— 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 technicaclass="underline" 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! Shub-Niggurath! the terrifying thing howled.
— You’d better haulass back to Kokkola before I call Grandpa!
There was a shriek and then the sound of something writhing and pulsing down a tunnel. Then all was still.
— That’s right — you don’t get to play in our backyard, I sighed in relief.
Then, feeling so-so, I sank down onto the brown grass. Being Grandpas child is like playing Russianroulette. Fear was doing a number on me, but there was no point in asking for help. I’m more afraid of Grandpa than anything else; that’s because I crave his love. I drained the two mammothbeers I’d nabbed from some strangers. That put a little hair on my chest. After a moment, I was able to enter the cellar and turn on the gas. A flame leapedup, sending flickers pitterpattering down the passageway. It was sticky and rank. Most of what was down here had been hanging so long it was inedible. Whatever they’d once been, they’d definitely returned to their origins. A gooey string of grease snaked its way towards a hole in the floor. The meatlocker held a lot of crimcram: boysroomsmokers, greeneyedlouts, kwashiorkors — in other words, a lot of nipplesuckers were hanging from the dripping ceiling. After a moment, I found the kid Grandpa had jumped while the dolt was out trapping woodpeckers on Flakaberget. He was dangling from a meathook and wasn’t especially pretty. He was about my age, only bigger. I had a hell of a time trying to pry him loose because the hook was caught in his ribs. Finally, though, I worked him free. It happened so quick that I fell backward and he landed on top of me. I couldn’t drag him by the head, because Grandpa had taken such big hunks out of his neck that his skull would pop off. So I grabbed him by the ankles. When we finally made it out of the cellar, I turned off the gas and locked the door. Then I dragged him across the yard the same way I had come. I went as fast as I could, because I knew the others would get tired of waiting soon. I nearly got stuck in the hedge, but I pulled myself free. Exhausted, I finally tumbled into the bower. They all fell silent and stared at me. Grandpa twisted my nose without a word. He was cold and hard and I knew he’d been hitting the hooch. I tried to explain, but he pressed his death’s head ring into my cheek until it drew blood.
— That’s what a thirst for adventure and a hunger for knowledge will get you, he quipped.
— This meat looks ready to cook, Petunia said, drowning herself in ethanol. As long as he wasn’t shitting himself when he died. Fear makes the meat tough and bitter. Better to roast them alive, before they know what’s happening.
— I’m sure he’ll be fine, Eilert said.
— Just let me light the grill, Petunia said, wanting to show how capable she was. She emptied two fifty-kilo bags of walruspubes onto the two-meter-long grill. Next came a bottle-and-a-half of mouthwash. She downed the rest, since it was still “firewater.” Good plan, except she lit the grill without taking her cigarillo out of her mouth. That’s when the show got good. The fire leaped off the grill and landed in Petunia’s tangled mane. She stumbled around, arms waving wild, while brightred blisters blossomed all over her face. The fire cackled merrily and the oldhag howled to highheaven. It probably hurt, but it was fucking hilarious to watch. Petunias fiery blouse was itself a joy to behold; also the way her piggy flesh cracked and spit like fryingbacon. Grandpa looked on indifferently, but Eilert sprang up and pushed Petunia across the bricks and into our morayeelpond. He held her under the water until the fire was out. Good move, except that when Eilert pulled her up, she had a schweinfurtgreen, thighthick Beriamoray dangling from her chin. That didn’t last long, though. With a little cooing and coddling, Grandpa got it to open its jaws and sink back into the fermenting pond. Then Eilert smeared ramlotion on Petunias face and shoulders, and soon she was unconscious.
— Ah hell, complained Grandpa, making her down a few tins of a hundred-and-twenty-proof fermented Balticherringbroth.