Assisted Living: A Novel (9 page)

The two old men took swigs that made their bodies shudder and thrash. Me—I dipped my blanky in paint thinner and enjoyed the sweet, sweet aroma.

—Hilding, my friend, Grandpa said, as he stretched, we brought along some snacks we’d be willing to share.

—Show me what you’ve got, Hilding hiccupped, staring glassyeyed, as I opened the basket and displayed the goodies. Rotten vealbrawn and pickled pigdick! And an old Swissroll! All this tasty stuffy for me? Thanks, thankyouthankyou, he stammered. But for the life of me, I don’t know how I’m going to keep these treats down, since I can’t even stomach dumplings, he complained and pointed to some enormous throatpuslumps, which had gone right through him. Each of them was as big as two clenched fists, had been swallowed whole, and were smeared with grease.

—Once a wackjob, always a wackjob, Grandpa sighed.

—Yeah, you are what you are, you can’t fart freely and be anal-retentive all at once, Hilding agreed and scratched at his head of German hair.

—Que será será, sweety, Grandpa muttered, taking a long drag from his ciggi and flicking ash on my fontanelle.

Senor Dahlgren set the table and Grandpa blessed our meal.

—Hold up, boy, you’re like a magpie over entrails, Hilding yelped, when he saw my mouth start to water.

—Big eyes, small gullet, Grandpa said sarcastically and rammed a fork into the roof of my mouth.

—The eyes say yes, the shithole no, Hilding declared, joining the fun.

Grandpa went at it like he was starving, but Hildings rotten piehole played it delicate.

—I have to take it slow, he admitted shamefully. Back in the day, oldfarts didn’t even have the heart to eat when food was actually plentiful. They’d have rather seen it go bad.

—The higher and mightier you get, the harder you fall, Grandpa chirped and wiped his mouth with the same rag Hilding’s guests used to dry their diarreacunts. You got anything stronger than this damned babypiss? he snorted, sending Hilding back to the pile of bottles.

—How about a schnapps, you old devil, Hilding coughed, wrapping a shitsmeared fist around his limp cock. Landrucognac, Kürtenvodka, and Druittgin!

—What the fuck? Have you gotten yourself saved? Grandpa asked in astonishment.

—Yessiree.

—God’s a man with marrow in his bones and sunshine in his eyes, Grandpa testified. He’s got bad breath, worse skin, superior manners, a delicate voice, and glasses. He’s ugly in a cute way, insanely funny, and pretty old for his age.

—Half of what you say excites me, the other half scares me, Hilding said, sweettalking his guest.

—You choking up, you old codger? Grandpa asked and mixed himself a misogynistdrink. We’re sworn bloodbrothers, remember? How about that time we spread ourselves open for Tore Hedin?

—I remember it well, Grandpa, and I bet you remember how pretty I was back then!

—You were sweet as a dead girl, Grandpa lied sourly and sipped at his drink.

—Right you are, Hilding proudly declared, smearing his infected ballsack with a salve of mashed pissants. But Tore Hedin was a real wackjob, he continued. He wanted me to do stupid, perverse stuff to his junk, so I put a stop to it.

—Tore was a queer one, easy to piss off, Grandpa reminisced.

—But when he hooked up with that old cow, that was just too much. But apples and oranges, different strokes and all that, he nodded sagaciously, inflated by his own wisdom. Then his tone turned maudlin. I told my boy, though, that no matter what life throws at you, don’t you take up with any girlypigs, because by Satan that’ll be the death of me!

—Too fucking perverted! Not a word more! shrieked Hilding in drunken terror, covering his ratgnawed earflaps with shaking hands.

Grandpa took him on his knee, hushing and cooing until everything was good again. Hilding crawled across the compostfloor and took a swig of something or other.

—Too bad daddy’s not alive today, he flung out. He was so fucking horny he brought home the village idiot. And one time he fucked Palo Spanish-style and pretended she was a he.

—Old Hilding was too much, chuckled Grandpa in nostalgic appreciation. “How long, how wide?” he nagged like the devil’s own idiot. He was like a broken record: your member should be short, thin, white, knotty, and supple, that’s what he’d say every time someone admired his own huge, redeyed donkeyballs.

—Papa’s back was always straight as a board, Hilding said, plopping down on a messy taboret. Poor guy always had the worst luck, he gasped. But by all the possessed wretches who sucked Jesus Christ’s bigone, do you remember the time we decided to rape Miller-Olle?!

