Fiction: The Cone Of Shame
By
Matías Bragagnolo
Oh, filthy
girl, you'll be so very pleased
Oh, oh, oh,
oh, oh
for what
you're going to receive right in the face.
Yes, in the
Cone of Shame
Oh, oh, oh,
oh, oh
your face
will be the dirtiest of them all.[1]
The chanting
of the girls who from early morning onward crowd beneath her cell window every
day is incessant. If the execution doesn't come soon, one of the two will kill
her: the song, omnipresent, personal, dedicated to her, exclusive; or the
hunger that makes her guts burn. These demonic creatures must take turns, no
doubt; they must be various in number and age; but the chorus always seems the
same, from morning to night. Same tone, same mocking inflection, same cadence.
They
always make up little songs for those condemned to death. It's different every
year. Teachers make up the lyrics in school, all in the time signature of
"Oh, Lame Rabbit," which has arguably been the most popular
children's song for decades.
Oh, filthy
thief, you'll no longer climb
Oh, oh, oh,
oh, oh
the walls of
those you envy.
With hooves
in your pigsty
Oh, oh, oh,
oh, oh
Without hands
or feet, you'll swallow mud.
They have lyrics
for each convict, always referring to the crime for which they were sentenced
and the type of capital punishment they were given after being hit by the dead
cat.
Oh, ugly
killer, where will your courage be
Oh, oh, oh,
oh, oh
when you're
tied upside down?
Old men like
the one you slaughtered
Oh, oh, oh,
oh, oh
with tenacity
your soul will pierce.
All
executions are public, and so public that they are also very popular. The
entire town ("small city," some enthusiasts would prefer to call it)
participates in the executions; everyone is an executioner, even if they will
never admit it. In the same way that a drug addict doesn't consider himself a
drug addict, an AIDS patient on medication doesn't consider himself a dying
person, or an easy woman doesn't consider herself a slut.
The
method of execution is never the same. It can be repeated, but it is never the
same if the crime changes. As the crimes under the new code are committed and a
criminal is chosen by chance, a seven-person jury decides which popular
execution will be applicable, appropriate to the case. Everything is decided by
the representatives of the people. The representatives of the people voted in
the country for the new criminal classification. The representatives of the
people voted in the province for the state retribution system. And our province
established that a prisoner will die every year. No matter the crime committed.
Guilt must be proven, of course. A popular jury of twenty people—always the
people must deliberate through their representatives—declares the defendant
guilty, the prisoner is imprisoned for an indefinite period, and every June
30th, the year's death row inmate is randomly selected.
A
rapist, of course, is chained to a fallen tree trunk, and adult women are
allowed to take turns penetrating him with whatever object they see fit, until
he bleeds to death. A thief can have his hands cut off (and feet, in the case
of burglary), and pig hooves are grafted onto his stumps, and later he’ll be
buried alive with shovelfuls of mud thrown by both men and women. Children are
prohibited from active participation; they are merely spectators who watch in
astonishment or enjoy the ordeal and insult the condemned man throughout.
They
always knew that stoning was something too trivial, insufficient, and outdated.
An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. If you're going to steal your
neighbor's bread, well, when the dead cat hits you in the face, you'll have to
witness all of your neighbors, not just that one, cut pieces of flesh from your
bound body in order to feed their pets. Not even murder is avenged with stones:
these executions range from turning the convict into a target for dozens of men
and women who'd never used a gun in their lives to let the village elders parade
with awls in their hands, so that one might strike a vital organ.
But
occasionally, once in a while, the seven have decided on a new form of
execution for a crime identical to another. Because not every year is the same
type of criminal executed, of course, but sometimes the crime is repeated.
Oh, dirty
girl, you'll be so very pleased
Oh, oh, oh,
oh, oh
for what
you're about to get right in the face.
She can't
stand them any longer. She can't remember how many days have passed since the
dead cat hit her. Since the teenager chosen that year as the town's prettiest
girl, the one destined to join the mayor's harem for life, whether she likes it
or not, blindfolded and placed in the center of the circle formed by the town's
prisoners standing on June 30th at the municipal rural exhibition grounds, spun
around again and again, the dead cat held by its tail, until the City Council
president's whistle blew and, as the norm dictated, she opened her hand,
letting the inertia carry the putrefying animal like a rocket until it crossed
the three-meter radius and struck the unfortunate man or woman somewhere on
their body. The one chosen to receive that year's capital punishment.
Yes, in the
Cone of Shame
Oh, oh, oh,
oh, oh
your face
will be the dirtiest of all
She'd lost
count of the days since the dead cat had hit her square in the stomach with
more strength than she'd expected, and that's because she'd been drifting in
and out of consciousness for some time now, passed out by the hunger they'd
been subjecting her to. Barely water and a little protein soup a day. At first,
she thought this was the very method of execution, but it was a method that,
while closely related to the crime she'd been found guilty of (adultery: having
been found with her face covered in semen, kneeling in front of her greengrocer
husband's right-hand employee after an unfaithful fellatio), was anything but public.
If that had been determined, it wouldn't be the townspeople who would make her starve
to death, but her jailers. Only when, noticing the weight loss and the first
flaps of skin on her belly, did she see them come in daily to try on her that
kind of inverted, blunt plastic cone that is placed on pets when they undergo
surgery, so that they do not bite, lick or scratch the wound, could she come to
the conclusion that, for whatever method of execution they had chosen, they
wanted her with a slimmer neck.
Oh, dirty
girl, you'll be so very pleased
Oh, oh, oh,
oh, oh
for what
you're about to get right in the face.
The injection
they just gave her seems to be full of adrenaline, or glucose, or both, or some
other substance, some artificial stimulant, she doesn't know, because she feels
refreshed, her mind clearer, and they manage to get her to her feet. They tied
her wrists behind her back and placed a ball-gag over her mouth and tightened
the straps around her head. Now they're putting on her the collar. The
Elizabethan collar, or, as it was once known, the Cone of Shame. Because
animals who have had surgery have nothing to be ashamed of, that's why for them
it's an Elizabethan collar. But for her, it can't be anything more than a Cone
of Shame. A funnel that, based on her neck, hermetically sealed with
impermeable cloths, rises until its edges meet the level of her eyes. The ball
of the muzzle prevents her from breathing through her mouth. Whatever they want
to rise from her neck to the edge of the cone, above her nose, will have no
other purpose than to suffocate or drown her.
She
walks down the darkened death row, with an orderly on either side, and as the
enormous swinging doors leading to the execution grounds open to let her in,
the blinding light of the winter midday forces her to close her eyes.
She's
already on her knees when she manages to raise her eyelids and blink until she
regains the vision. She sees them coming toward her. Sweaty, anxious. Naked.
There are quite a few of them, perhaps thousands. With horror in her eyes, she
begins to recognize faces. People she's known all her life. They're already
surrounding her, while she hyperventilates, only through her nose, her mouth
sealed. She can smell the sweat. There's no longer any distance between her and
the closest of the crowd. Those who masturbate, like the rest.
She
has been left at the mercy of the first and profuse ejaculations that fall into
the Cone of Shame.
Matías Bragagnolo, Argentinian, is the author of the
novels Petite Mort, El brujo, La balada de Constanza y Valentino, El destino
de las cosas últimas, Dormiré cuando esté muerto, and Cloacina. He’s a
scholar of the work of William S. Burroughs and the cut-up technique, and a
researcher and essayist on matters related to rock, literature, and cinema.
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