Sony Tansi - The Shameful State

“Set his grave on fire, Colonel.”

“What kind of a world is this in which the dead return and bother the living? I buried him in the way I may one day be buried. I even handed some dough to his seventy-one mistresses…”

“Mr. President, those are state secrets.”

“I don’t agree — the best way to hide things is to show them. I’m going to tell you, my people: all those guys except for myself and Mom have stashed away a pile of dough in Switzerland, billions of coustrani they’ve sent over there to keep Europe moving. That’s why I’m going to reshuffle my hernia, right here, for all of us to see: who wants to be Minister of Trade Negotiations? Ok. And what about Minister of Infantrymen… now that’s democracy, and let’s be honest: Who wants to be Minister of Youth and Sports?… How about Minister of Diplomas?”

By the evening he was slumped down in his favorite official chair and the visitors kept coming: Mr. President, Vauban informs him, the French want to drill for uranium in Valanta.

“How much are they offering?”

“11 percent.”

“Ask for 29 percent.”

“The Italians want to fish off the coast from Watangotta.”

“What percentage?”

“21 percent…”

“That won’t do. Tell them we want one out of every three fish they catch.”

“The Russians are prospecting for oil in Moudan.”

“Out of the question: they’re far too dumb in any case.”

“But Mr. President…”

“Out of the question, I said.”

He shows his zipper to Jouvanso who’s busy gawking at power and stirring up the tribes in the south and I’m here to tell you in person so that you know that my hernia is angry. Our brother Jouvanso scratches his head. But he says it again: my hernia is angry because you still haven’t stopped confusing the fatherland with your way of pissing.

“Where’s my younger brother Ravou del Cosso?”

While he strides across the palace, Mom watches him, smiling: my son is so very beautiful. He’d be even more beautiful if it weren’t for that hernia swelling up his pants, without that smell of eggplant, and without all that mud from the people. He runs into National Yoha who tells the future using cowrie shells: everything looks good, Mr. President. Ok. Everything looks good, but from what I can predict, death will come on a Monday morning, on the leaves from a Kapok tree, and it will be a woman. An extremely beautiful woman.

“Are those predictions correct?”

“I’ve never been wrong. A very young woman will slit your stomach open while you sleep, all the way from the solar plexus to the groin, somewhere between nine and ten o’clock. She’ll cut out a piece of your large intestine.”

“If I was Dananso Lopez, I’d get rid of all the women.”