—Oh, you! cackled Grandpa, getting goosebumps. You should know, you little shedevil, he smiled spitefully and caressed my ass, that even when I was a girlylad licking the cream from my own Grandpa’s cock, sex without violence was like thumbing a numb lappdick. So you can believe that I was all ohsweetLordhavemercy when whatthefuckshisname Hilding said: lets go and get our claws in old Mill-Olle. That was back in the good old days, when we were still nubile and sly.

—You’re fine the way you are now, Grandpa, I piped up tactfully.

—Go suck cunt! snapped Grandpa, mostly for the sake of appearances.

—It was a Sunday evening in a morbidly obese summer and I was perky and Hilding was all dolled up. We were crawling on all fours through Brylle’s yamfields, deadly afraid of aging dancing-slags. We had blueballs that ached like the nails through Christ’s hands getting nailed to the cross. By Satan, old Olle was going to get a shot in the rathole! When we got to the mill, we heard him humming and acting busy, and that was his mistake. I knocked on the mill door and, suddenly, it went quiet for a long time. He wasprobably hiding his dirty magazines, he liked
Donkey Love and Daisy Chain,
near as I remember. But the coward was cunning and he put on airs.

—“Who are you?” he squeaked. “The three little pigs!” Hilding rumbled. “Are not! You’re just teasing me. Say who you are!” “The good Samaritan,” I giggled and then Hilding broke into the flour-sack room. I followed him, prancing pony that I was. I was already loosening my belt and old Olle looked like he was about to cry.

—He hadn’t been such a fraidycat since Folke Bernadotte came to town, Hilding cut in with a slippery grin.

—“Who are you? I gotta get my hair cut!” the miller boy gasped, eyes like ashtrays, Grandpa continuined. “Don’t get your panties in a wad,” I said and that was it for the pleasantries. Hilding kicked him in the stomach so hard he puked up a waterrat and a catechism. Then Hilding dragged off his hopinbed jersey and pinioned him, while I pulled out his teeth with a pair of pliers. We threw him in a seedtrough and started loving him up. Hilding fucked him in the mouth and I took him in the ass and then we switched holes.

—Mother Teresa, you dryteated sow, we sure whored it up in Olles virginflesh, Hilding gushed, laying his arms around Grandpa’s neck. We sure raised the roof! And I think it was good for old Olle, too! Because, Lord bless me, how he howled!

—That’s what we came for, all right, Grandpa said, and that’s why, after a smokebreak, we decided to torture him. “A sour stab follows a sweet scratch,” as I used to tell Grandma when she was alive. But Olle’s squealing and groaning was starting to give me a headache. But since he was a real classact, he got the beating he deserved.

—Is there anything sweeter than forcing someone, who’s begging to die, to go ahead and live? sneered Hilding and put Grandpa’s right hand on his Jewscrew.

—We crowned him with a Tyrolese hat, just for shits and grins, laughed Grandpa. Then we fried his dick in a pot of boiling syrup. Hilding frenched him and bit off his tongue, right in the middle of a leechkiss, surely you remember that?

—Mmmhmm, Hilding said, amused. Suddenly he vomited up a meter of his intestines and had to push them back down his throat, bubbling blood.

—He got a broken bottle up his asshole, and then we fucked him in the eye until he died, Grandpa said. Miller-Olle was a repulsive devil all right, he jeered and lit a Rönnskärsciggi. The spitting image of Mikhaylov. People said his own Grandpa’s ass was an open invitation for Schuvaloff when the Russians played army with the Kåge boys during the old war, Grandpa continued, talking trash with an epicurian glint in his deadeyes. The Satancunt probably had Ruskyblood in him.

Hilding snorted blood and rubbed his rotten cock with an alcoholsoaked strip of bacon. He was bitter that neither Grandpas dirtytalk nor his spotted hand could make his kidbeater stand up straight. Grandpa saw how it was and knew that pretty soon Hilding was going to lose it. He put his arms around the upchucked skunkboas skinny shoulders and began buttoning up his crowhued blazer. Finally, he brushed the ash off his pink linen pants and fastened on his SS cap.

