He lost his train of thought, but found another …
— Oh yeah, mite … Next year you’ll be able to go on Vi i femman … What do you think of that?
— I don’t know … do I have to?
— What the! Of course you have to! Don’t you want to show those fancy queers what you can do?
— I’m scared of messing up …
— That’s the last thing you have to worry about! You’ve learned loads from me … for example, you know it was “Race Gunther” and not Dürer who engraved “Knight, Death and the Devil” … How many prepubescent sluts do you think know anything about that?! Be thankful you get to participate!! People don’t trust their ears! Drops in the bucket! My whole life I’ve tried to be an embarrassment to myself and a warning to others … eking out a shitty little existence for you and yours … Charis and metron have beenmy guiding lights … ahimsa and caritas … but this is just plain wretched … what have I done to deserve this … the worst karma in the solarsystem … a child so hardhearted it’d give the Devil himself pause … you’re the new Seydlitz … the biggest bluff since Konrad Kujau … the worst thing to happen to Sweden since Ansgar …
Grandpa finally got tired of this querulation, his thoughts never followed a straightpath … Now the train had left without him and he was lost … he drank and waited for inspiration to strike … It looked like östen and Svante were having a good time … even though they were shitfaced sober …
— I know what we can do … let’s make some prankcalls!
He went into the bedroom and flipped through the phonebook on the nightstand.
— Let’s see … redactors? … nah … refectories … regulators … robots … salt, wholesale … sand, gravel, shingles, macadam … smokehouses … here’s a good one … Tank and Sludge in Skelleftehamn …
He dialed some numbers on the buttercolored telephone …
— Howdy! I’d like to order a sludging! that I’ll forget right away! As soon as possible! My name’s Erling Hardass and I’m stark raving mad! Do you have a penispump! I live in Orrliden! That sounds good! Let’s do that! Bye now!
He threw the phone back onto the receiver.
— All they had was an answeringmachine, the devils! I was thinking about ordering a “total inspection of all unsavoury orifices” for you at the Suck and Swallow beauty salon … Then Grandpa called the priest on duty and told him that he was about to slit hiswrists in a hot bath … The illusionist John Houdi landed himself an engagement for tomorrow evening at the old policecommisioner … Then he threatened to kill a few old ladies … Ordered fifty pizzas from Bel Party service to be delivered to an innocent girl … Time had taken a great leap forward again … it was after ten … Grandpa called emergency …
— Something real bad is about to happen …
He sounded like an auntie who’s afraid she’s got a bunintheoven.
— They’re going on something terrible … they’re going to kill each other … they’re in Dripdrop Street … Yes, my name’s Nagarjuna … and I’m here with Heliogabalus … we’re on our way out … together with Harald and Frank Alexander … but we’ll wait for you … absolutely … see you in a moment …
The next call was to a taxiservice … We stopped to piss in a bucket … Then we went outside and waited … The taxi roared up like a batoutofhell … a couple of cougars appeared from the house next door … They weren’t exactly kittenfresh … dewynew … but they’d done their best to look it … spackled over the flaws … they were sourpussies without a cock to ram them … they needed something hard between their thighs … they were divorced, single … secondhand goods … spavined … petulant … I recognized the woman who’d gotten fucked on the kitchen table, I’d seen her on the back of a milkcarton … she was number thirteen in a series of notorious, neurotic bluelightspecialwhores from Gold Town, which the ill-humored liked to call Skellefteå … she seemed dull and dense. Grandpa went up and introduced us …
— Hi there, I’m Michael Myers and this here is Jason …
The two sluts were insolent, giggly … their labiallips were swollen with wine … When the taxi drove up, Grandpa dumped thepissbucket over their heads … They put up a fuss … made a stink … Their nice evening had been ruined … these were women with oldfashioned morals … each of them had worked whole citydistricts on their backs … they descended on Grandpa, delicate fists swinging … he knocked the two shrews out … then we jumped into the taxi …
— Possibility Square …
We passed a police car … they were too late … The taxi drivers days were numbered … you could see it immediately … he was depressed … unhappiness dripped from every pore … he looked like he’d singlehandedly shouldered the blame for the genocides in Equatorial Guinea, Rwanda, and Burundi … Ropes and knives, bridges and guns send secret signals to guys like that … Grandpa talked about the Summa Theologica, asked the driver if he really thought that Socrates blew Alcibiades …
— I don’t know …
— Can you believe that I’m made up of quark-gluon-plasma! I needed cura but I got usural
— Uh-huh …
— Now you’ve wounded me! We gotta make it right …
— Be quiet, you shit …
— Did you just cuss at me?! you devil! How’s that for manners! With that sweet mouth, I bet you’re just a babyfucking homo! Plebian! Cuckold! Cirdejerker! Democrat!
The driver slammed on the brakes, told us to pay and get out …
— What the … don’t you want to kiss and make up …?
— Pay the damn seventy-eight kroner and get out! You’ve crossed the line!
— I crossed it a long time ago, friend … Fuck me, but you look just like Allende …
The driver glared at Grandpa in the rearview mirror …
— You are Allende! Confess it, you devil! You escaped your just deserts! You thought you were safe! But now you’ve met Los Novios de la Muertel
Just like that the pianowire was around Allende’s throat … in a flash and a gurgle he was dead … We hauled the cadaver out of the car, emptied the cashbox, and then Grandpa burned rubber toward downtown … He forgot to brake at a red light outside of Expolaris … We hit a Renault with an average Joe inside … the cars came together in a tangle of bumpers and trailerhooks … we got out and taught the guy a lesson … then we beat a retreat …
— Let’s go to Scandic and have a beer!
It was nearby … big and fancy and askew and it had a glassceiling … they wouldn’t let us in …
— Come on, Taisto, Grandpa begged, were as good as any of them!
— It’s got nothing to do with that … the boy’s too young and you’re both drunk …