Assisted Living: A Novel (27 page)

The boy’s name was Helge … ninjirkilkin … you didn’t notice him at first … on account of Holgers flair and flamboyance … He seemed easily startled … a little slow … never said hello … had trouble even with small tasks … a lively imagination … the nearest other kid was in Kusmark … Holger wouldn’t let Helger go to school … forged a doctor’s certificate … eczema and gas-triculcers … otitis and skin cancer … hoofandmouthdisease … Holger wasn’t exactly tonguetied … no one can accuse him of that … he founded the French Anal Annales school and analytical philosophy too … wrote the
Analects
 … He was intense and haughty … sublime … beyond good and evil … he had an extremist’s smile and a kind of Paleolithic charm … If you rubbed him the right way, he was as gentle as you please … But if he felt he’d been insulted, and he always felt that way, there was no end to it … For us who had to live nearby and stay on our guard, it’s a relief that he’s gone … we feel refreshed and reassured, like after a bad wetdream … I don’t know where the boy got off to … Holger slurped up earthworms … stole salt off the roads … there was always a swarm of flies around him … like Beelzebub … Holger Heresiarch … Mister Malibog …

Now that he’s departed this life, we can begin to ponder the great, eternal questions again … though they may always go unanswered … why they stopped showing the
The Forsyte Saga …
and
A Family at War …
how I could’ve missed that minigolf putt … who in the hell stole those unripe apples in the fall of fifty-five …

Krinsp anonymus, 57 years old, policeman

—You bet your ass the police knew all about Holger Holmlund. He was a serious alcoholic and even went in for narcotics. We could never pin anything on him, though, not until a couple of days before his death, when I got him for having the handlebars on his packmoped too high. His fine was a five-kronor gift card made out to the dwarves in Kåge.

Still, he was often a suspected of serious crimes: I remember a few years ago, it was Easter Eve, when a chubby oldbat in Sandfors discovered three little boys crucified on the chapelwall. They were dressed up like Jesus and the two thieves. Scattered on the sand were ciggibutts with sepiacolored lipstick on them, which we know that Holmlund used for his blacksabbaths. But we could never connect him to the crime: several Biblethumping Buggers swore themselves sweaty that they’d seen him gambling away his pension at the pecar-irodeo in Norra Bastuträsk on Good Friday evening.

Another couple of examples of vile, unexplained events that Holger Holmlund was very likely responsible for: In the wartwinter of seventy-nine, six or seven pious oldwhores disappeared from the nursing home in Rökgroven. A glassblower who sucked like a kissinggourami found their remains a year later in the trunk of an abandoned dieselthresher on the tractorroad south of Gustav Gustavsson Grönlunds skunkfarm. In the trunk was also: 1 surgicalbag, whose contents were used to skillfully torture the hags to death, 1 copy of
The Vivisection of Cripples
by the queen’s mother, and 1
Childrens Bible
, with notes written in Holger’s ornate hand: terrifying curses, gamasch, damasch or something like that—enough to make the cock of any ordinary mensch stand on end. Too bad fingerprint-ing hadn’t been invented yet, then we could’ve tied him directly to the murder, as well as to the collection of priestlygear that we also found in the trunk. We took Grandpa, the devilspawn Holmlund, in for questioning. Some bonehead had burst his eardrums, though, so it was difficult to make yourself understood. He shrieked deafly until he was blue in the face that nowaynohow did he bluesuck any bluenigger’s bluerod. An officer, who shall remain nameless, but who liked to dip his sideburns in peasoup and then suck on them, lied to Holmlund and said the boy had already confessed to everything.

“Hohahah!” Holger cackled and licked his glasses clean.

He knew you couldn’t get a single sensible word out of Helge, his orphaned grandson, and besides, the boy loved his Grandpa.

I said: Holger, we know you killed the oldwhores. You’re so crazy, not even the lice will have you. Be that as it may: if you’ll just admit that you stole the thresher from poor Aron and scribbled nasty words in the
Childrens Bible,
well temper justice with mercy and let you go home, right after we’ve lit up your ass with our paddywackers. Everything we said was recorded quick as fuck on a tripewriter by some little touslehead who tasted like cinnamon between the thighs. Pursing his lips, Holger saw right through my bullshit. It was obvious, though, that the sap had started rising when I promised him a spanking. Still, he was sly, the old pike, and just shook his head and waved his hands dismissively.

“I didn’t do a thing!” he shrieked, at the same time semaphoring like the deaf homos on Novaya Zemlya. “I never went near the oldbags and I’m sad and scared!”

He grinned, so we shivered, and a seasoned chiropracticconstable puked up some undigested buggratin on the coffeeandnookiegirls knee.

“There are witnesses, Holmlund, who saw you dressed in sexy lingerie at the old folk’s home in Rökgroven on the same day the urwhores disappeared!”

“Who’s been badmouthing me?”

“Oskar Lindkvist from Kåge, Norrlands largest soap-and sun-drydealer.”

“He’s lying! May his balls shrivel to two raisins and his dick get stuck in a waffleiron!”

“We want what’s best for you, Holmlund. You need help and you know it. Take the chance we’re offering!”

His freshlaid lawyer sat there apathetically pulling hairtufts from his downy forelock. His name was Erika Åmärg and he’d lost his cock in a foxtrap. But he was educated. Holmlund elbowed him in the side and shouted that he wanted to leave.

“Hell, you’ve got no evidence against him!” Erika said abruptly. “Let him go, before I start swinging!”

And there wasn’t much else we could do, because Grandpa was too smart for us.

Also, not too long ago, some jackass mixed woodalcohol in the communionrum at Kusmark’s church, so that two people died and five were declared braindead. Holger Holmlund had run a couple of small errands to the pigchurchsty the day before, and left the priest—who was gullible as a girl after his cerebralhemorrhage—with the impression that he was newlysaved and hungry for a round with Jesus. But we came up emptyhanded, because Holger produced a testimonial from the districtnurse.

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.