Geraldo James sat at his desk considering his plan, it grieved his soul—he poured another large glass of Brandy and slept.# Handsome Freaks
by Ezra Vancil
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This is an original STEEM series novel. If you like odd dramas about odd things, strangely funny and sad, freaks, bearded ladies and emotional pain of invisible boys—I'm writing this on steemit based on a short story I've written... enjoy.
Chapter 8 Part 1
Before the time of the socialist uprising, Geraldo James was a very influential Abogado of the municipal court of Valencia. But In 1887, the anarchist party carried out an assassination of the conservative prime minister Antonio Cánovas del Castillo and Geraldo found himself on the wrong side of the political lines being drawn in Spain.
This was in the years of the young king Alfonso XII. He had inherited a nation in the process of being torn apart by the new world visons of Carl Marx. After the assassination, The young King sought to find balance by appointing prime ministers; alternating the office equally between conservadores and liberales. This resulted in a general distrust and cries from the people of corruption.
Yet, even at the loss of his influence and power in society, he could not be bribed. He was a man of great moral character, he took no part in corruption, unlike all other's that held his office.
That was until his daughter Magdalene, whom he dearly loved, brutally slew the most beloved priest in the province; crushing his skull with a tent peg. It was then, Geraldo learned that any man can be corrupted, the question is only: for what price will he yield his soul.
Geraldo was from a prominent political family. He could have accepted many appointments to higher office such as Juez or magistrado, but he, like his father, was very politically involved and the magistrado, by law, was forbidden affiliation with any political party. His wealth was assured by his family's inheritance, so he chose the more humble position of the chief court lawyer in the province of Valencia.
His father, Arthur James, in the early 1800's left his judicial office in Manchester to become a British Captain in Peninsular War after Napoleon had invaded Portugal in 1807. After the war, Arthur met and married Luciana Maria Alcaldo in Madrid. Luciana was a third cousin of King Charles IV. Through her family ties, she was able to quickly establish her new husband in his chosen field as chief Abogado in the court of Valencia.
His father told stories by the fire in the library each night. Great tales of Napoleón; the ruler who he had fought bravely to conquer on the front lines, yet in time, came to respect as the quintessential archetype of power and rulership. In his father's more abstract ponderings, he compared the new judicial systems to a type of 'Napoleón', yet, predicting that in time, the ruler of all lands and nations would not be a mere man, but only books of law, acting as one unyielding sword to all men.
Geraldo's pride in his family lineage had been his only religion. He had no place in his intellect for the _'nuisances of myth'—as he called anything that hinted of church or doctrine. The law was his church; political ideals were his doctrine. The people would be saved, not by a blood of the old 'gods,' but by the new blood that pumped the tempered hearts of enlightened men.
Geraldo had imagined, that he too would have a son that would attend university and carry on in the legal field, but after three trying miscarriages, his young wife Esther gave birth only to one girl: his now bearded murderous daughter, Magdalene.
Knowing his only air—being a woman—would never be accepted into university; he had begrudgingly settled into the fact that his father's great legacy would die with him. He had only hoped that it would 'die well,' as they say. Yet, now, It looked as though his career would end in shame and rumors of corruption.
When he investigated and discovered the details of his daughter's murderous deeds and the strange bloody way she went about killing the old Priest, Geraldo was sure that she would be found out and his legacy would be one remembered only for its sad and tragic oddness.
Yet, still, against all logic, he loved Magdalene. Her beard had strangely endeared her to himself—as if she was now the son he never had. Her murder of Father Demissie had bound them, even more so, together... in a partnership of secrets that could never be known.
On that fridged winter morning of the murder... when he walked out of the house, expecting only his normal routine for the day, yet finding his poor daughter naked and bloodied on the cobblestone path; his white horse smeared with dry blood and his mad wife babbling as usual in the garden; at the moment he lifted Magdalene's naked body onto his shoulder, Geraldo felt something break inside of him. Deep inside, where there is no flesh and bones. He recalled an old Spanish proverb and whispered it aloud as he carried his daughter to the main house, "Al que Dios quiere castigar le quita la razón" or "Whom God will destroy, he first makes mad."
Though in his life he had mocked the idea of there existing an all-powerful God above the stars; in the midst of that morning, he acquired a sudden and unyielding faith. A belief, in fact, that he was being punished. Not by any normal events of coincidence, not by a scientific material justice that exists in the gears of nature, but by the very hand of his creator. He could feel it as he felt his own heartbeat. Judgment had come upon the lawyer and he could not bare the ruling.
In that season he began to drink heavily, to the point of oblivion, each and every day forward.
The cover-up of the brutal murder of Father Demissie was so easily accomplished by Geraldo that it shamed him all the worse. For it proved that his cherished system of law and justice was, as the Anarchist claimed, corrupt beyond repair.
He was the chief court Abogado of the province of Valencia and was involved in all criminal cases. The Procuradores that investigated the case with the policía municipal, reported to him alone.
Before his murder, many considered Father Demissie to be a living candidate for sainthood. The frightful details of his death sprouted numerous rumors of demons loosed in the streets of Valencia. The more sober-minded were equally enraged but turned that rage, not to demons of hell, but to the demons of their political enemies. The Liberales pointed the finger at the conservadores; The Conservadores pointed to the Liberales; both claiming the murder was a sign of the ignorance and moral decay of the other's political ideals.
