Assisted Living: A Novel

by Nikanor Teratologen

  And then, in the mid-sixties, some firebrand had wholeroasted an oldfogey on a stake on the edge of the garbagedump in Kåge. Holger was passed out just a pissthrow from there and had burnson his lips to boot. Still, some crackpot claimed responsibility and was electroshocked to death before we could find out who else was in on it.

  Pentecost day of ’87, a tallshit and a littlelump, each wearing homemade eggcarton and potatostamp masks, which were supposed to look like Auntie Anita and Televinken, stole a delivery-van full of bakedgoods, although they tossed out everything but the tastiest pastries. Then they drove to Anderstorp’s dascenter and lured eighteen retards into the van before the personnel there could do anything about it. A couple of days later, a groggy sour-puss found the van on Kyrkvägen between Kåge and Ersmark. Inside it were the CP-kids, who’d been gassed to death. The porky ones had had the ham sliced off them while they were still alive. And when we paid a little visit to Holmlund, he offered us rim-sugared bacon. He even cried cobalt tears when we told him about the massmurder.

  “God, it’s so terrible,” he moaned. “How those lardbags must’ve suffered!”

  We didn’t press him any further and left with our errand unfinished. However, it’s as certain as my raging hardon that me and Kent-Håkan got a taste of freshsmoked mongoflesh that day.

  Holger was also the prime suspect in an incident at the beginning of the eighties: a railthin man kidnapped a playschool group of about a dozen three to four year olds. He nabbed them while the teacher was getting some in a lilacbush, then took them to the sulfurmine in Appojaure under the false pretense that they were going to learn how to hunt for fossilized cocks. Apparently he started by forcing the tiny tykes to stick cactuses up the little girls’downy muffs until they fainted from the pain. Then he stuck his veiny furuncle into each tykes’ mouth, laid a spermdab on every tongue, and recited Satanic oaths. After that, he made them take each other under his expert supervision, and the most proficient at it got themselves a pair of lacehose, a French tickler, and, after he’d shaved their hair off, a skullbrand. He burned in three sixes, so they’d be sure of a place at the Lord’s left hand. The kids said the tall, mean geezer took off on a scooter to the south. After questioning some wellrespected Norrbotten pedophiles, we got the order: pick up Holmlund and grill him like a fucksick broiler. So that’s what we did, and if memory serves, those noobconstables were downright optimistic, because this time they had something to go on. The thing was, the perpetrator had bit a couple of the children pretty bad in the face, so they thought that all they had to do was take a dentalimpression from Holmlund and it’d be case closed. We caught Holmlund at the home of C-H Midlothian. Grumbling and half-naked, he came along to the station, playing the part of the indignant elderly gentleman. Then he bit into a piece of modelclay and then I told him to answer some questions.

  This is how an interrogation with Holger Holmlund can sound. I’m reading right from the record:

  “So, Holmlund … let’s start at the beginning … what were you doing on the tenth of June?”

  “I don’t remember.”

  “But you just said …”

  “Yeahyeahyeah! Me and Helge were celebrating Eilert’s seventy-fifth birthday, and what a day. On that day, God dressed in pink crinoline and drank himself silly. Greatgrayshrikes quipped, wagtails climaxed, and wolfs foot and valerian grew so that it was a delight to behold. Eilert got a nightrajah and a lacy blouse, just perfect for when suitors come a-calling, and he looked so damn good I couldn’t control myself. I tore off his skirt and started licking him like a cat laps milk. Before I could say heil, though …”

  “That’s enough! If I had my way, old buggerfucks like you would get nailed in your stinking assholes with icecold monsterdildos of steel.”

  “But Ubbe, you’re scaring me! Aoww! Are people supposed to strike their elders?”

  “Hold your tongue before I beat it with crushedglass into a pyttepanna! Where were we … oh yes. Now, you know very well what were investigating, and I don’t think you understand the mess you’re in …”

  “Pigcunt! Aaaoojojojoj! … You’ve gone wild!”

  “Now Holger, calm yourselfl How many hectoliters of soap would it take to wash your mouth out?!”

  At this point I took a wankbreak, then resumed the interrogation. “You had a book on you when you were picked up.”

  “Mmm.”

  “It’s in a foreign language, the title seems to be The Compleat Child Molester. What does that mean?”

  “Imitation of Christ.”

  “I see. But how do you explain the fact that you’ve got a lot of teeth here that are exactly like the teeth of the one who committed this crime?”

  “I didn’t do it, lovey, I swear it on Holy Simon’s hanky.”

  He spent the night, and we kept that boy of his leashed up in a fuckcubby. But that evening, one of the kids he’d attacked, a boy named Urban, just like myself, screamed when he saw that singer Lasse Berghagen making a fool of himself on TV: “That’s him! He’s the one who was mean to us!” And the other kids all said the same thing. But Lasse had an alibi, so it was either someone who looked just like him or someone who was wearing a mask. When it came time to identify Holmlund, the kids were terrified, but they all agreed that he was too old to be the culprit.