—Hilding darling, he whispered and held Hildings scabby hand against his sunken chest. I’m afraid I’ll be called home before we get the chance to mess around again. We could’ve had a good time,but you’ve gotten too fine for me. Now, now, he soothed when Hilding began to roar like a boar, you’re not long for this world, either. Be a good boy, Hilding, promise to take care of yourself.

We left Hilding Dahlgren foaming at the mouth and crawling across the floor with a nice piece by the GöingeGirls playing on the radio. The summer evening was soaked in sweat. Kåges air is always saturated with a primatefear. Grandpa unbuttoned his pants, squatted down, and took a shit. He caught the two gleaming sausages before they could drop, pulled up his pants and smeared the crap in some alamoder’s hairdo as she walked on by with her nose in the air. When she yelped, he suckerpunched her. Then we strolled on …

—You got a light? asked a skinny young drunk, and Grandpa doused him with ethanol and lit a match. We waited at the bus stop while he burned. Grandpa began to tell a story.

—It was a raw February morning in the Whoregod’s year of 1945, and me and Dirlewanger were partying in the orphanages ruins. “You know that Himmler’s balls taste like apricots, right?” he asked.

—“The fuck you say?!”

—“I swear. I heard about it when I served in” … But wait, is that Jalle driving the bus? He’ll probably make a pass at us. Hurry up, boy, let’s see if he’s hungry …

__________

Bauer and Beskow
—John Bauer and Elsa Beskow were Swedish children’s book artists

ostisch and fälisch
—East European and Phalian respectively, from Hans F. K. Gunthers studies on race

bwana Namnam
—Jesus Christ

Udumus
—a beast-man race that Jörg Lanz von Liebenfels identified on the Assyrian King Salmanassar’s black obelisk: hairy, half-stooped

Margot Wallström
—former vice-president of the European Commission

My Life’s Novel
—
Mitt livs novell
, literally “The Book of My Life,” a womens magazine in the 1970s that gave sex advice

Dzerzhinsky cough
—hacking cough, named for Felix Dzerzhinsky, first director of the Soviet secret police

Kosken
—Koskenkorva Viina, a clear Finnish spirit

Explorer
—a popular Swedish vodka

Homoslyr
—a pesticide

German hair
—soft, pliable wooly hair is said to be German, in Sweden

Landrucognac, Kürtenvodka, and Druittgin
—Henri Désiré, Peter, and Montagu, respectively: renowned killers of women; Druitt was even suspected of being Jack the Ripper

Tore Hedin
—Sweden’s worst mass murderer

Folke Bernadotte
—Swedish diplomat and nobleman

I gotta get my hair cut!
—said Red Rudi Dutschke, reportedly, after Josef Bachmann sent three bullets into him in 1968

Schuvaloff
—commander of a Russian army division that operated in Västerbotten in the war of 1808–1809

The monthly mail had come … which annoyed Grandpa something fierce …

—Bunk and drivel … demands, threats, summons … collections and distraints … preliminary investigations and surcharges … seven thousand in back taxes … Flat-out rejection of my application to be fancyfree … A certificate from NAMBLA … a premature Christmas cards from Leuchter, Swaggart, and Schwarzkopf … and Gudrun Schyman …

He poured more Cheetos onto a Kefir plate and sprinkled them with Ajax. Then he continued ripping open his letters, already disappointed beforehand.

—Norstedts wants me to describe my longsufFering death … two million in advance … then ten thousand kroner a page … Extra bonus for ultraviolence and hypersex … The devils are asking for a “concise backwatter tone” … Who do they think they’re dealing with … Burroughs and Bukowski! Writings like masturbating without fingers … But look, I’m being honored for my article on Baudrillard and Bataille in
Merkur
and
La Quinzaine littéraire …
A white flag from the world’s Jews via Mordecai Gottleben … Anoffer of credit, three billion from Dai-Bitching Kangyo Bank … if I stop abusing Japs and Jews, that is … A check for twenty-five thousand, because I’m so sad and lonely … from the Sigrid Visent Memorial Fund for Indigent Bastards … The latest issue of
Boy Butcher
 … Two books: Segev’s
Soldiers of Evil,
that’s about the worst concentrationcamp commanders, and Tankred Koch’s
History of Executioners …
Bonniers isn’t interested in my translation of the
Bibliomystikon
into Lappish … But here’s something nice … Gunnar sent a bunch of newly discovered bugs from the Upper Xingu River … Well look at them later …

Grandpa set the rhombusshaped piece of cardboard aside and sighed.