Geraldo James knew the people well. He knew that the majority of the community—being of such low minded political and religious zealotry—would quickly abandon all merciful teachings of their claimed savior, be him Christ or Marx, and cry out for justice to be done swiftly; 'blood for blood.'
And so they did.
Within two days of the murder of the Priest, enraged mobs were gathered in the streets below his offices, demanding the murder's swift capture and death.
Geraldo further knew that with a mob in such moral fervor that there would be no need for evidence or truths of any kind; he would only need suggest the right suspicion to the right ears. A suspicion of someone, other than the true killer, who seemed to be undeniably 'murderous'. Someone capable in the eyes of the people of doing such a heinous crime. It would need to seem obvious to everyone. Then the mobs, blinded by furry, would remedy the murder case with no need for a court hearing, no litigation, no investigation.
He needed his daughter's involvement in the murder to remain never questioned. For, though, no natural man would suspect his Magdalene as even capable of such a horrendous act—If they were to see her in the state of appearance which she now presented, with beard and chest hair—then there might be questions of her being a demon herself, a witch... possibly even capable of murder. This he could not allow even the suggestion of.
Luckily, Geraldo knew of the perfect suspect for this murder. His name was Pio Piccolo. Pio was someone he could point the finger at that would be instantly believed guilty by the mobs and the policía alike. He was called by the townspeople 'El Cerdo Fantasma,' because he lived in the hills and fed off of garbage and wild swine. Rumours were circulated that he was a ghost; a few townspeople had witnessed him, in what they claimed a 'semi-transparent state'.
Pio Piccolo had arrived in Valencia two years earlier, a stranger in the city, still in his youth, with no family. He was an abnormally large boy; two feet taller than the tallest man in Valencia.
When he had arrived, he had attracted much attention. For his odd appearance and hight at first but also for his strange tales of the family that walked through walls and had abandoned him.
When he arrived, his only belongings were his clothes and a woman's purse full of gold coins. This was enough evidence for some speculators, that he was a Bandido. Yet, he was too young and simple-minded to be believed at that time to be a hardened thief.
The young boy first came to Geraldo's awareness when he ended up in the shackles of the Policía Municipal after stealing a pig from a local farmer. During questioning, it was found that he had not actually taken the pig from the farmer's property but had in fact eaten the entire pig right in its pin—without even a fire to cook it on. Pio had been found in the morning by the farmer's wife; covered in blood and surrounded by the meticulously cleaned bones of their prized pig.
With no money left to compensate the farmer, Pio found himself in court. It was there that he became the town's curiosity. Rumours spread about him eating a live pig. Some court servants were sympathetic to his plight, for he was a young boy, simple and barely old enough to take responsibility for himself. His name, he said, was 'Pio' of the family 'Piccolo' from the small village of Bergamo. He explained that his mother had abandoned him on a train in the Pamplona station.
Geraldo himself had presided in Pio's case, in which he was found guilty. Geraldo had to admit that there was something very odd about the boy. Though he was not one to believe in such manifestations of the mysterious, he had at one point witnessed what others called Pio's semi-transparent state. During one incident in his office, he felt like he could see the chair's wooden back showing through the boy's chest who sat on it. It was hypnotic and unreal—it was so very peculiar, that Geraldo had easily dismissed it as a dizzy spell.
Despite the rumors and even though he had convicted him of theft himself, Geraldo took mercy on the large boy. He was more like an innocent child in his demure than a young man. By his own volition, Geraldo sent a court servant to the village of Bergamo in search of any family members that might take responsibility for the young Pio. The court servant reported back by letter two months later, saying that he had indeed found the house of the 'Piccolo' family. He also stated that the house had long been abandoned, that he inspected it himself and that there was not a living soul on the property—further adding that no one in the village would even speak to him of the whereabouts of the Piccolos.
Pio was held for eight months in the Prisión municipal de Picassent. It was said later, by other inmates during the stay of Pio, that for once the prison was completely rid of its normal irritable rat population. They said that the boy regularly ate the rats after lunch and breakfast as a snack.
There was much more talk of Pio after his release, his stay in prison had given the rumors time to solidify into full-grown folklore. It was then that people began to call him by the name 'El Cerdo Fantasma', or the Ghost Pig. He later disappeared never to be seen again on the streets of Valencia... at least, not in the daytime.
It was known that he lived in Sierra de Dos Aguas Mountains further out in the province and was sometimes caught digging in the trash that filled the alleyways of the city. Every time a farm animal went missing or if someone mysteriously disappeared, it was blamed on the increasingly feared Ghost Pig.
This drama was taking place during the same summer that Geraldo began dealing with Magdalene's curse and his wife's ever-increasing madness. At that time, he had little attention for the growing fears surrounding the new fables of Pio Piccolo.
But, now, in need of a believable suspect, his attention was entirely turned to the outcast boy. For, his plan was to make Pio Piccolo the prime suspect, the undeniable murderer of the beloved Preist. Like the abomination of desolation told in scriptures—that of the unclean pig offered on the altar of the holy temple—Geraldo also would offer this 'Ghost Pig,' on the altar of justice; a sacrifice to the God that sought to destroy his family with a curse, and for his beloved daughter's insured freedom.
Geraldo James sat at his desk considering his plan, it grieved his soul—he poured another large glass of Brandy and slept.
I'm Ezra Vancil a Performing Songwriter, artist and writer based in Texas. Thanks for reading. If you like, please RESTEEM, UPVOTE and follow 
Missed The Last Chapters?
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