Assisted Living: A Novel by Nikanor Teratologen Page A

the garbagesparrows’ frosty cheapcheap, were the only sounds in the world. Everyone was elsewhere. Petunia shook her head and speared me with her eyes.
    —You little demon, have you been sneakreading Jewdevil mysticism?
    —They’re mine! I thought them up!
    —But that sounds an awful lot like the concept of tikkun from the Lurianic Kabbalah, Eilert observed, a frail grin touching his vapid face.
    —I don’t know anything about whatever you just said! It’s all mine! I haven’t snuckread anything!
    —The only things he gets to read on his own are the Pnakotic Manuscripts and O’Donnells The Worlds Worst Women, Grandpa reassured them. Besides, there’s only Shabbetai Tzvi, and Nathan of Gaza is his prophet!
    —Galut and Kelipot! swore Petunia, eyeing me skeptically, that boy deserves a worse fate than your average chainsmoker could think of!
    —What are you going do about it, eggbrooder!
    —Let it go, Eilert said, stroking Petunias plowhorse flanks soothingly. She’d sprung up from her Bergen-Belsen lawn chair with murder in her eyes.
    —Let’s see what he’s got, he doesn’t have an easy life, you know.
    She plopped back down on the deck chair, though, which collapsed beneath her. Grandpa started laughing like Czardas’s Princess, but at least he tried to smother it. With EiJert’s help, Petunia settled into an overstuffed chair. By now she was positively crackling with rage.
    —Fucking Satanspawn, she growled. You can only take so much before your womb falls out! She plucked a thumbscrew from the trashpile and lobbed it at me, but it missed.
    —I’ll spraypaint you with eggliquor! I swore in a thin voice.
    —Not now, boy, soothed Grandpa. Don’t force us to go bashing heads. Besides, every once in a while Petunia fucking snaps and runs around like a berserker until there’s no one left breathing. Like that time in the bookbus. She was like Cu Chulainn … Or like a Yano-mami warrior who inhaled ebene and sang about flesheating hornets … You’ll have to excuse me, Petunia, but it isn’t the mite’s fault. That Bergen-Belsen isn’t meant for someone as fullskirted as you.
    —It’s nothing, Eilert answered for Petunia, who was hooting like a capercaillie in a freezer.
    —Anyway, let’s quit harping on the Jewish God, Eilert begged. It’s making my stomach sick and my dick limp.
    —Here here, Grandpa proclaimed. Mr. J.V. Sabaoth isn’t even worth a consolation prize. And you know what, by George, I just remembered that that boy I bit to death last Sunday is still in the cellar. Why don’t we slap him on the grill? A bite to eat might stop us from squabbling like littleoldladies!
    —Shouldn’t we have a nice game of croquette first? Eilert fretted.
    —Nah, too Alice in Wonderland …
    Eilert agreed and Petunia nodded, but she had a look that said, it might be nice if … so I was sent away with a lash for my pains. I felt as outofplace as an outlander inland. I’m always getting in theway, but I can never get with anyone. Love seems like something chemical and technical: hard to come by and then painful when you come by it. I’m too ugly, though, for anyone to really want me.
    I tried to stroke my dick, but it hurt. I took a shortcut across the Stubblefield toward the cellar, which is on the far side of the yard. The earth was black, the grass gray. The clouds squirmed. The woods pressed close. It was gloomy and stuffy and shot through with gusts of cold wind. I jumped over the sausagerack and tzimzummed between the Germanmaple and the dragonbloodtree, the snakebranchspruce and the bokglobules. The hillside was covered in mushrooms: death caps and bleedingconifercrust, trem-blingmerulius, devils bolete, sickeners and many more. They were varying shades of ochre, rust, lampblack, and terracotta. When I got there, the cellar door was already open. Something gurgled and chuckled, it sounded too gruesome to be human.
    —Who the fuck’s there? I asked aloud.
    — Iäääh!