—An invitation from Michael Aquino and the Temple of Set … They want me to come to Wewelsburg and lead the ceremonies … I guess I could throw something together about the battle of the birch tree or something …AthankyoufromArtosPublishing
inSkellefteå … “Without YOUR participation the collected Meister Eckhart sermons wouldn’t have been possible!” … blahblahblah! who the hell cares … They should’ve been nice and sent me a rosycheeked cherub instead … I could’ve played Tiberius and the little fish … that little game Suetonius gossiped about … The cops want my expert expertise on an investigation into sexual attacks on children … An inquiry about whether I want to defend my S&M title … An offer to lead a course called “Trashing the Swedish Language” … The usual private weekly update from Peter Arnett … And last and certainly least, a picture postcard from Astro Lindgren … “I don’t know where I am … life sucks and I’m scared ..And here we have the latest diagnosis from the hospital … they’ve called in the bigguns from Jerrold Post’s Center for the Analysis of Personalityand Political Behavior to help them … I really worked up all the psychiatrists they sent to “help” me … They think I’m “an evil, phallic narcissist” with “necrophiliac tendencies” … A “schizophrenic solopsist” filled with “demonic rage, an insane thirst for revenge, and a wild contempt for the entire human race” … They talk about “total alienation,” “paranoid and sociopathic tendencies,” “sexual psychosis,” and “a fetishization of violence” … Poppycock and twaddle! … Up one side and down the other … contradictory bullshit … The only thing wrong with me is that I never got enough beatings or love …

Grandpa lit a Salem, took it out of his mouth, and stuffed in a horde of marzipanpiggies. He seemed apathetic and absent-minded. I slurped up the last of my oatmeal from the shallow bottom of my lucky plate. I’m not allowed to take milk or butter, but there was a little gunoil left, so I smeared it on a piece of sweetbread. Then I drank some Salubrin.

—Every letter, every telephone conversation, every visit, just another nail in my cross, Grandpa said, when he’d finally swallowed. People exist only to be corrupted and killed … I’ve spent my entire life leading the battle against humanity … The humananimal has had his time in the spotlight … Now he’ll have to eat what he’s puked up … He’s done the best he could … haircare and guidance on language usage … charters and therapies … cuntbrains … sisnadevas … orgasmaggregates … I’ll see their backs against the wall, I promise you that, Lustolito …

Grandpa exaggerates, but most of the time there’s something to what he says. Unfortunately, what came next made me want to laugh. Some say he’s fickle, but I don’t buy that … I know his game. He doesn’t always mean what he says.

—Grief, hate, and shame … They’re the pillars of the Krishnan throne … Life’s got three billion years by the scruff of the neck … Our screwball Creator’s great idea … Always the same old song … Kill, fuck, eat, shit … Hate, howl, carcass, fetus … Cum, blood, flesh, death … Struggle, bluff, fear, nausea … How strange we never get fed up … Long to get away … Look for something a little less garish … Life just leaves you hanging …

He smeared grease and snot on a rotting scab, glanced up, and saw that nothing ever changed … All was lost … Blueblack clouds were piling up, the wind shook the grumbling Worldtree. Evening here is always just around the corner. We don’t see the sun until it’s on its way down.

—Nasty looking clouds, I said. Looks like it’s going to be one hell of a folkstorm.

—Evil’s dark spirits, hosts, and principalities infecting the sky! Coming to take away the Philistines and Pharisees …

Grandpa moistened his thumb, gathered up a few golden breadcrumbs, and licked lips that would never be clean. Then he took some dirty swigs from a flask of Polish robberrum.

—Kids should be raised by animals … Jackels and baboons … otherwise, you just end up with crybabies … Sade’s the only writer who knew anything about love … Read, laugh, and enjoy … Laban and Åby are traitors … Piss is good … Hegel’s easy …

Grandpa’s hopscotching thoughts had stopped confusing me a long time ago. Logic is the first thing you’ve got to let go, if you want to be a Grandpa. “Logic is for whores, lawyers, diplomats, bankers, technologues, and professors … the earth’s damned!” he once said. “What’s more logical than an emancipated pussy?!” he liked to joke. “You should only use the genius God cursed youwith for tirades and diatribes … persiflage and pejoratives … interjections and imperatives … impulses and intuitions … idiosyncrasies stewed in internalsecretions … Just blasphemy and abuse …”

