Assisted Living: A Novel Read Online Free Page B

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 …
     
    __________
    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

III
    —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