And National Yoha cries along with him, out of male solidarity, with their kaki hearts, those equally kaki juices leaking out, if that reading is correct, but I’m the guardian angel of women, and he tells him all that I’ve done for them, but who’ll take over my hernia, who will be in power after me? National Colonel, the reading says it will be a woman, and he starts barking like a real dog, ah how shameful, how shameful Mom, ever since the earth has been the earth, ah Maman, my hernia is confused, but I won’t respond like Tistano Rama who handed over power to a cow, I won’t do things in the way that shameful Larabinto did, who gave up power without so much as a tip, without even a sham election, he went and stuck authority in the mouth of a mute, a bonehead, a total loser like Zibanto of my hernia, he stuck it right in his mouth, here’s my body and here’s my hernia, go ahead, feast on them, he was speaking of the time when testicles were the national dish throughout the sovereign territory of my hernia, but I, Lopez, National son of Mom, came along and said enough with all this bullshit, over my hernia will I ever be like that ex- you-all-know-who , never will I be like that ex-National Levando who sold women by nationalizing all the brothels, and he told the story of that shameful ex-Levando, from beginning to end, but the people sing my praises in the streets, in stadiums, in their homes, and the different neighborhoods and districts, the countryside and the forests are abuzz with my name, for once that God has sent us a good president and the churches are packed, and we make our way over to him, en masse, some of us to catch a glimpse of his national hernia and a quick sniff of their sweet and spicy smell, others to admire his trademark leopard-striped costume soaked in the people’s mud, spread loincloths and palm leaves out in front of him, shower him with flowers and song and the poor lay down on the ground in front of him so that he can walk over them, up you get now my people, there’s a stampede to lick him, to drink his sweat and the juices seeping from his hernia, and he says all this is as enchanting as a campfire, as beautiful as the day I was born when Mom got all torn up pushing me out of her entrails, men, women, and children carry him on their back, he stops off at this little hut that looks like the one in which he was born, he asks to drink the people’s water, to eat what the people eat, that overly spicy soup with cockroaches swimming in it because it hadn’t been properly sealed, he sucks on the cockroaches before discarding them as the people do, he gulps down their beers, whips out his meat stick to piss like the people do, coughs and spits in the way the people do, ah good God that feels good, as enchanting as a campfire, everlasting beauty, he danced their dances, all of Zamba-Town is with him as he parades his hernia around in the ancient manner, he leaps on that girl, ah it’s Vauban who said it best: the Black woman knows how to turn her B-side into an A-side, and as always sings him his favorite childhood lullaby: be good, be good… be good for my little banger, with his big greasy hernia hollering for blood, that’s what happens after fifteen years of leadership under a loser like Almanzo who thought it was enough to have a bunch of infantrymen on the side of his hernia to be able to assert your authority, and “Go to sleep my little banger, go to sleep my sweetheart,” and the masses join in singing the song to my greatness, and they’re singing lullabies in the factories, in the garrisons, in the hospitals, as they carry him you can hear, “Go to sleep now my baby, go to sleep now my baby…” but that’s enough bullshit! He jumps off the person carrying him, my people the party is over, go back to work, we’ve quite a bit of catching up to do on the other hernias in this world, our breathing should be full gallop, our words full gallop, sleeping, eating, our poets should write and think full gallop, and where’s the Minister of Dough, right here National Colonel, now gallop! Enough with this bullshit of allocating half the budget to “firing utensils”; where’s the Minister of Infantrymen, right here, National Colonel sir, now listen carefully: the national weapon throughout the sovereign territory of my zipper shall be the machete, that’s enough messing around trying to sell Europe’s skin without having killed it first; Minister of Roads! Present! Now gallop, Minister of Purchases! Present! Now gallop, Minister of Rocks, Present, now gallop, Minister of Medication! Present! Minister of Society! Absent, ah, now there’s one who thinks he can… tough shit for him: I’m giving his job to Mom; she knows all those plants that heal, she knows what cleanliness is and the cost of prescription drugs, those who are absent will regret it, I’m handing over the Ministry for Primary Schools to National Carvanso, the Ministry of Stamps to National Lanza, my fellow comrade National Narso will be Minister of the Countryside in charge of water and hunting, now gallop my brothers, excavate, dig, rummage, leave no place un-turned my hernia is likely to visit or revisit; Carlos Pedro same father same hernia walks in crying his eyes out, covered in snot, disheveled, drooling; what’s wrong Carlos Pedro of Mom? His eyes redden, he furls his brow, speak, my brother, I’ve never turned down any of your requests, nor has my hernia, I’m on your side, you’re my little brother and, Mr. President, it’s so shameful: my wife is sleeping with some infantryman called Tannanso Hussoto, please, National Colonel, do something to get me out of this shameful situation! Ah, sex, sex, these matters are the toughest to deal with, but what do you expect me to do Carlos Pedro, this is what the country has become, our dreadful snobbery: everyone desires what their neighbor desires. And he reeled off the names of all the shameful couples who got together deep in my herniated balls, those bitter couples: National Captain Garcia Lorenso who’s sleeping with the wife of my National cousin Gabrielo Folo, my cousin National Darmansi who’s sleeping with the wife of my other cousin Isidro Martillimi Zola, ex-Lieutenant-Colonel Sarvanso Tiya who’s sleeping with the wife of the Minister of Shots, and as you can see for yourself, Carlos Pedro, the list goes on and on, seventy pages with the names of someone’s wife who’s sleeping with someone else and that’s only for Zamba-Town, and Colobra’s list, and all that you can see written here, but, National Colonel, I’m going to commit suicide if you don’t do something to get me out of this shameful situation, I’m going to kill myself just to get myself out from under this shame. The tone of his voice is tugging at my hernia, I feel sorry for him, really sorry, but I can’t go around ordering women to take their legs seriously, you can’t order someone to love you, ah what a terrible waste a dick can be! And he gets a call that evening: National Colonel, your brother Carlos Pedro has hanged himself, ah that’s too much. He goes to visit the corpse. The corpse continues to beg him: please do something to get me out of this shameful situation, his eyes bulging, fresh bloody tears, his tongue hanging out, blood leaking out of him, his balls exposed because he went and hanged himself naked, and his shit all over the place staring me down like no one has ever done before. All right then, I’ll have his rival executed, it’s ugly, real ugly, but if you want to live here, then you have to be tough in the art of looking the other way, and he adds: National Damanso, I’m appointing you minister, he looks at him, yes, you, Minister of Testicles, it’s ugly but we can’t do without such a position any longer, shut your eyes and nominate your advisory team, and make sure you impose stiff fines for adultery and that the proceeds go directly to the State, and he gives the personal example of his hernia that has never secreted anything but rotten juices but that always ends up being blamed for each and every pregnancy, and those women are birthing kids with no hair and no hernia, now that’s enough, things have gone too far this time! He tells him about the latest pregnancy Laura of my shame has gone and pinned on my hernia and when the child was born it turned out that it was a little “Flemish” lad, and no, he wasn’t kaki like me, and they’d had me go out and buy baby’s bottles and all that other crap for nothing.