscancer — play on the title Reichskanzler

metestrus — period of sexual inactivity that follows estrus

gawd — nutso galorum — totally wrong

prince of this world — the devil

GB-Gubbe — mascot in ads for the Swedish ice-cream company GB Glace: a pudgy clown with a sickeningly sweet smile tipping his hat to the world

kicksled — a sled consisting of a chair mounted on flexible metal runners; the sled is driven by kicking the ground as you go

lefse — thin, unleavened bread of Norwegian origin. Called klådda in Sweden

Steffan and Bengt — characters on a Swedish television series