—I hate everything … Everything I know and everything that exists, everything I’ve dreamed and everything that could’ve been and wasn’t … I despise all the rest … Sweden’s cultural heritage would all fit in your average cunt … and that’s where it belongs, too … we’re gakis … wimps … archaebacteria in our festering sulphurate are our ancestors … World history reached its high-point with the Indian Thuggees … the Children’s Crusades of 1212, the Black Death and the Taiping Rebellion were good times, too … “Memoirs of the Kalda Railroad” was Kafka’s best work …
On the Jewish Question
was the best the eldest Marx brother had to offer … And so the apodictic linedance continues … The day should just surrender … it usually does, if you just wait a bit … windblasted and feckless, no thought for Papa Death … The days are getting harder to get through, though … they cling like burdocks and ticks … it’s worse than Surt … I surveyed the remains … the world is out there somewhere … so they say … This can’t be the real world … I’m sure of it … This is the evening county … Octoberland … night’s domain … the heart of darkness … The world is full of beasts in cages …jigaboos and gringos … No doubt they’re quick and bold … tightfisted and hardpressed … busy as bees and hard at work … Nothing but ninetofive, thedailygrind, productivity and stress … They love doing business … breeding and traveling abroad … sure, there’s a lot of hustleandbustle going on, but part of it must be goodnatured … They’re also progressive and prominent, emancipated and renowned … Quite a few knowquite a lot … they’ve got real purpose … good looks … They’re different than me and Grandpa … Sorcerers and organgrinders … crooners and streetcornerperformers … Everything in the big wide world just goes its own way … a lot of strife … A hullabaloo jamboree … Once you’ve got the devil in your boat, all you can do is row to shore … And there’s a cunt in every harbor … That’s a given … But if you come from the wild country, you better think twice about venturing out … into the world … the city … I mean, it’d be pretty ridiculous … just look at Samsara Lidman and Poas Enqvist … This here is more than enough for us … The fact is, it’s almost too much to bear … I cleaned up and then went to the john to see if I could shit … Grandpa came to the door and watched me work … he didn’t say a word … what the fuck’s there to say … he just shook his head and went to lay down …

__________

Leuchter
—Fred: author of the Leucther Report, which denies the mass murder by gas of the Jews during the Holocaust

Swaggart
—Jimmy: TV evangelist

Gudrun Schyman
—Swedish politician and feminist

Norstedt
—Swedish publishing house

Tiberius and the little fish
—according to Suetonius, emperor Tiberius played this lascivious “game” in his self-chosen “exile” on Capri

Sisnadevas
—phallus-worshipppers, possibly temple concubines (among numerous other conflicting interpretions of the word)

Laban and Åby
—Former coaches for the Swedish national soccer team Surt—a figure in Norse mythology who will play a major role in the events of Ragnarök

Bibliomystikon
—Lanz von Liebenfels’s Bible commentary

Michael Aquino
—Colonel in the United States Army who helped to found the Temple of Set

Temple of Set
—Satan worshipping Nazi cult

Battle of the birch
—an old Westphalian legend tells about a sheep-herder’s vision of the BOB, in which an enormous Eastern army will be stopped and slaughtered by a devoted mass of Europeans. On Wiligut s advice, Himmler decided that the town of Wewelsburg, not too far from the Teutoburg Forest, where Arminius’s tribesmen defeated the legions of Publius Quinctilius Varus, was a probable stage for this world-historical event. Therefore, it became SS headquarters. Under the influence of Wiligut/Weisthor, the commander, Manfred von Knobelsdorff, attempted to revive the religion of Irminism. Irmin (Chrestos) was crucified by schismatic Wotanists in Goslar around 9,500 years before Thomas the Doubter walked the earth

Peter Arnett
—legendary English-language foreign correspondent

Salubrin
—a disinfectant

gakis
—hungry ghosts in Japanese Buddhism

wimps
—Weakly Interacting Massive Particles

Samsara
Lidman
—Sara Lidman, a Swedish author whose work was heavily influenced by dialect; Samsara is the cycle of rebirth, death and decay that Buddhists believe will be ended by enlightenment.

Poas Enquist
—P.O. Enquist, a canonical Swedish author who grew up in Västerbotten.