The Last Prefect

By Franklin A. Díaz Lárez

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.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BadPress
• Release date: Feb 18, 2021
• ISBN: 9781071588635

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The Last Prefect

Franklin A. Díaz Lárez

––––––––

Translated by M McLean 

The Last Prefect

Written By Franklin A. Díaz Lárez

Copyright © 2021 Franklin A. Díaz Lárez

All rights reserved

Distributed by Babelcube, Inc.

www.babelcube.com

Translated by M McLean

Babelcube Books and Babelcube are trademarks of Babelcube Inc.

Contents

INTRODUCTION

CAUGHT BROWN-HANDED

THE STALKER

A FREE WOMAN 

THE CUCKOLD’S MOTHER

INTRODUCTION

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.

CAUGHT BROWN-HANDED

On my very first day on the job, I attended one of the cases that most astonished me. It would prove to be the perfect initiation, an indication of what I would have to deal with in future.

An older lady (she must have been fifty or so), who we will call doña María, and her neighbour, a man also in his fifties, who we will refer to here by the name of don Pancracio, were summoned to appear before me.

I began by setting out the rules of the proceedings.

A complaint has been lodged with this prefecture against don Pancracio, brought by his neighbour, doña María. I will invite you each to speak in turn, and I ask that you do not interrupt each other. You will both have the opportunity to say everything you want to say, and then, at the end, I will speak. Is that clear?

They both nodded.

Don Pancracio was a man of dark brown complexion, and was tremendously scruffy; that is, his clothes were old, torn and very dirty. His body odour was repugnant. All he had on his feet was a pair of old, worn-out flip-flops, exposing toes with long, blackened nails, caked in dark soil and foul-smelling dirt. A single tooth, discoloured and dirty, came into view every time he opened his mouth to speak. In contrast, doña María was a well-dressed though poor woman, fragrantly perfumed, who took care to edge her chair away from don Pancracio when I invited them both to come into the office and take a seat in front of me.

Right, I said, addressing doña María, please tell me the reason for your complaint.

You see, Mr Prefect, this gentleman has been my neighbour for a few years, and recently he's taken it into his head to shit on the pavement in front of his house as if it was his bathroom or his back garden...

What!? I exclaimed in surprise.

Yes sir, you heard me right. And the problem is, you can’t walk on the pavement because it’s always covered in this man’s excrement. And then there’s the smell. Now my house always smells of shit. I keep the windows and doors closed but it’s no use, the smell still gets in. A person can’t live in peace like that.

Throughout this account, don Pancracio had remained impassive, stony-faced, as if this had nothing to do with him.

I turned to look at him several times while doña María was talking, and his expression was always the same: calm, composed, unperturbed.

How awful! I said. And is there anything else you’d like to say?

Well, yes, she said. I also just wanted to say that it really isn’t very nice to have to see this gentleman pull down his trousers and squat there in front of everyone, at all hours of the day, doing his business in the street. It’s not just shit; he pees as well. Every time he wants to have a pee he comes out into the street, takes out his penis without a thought of who might see it, and pisses away, quite the thing. I’ve got little granddaughters, and the neighbourhood is full of boys and girls who really don’t need to be seeing this gentleman’s privates. And then there’s the flies and the maggots. With all the mess, they pile up on the pavement and end up getting into my house and my neighbours’ houses too.

How absolutely awful! I repeated in surprise. And have you spoken to him about it, or to his family?

Of course, your honour. Everyone’s constantly telling him to go inside to do his business, to respect his neighbours, not to be so shameless, not to be such a pig, such a mess, but he doesn’t listen to anyone; quite the opposite. Every time anyone says anything about it he gets annoyed.

There was a brief silence while I wondered whether this was some kind of nightmare. Unfortunately for me, I realised with disgust