The Last Prefect

Franklin A. Díaz Lárez, M McLean

• Publisher: Babelcube Inc.
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781071588635
• Topic: Política y relaciones internacionales
• Subtopic: Derechos civiles en política

On 31 December 2001, Venezuela's prefectures were finally abolished. The prefectures were institutions regulated by a law that was unconstitutional, unjust and immoral: the vagrancy law. This was a legal framework which authorised prefects to arrest and detain people for up to seventy-two hours, or have them interned indefinitely and without sentencing in abhorrent prison camps.
This law had been inherited from Venezuela's last dictatorship, that of General Marcos Pérez Jiménez, which had copied it, almost to the letter, from another enforced in Spain under the dictatorship of Franco. Under its terms, anyone with no known occupation could be considered a vagrant, and so be subject to sanction by the prefects. Homosexuals were also placed in this category.
Inexplicably, even though the judicial and ethical underpinnings of the law bordered on the absurd, it remained in full force, and the civil servants working within its remit had no authority to refuse to enforce it. As long as it remained in operation, prefects were required to respect it, comply with it, and ensure the public's compliance.
As luck – or misfortune – would have it, I was one of the last of those prefects. These are my memories of some of the most surprising cases I had to contend with.

“THE CUCKOLD’S MOTHER”

One Tuesday in early April, a few minutes before the prefecture clock struck noon, a young man, who looked no older than 25, appeared before me. We’ll call him Andrés. He was dark-skinned, with short black hair, bulging eyes and a proud demeanour, and he had a surprising complaint to lodge:

“Good morning, your honour,” he said. “I’ve come to report my wife as a whore.”

“What!?” I asked. I wasn’t expecting such a statement.

“Yes, your honour, you heard me right.”

“What do you mean she’s whore? What sort of nonsense is that? Do you mean she works as a prostitute?”

“No, your honour, that’s not it.”

“So, what is it?” I said, not yet over my initial surprise.

“Well, you see... This morning I left to go to work like every day, and when I was almost there I realised that I had left some of my tools at home. I’m an electrician, you see.”

“Okay... and then what happened?”

“I went back to get them. When I got to the house, before I opened the door, I heard some faint groans from my wife, as if she was struggling with something. I thought maybe she was in the bathroom doing her business and was constipated. I didn’t go in; I went to the bathroom window, but I realised that the groans weren’t coming from there, but from our bedroom. I was about to speak and ask her what was happening, when I heard someone else moaning, a man to be specific. And then, the worst thing possible... My wife saying ‘harder! Harder!’”

“How awful!” I said.

“Yes, your honour, awful. I was paralyzed, completely frozen. My mind refused to believe what it was hearing. I didn’t know what to do, how to react. I was overwhelmed by this feeling of suffocating. I took a few steps away and went to sit on the ground under a tree nearby. My heart felt like it was trying to get out of my chest, it was beating so hard. I felt like the sky was falling down on me, like the world was ending. A thousand things went through my mind. I’ve seen terrible things like that in films, or I’ve heard about them, but even in my worst nightmares I never dreamt such an awful thing could happen to me. I thought of doing something crazy, going in and killing them both with my bare hands, but I controlled myself, thinking about my kids.”

“Oh! You have children as well...”

“Yes, your honour, two little ones. A five-year-old girl and a little boy who’s not even one yet.”

“And were they in the house too?”

“Of course, your honour, where else would they be?”

“I don’t know, I’m just asking.”

“Well, your honour, as I was saying... The children were in the house too, and thinking of them made me decide to wait. I stayed sitting under that tree waiting for my head to clear so I could figure out what to do. Thank God I controlled myself.”

“I see... and what happened next?”

“Oh, that’s the best bit, your honour,” he said sarcastically. “Shortly after, I got the second blow fate had in store for me. I saw, coming out of my house by the back door, none other than my own nephew. He didn’t see me. I followed him for a block and then I came up behind him and grabbed his neck. “You bloody prick!” I said to him. “How could you do this to me? You were like a son to me!” Because as it happens, your honour, I helped to raise this nephew.”

“What a state of affairs!” I said.

“Yes, your honour, at that moment my thoughts were clouded by rage and the only thing I wanted to do was kill him, strangle him with my bare hands.”

“And how old is your nephew?”

“Barely 17, your honour.”

“Still a child... and your wife?”

“27.”

“A bit old for him, no?”

“Maybe, your honour; I won’t disagree with you there.”

“And how long have you been with your wife?”

“Me? Well... counting when we were going out... nine years, your honour. Six married, and three more as boyfriend and girlfriend.”

“Goodness, quite a while then.”

“Yes, that’s right.”

“And in all that time, were there any other affairs you know of?”

“Never, your honour, I swear on my children’s lives. I never had the slightest doubt about her in my mind.”