  “He was even younger than you,” they said in chorus and laughed at me.

  So Holger wandered out into the fresh June morning a free man. I tried one last time to appeal to his pride.

  “Can’t you just go ahead and confess?” I said at the exit.

  “Things to do and places to be, Ubbe! I’d just love to, but I don’t have the time.”

  “Oh, come on, Holger, what harm would it do, you’re the last of your old rotten line …”

  “There are more of us than you think.”

  “But you’re the vilest man I’ve ever met or heard about.”

  “Flattery will get you nowhere.”

  “Clearly not. But would you tell me something that I’ve been wondering?”

  “Mmhm?”

  “How come everyone but gypsy Allan Schwarz calls you Grandpa?”

  “Well, I mean, I’m the Grandpa, after all.”

  With that he toddled away, and sunbeams licked his neckdown and the pollen swirled around his gangly form. And what do you know, a dumpsterdiver found a guttapercha Lasse Berghagen mask in a bin for those who don’t have what it takes to lead a normal life. It’s located in central Kusmark. The only thing the lab was certain of, in the end, was that whomever had used the mask had probably had fingers.

  One time Holmlund was caught redhanded emptying a kid-dietrap in a playground in Ersmark. But he swore up and down that he was just happening by, when he got curious about what in tarnation the trap could be. He was horrible to children, but it took quite a few years before the folk in town got suspicious of him. One Midsummer’s Eve, it must’ve been in the fifties, the geezers of Hebbers organized a kiddieparty with a fishingpond, an Indiantrail, a mobcourse, and electroplay. However, there were certain irregularities. One smallfry was so impressed by mancock that he cut his mama with a pair of scissors right in her whore-cunt, another kept on about how God was a little dopefiend, and a pair of twins disappeared without a trace in the tunnelofhorrors. Holmlund was pretty brilliant, in his way. He was so devilishly clever, he knew how to dandle a boy on his knee and slowly increase the tempo until they were, you know, riding the cockhorse. He’d gradually he’d let his pole glide in, and they’d never even notice a thing. But a couple of parents sensed that something was amiss: the geezers seemed happy, the children were shouting, and the mothers and fathers were downing free booze—but wasn’t it really carrion chuckling, stillborns screaming, and corpseeaters swilling the foamy brew? The children were redeyed and pantingtoo heavily, and those who walked the Indiantrail came back with a grownup’s worldweary gaze and voices gone thin. So a couple of loudmouth gossipcunts kept an extra eye on Holmlund and his closest cronies, Eilert and
Wolrad. Wolrad was sullen and stupid and lived to tangle and tussle. He was obese and obscene, dimwit—ted but quicktempered. He was in charge of the tunnelofhorrors. He got his, though, in the end. Fucked a two-year-old tyke in the mouth, foaming with rage all the while. The little shaver survived and tattled and he’s a policeman ‘iere in Skellefteå to this day. Wolfrad was sent to the nuthouse, where he committed suicide by driving an electricwhisk, which he’d managed to smuggle in, up his hiney, at which point he bled to death. Holger, Eilert, Henning, Herbert, Hilding, Larry, Hardy, and Tony all knew enough to pretend shock and outrage, so that they could escape punishment themselves.

  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

  FRITZ HAARMANN—“The Vampire of Hanover”; serial killer of adolescent boys in Germany during the years immediately following World War I

  VYSHINSKY—Andrey: Prosecutor General of the USSR and considered to be the legal mastermind behind Stalin’s Great Purge. He was also a prosecutor during the Nuremberg trials

  FREISLER—Roland: acted as judge, jury and executioner in Hitlers People’s Court (Volksgerichtshof). During his tenure, there was a dramatic rise in the number of death sentences handed out

  FALUKORV—traditional Swedish sausage

  BULLERBY—refers to the Six Bullerby Children series by Astrid Lingren, which take place in the small Swedish village of Bullerby (Bullerbyn in Swedish)

  ARYOSOPHIC—member of an Aryosophic order created by Guido von List at the beginning of the nineteenth century

  NORILSK—infamous contaminated industrial town in Russia

  BOLIDEN AND RÖNNSKÄR—mining and smelting operations located near Skellefteå

  SATRAP AND HIERODULE—satrap: general name given to a governor of a province in ancient Persia; hierodule: temple slave in ancient Greece, often associated with prostitution in service to a deity

  NINJIRKILKIN—“the shy one”; apprentice shaman among the Chukchi

  MISTER MALIBOG—or else, Mister Horny

  FORSYTE SAGA—British television series based on The Forsyte Saga by John Galsworthy

  A FAMILY AT WAR—British television series

  PECARIRODEA—a rodeo conducted with a Pecari tajacu, a “collared peccary”: a type of swine native to Central and South America

  PADDYWACKER—police baton

  AUNTIE ANITA AND TELEVINKEN—Anita Lindman, who starred in the Swedish childrens television show Anita och Televinken; Televinken is a marionette

  DASCENTER—Swedish play on words, lit. dass (toilet) + dase (dick) + center, instead of dagscenter (day center)