“I see... but tell me more about the business with your nephew. What happened next?”

“I was about to kill him, your honour, and I’m very sorry about that. Just when I was strangling him, some passers-by got in between us, telling me to let him go, that I was going to kill him, and they managed to separate us. As soon as he was free, he tried to run off, but I caught him again. He was terrified; he told me it wasn’t his fault, that he was going to tell me about the whole thing, but that I had to calm down and not hurt him anymore. Loads of people had crowded round us because of all the commotion, and there were some people we knew among them. I was so worked up and overexcited that I told him to speak, to tell me everything he had to say to me in front of everyone. Nothing mattered to me anymore. Well, your honour... what he told me next finished me off.”

“Gosh, that bad?”

He nodded and gulped. His eyes were extremely watery. It seemed only a matter of second before tears would be rolling down his cheeks.

“Well, yes, your honour, very bad indeed. He told me that my wife wasn’t just sleeping with him, but also with a load of people from the neighbourhood, including some members of my own family.”

“Gosh, that’s terrible!”

“It is indeed.”

“Couldn’t he just have been saying that to deflect attention from himself?”

“I thought that too, your honour, but he said he could prove it. And he did indeed. He took me to see a few people and they all confirmed it.”

“What do you mean he took you to see a few people?”

“That’s it, your honour, a few people.”

“But, how many are we talking about?”

“Well, we talked to three people from the area, and two cousins of mine. But they told me there were others as well.”

“I can imagine how that must have felt. And did they tell you how long this had been going on?”

“For several months.”

“With your nephew as well?”

“No, your honour, not him. He said with him it was more recent, since last month. He also said he was one of the ones who had been with her least often, but that it was common knowledge in the neighbourhood that people were taking it in turns with her, and there were times when she slept with several guys on the same day, one after the other, or even at the same time. In other words, she was having orgies in my own bed while I was out working.”

“I can’t believe it!” I said, extremely surprised.

“Well believe it, your honour, because it’s the truth, I confirmed it myself this very morning. I spoke to several people, including my two cousins, and no one dared deny it. More than that, some of them offered to be witnesses for me if I needed to make a declaration.”

“What do you mean, a declaration? A declaration where?”

“In the divorce proceedings, your honour. I’ll do anything. I want to take the kids away from her because, besides being a whore, that woman is a bad mother; she doesn’t deserve our children.”

“Okay, calm down a little, it’s not as easy as that. Only a judge can make that call, and for that you’d have to go to court. It’s only in rare cases that parental authority can be taken away from a mother.”

“Yes, your honour, I know that. I’ve come directly from seeing the lawyer at the company where I’m working at the moment; he’s going to do all that for me. He told me the same thing you’re saying now: that it won’t be that easy, that my wife would have to have done something very serious to our children for parental authority to be taken away from her, and we’ll have to go through a court process that will probably last a few months, or maybe years, et cetera. But I can’t wait that long, your honour. I want you to help me with this, since you’re the authority. I want you to lock my wife up for what she’s done to me – not just to me, to our children too.”

“What are you talking about!?” I said in surprise. “I can’t get involved in this; this is something you’ll have to sort out between you. I can’t punish your wife for being unfaithful to you.”

“No, your honour, that’s not what I’m referring to.”

“Well, explain yourself, because, frankly, I don’t understand.”

“Well, you see, your honour... My wife has been really, but I mean really dirty; she hasn’t just betrayed me, sleeping with whoever she felt like, but she’s done it in front of our children.”

“What!?” I asked, raising my voice slightly.

“Yes, your honour, you heard me right. It wasn’t enough for her just to cheat on me; she’s done the filthy things she’s been up to in front of our kids, with them watching.”

“That really is a very serious accusation,” I said. “You’ll have to prove it.”

“No problem. Outside there are three members of my family waiting who have slept with her, and they’re willing to testify. I knew you’d ask for witnesses, that’s why I brought them.”

I was astounded.

All I could say was, “Okay, well, bring them in.”

When I had them in front of me, I asked each one in turn if it was true that sex acts had been committed in the presence of the children, and all of them without exception confirmed it to a greater or lesser extent. Some of them made remarks to each other quietly, looking at Andrés out of the corner of their eyes and sniggering in silence. They couldn’t imagine what I was about to say to them:

“All of you are under arrest for child abuse.”

Their faces were suddenly drained of colour. The mocking smiles disappeared instantly.

“What!?” asked one of them. “We’ve come voluntarily to give statements, and you’re going to arrest us?”

“Yes, that’s right,” I said. “And you’d better pray to God that none of those children was sexually assaulted, because otherwise you’re going straight from the police cells to prison. And you know what happens to rapists in prison...”

Immediately, without waiting for them to say any more, I li...