Epilogue
The jury’s verdict was unanimous: guilty.
I was sentenced to thirty years at the Ary Franco Prison in água Santa.
The public defender—a scrawny, miserable man—says I should be able to get downgraded to a lower custody level or maybe even a reduction in sentence, but I don’t care about any of that. There’s nobody waiting for me outside.
After news of the cannibal dinners got out, not even my parents came to visit me.
I learned through a very impersonal letter, most likely written by an attorney, that I’d been cut out of the will and that, when they died, everything would be left to a distant cousin.
All the money I’d earned from the dinners was seized by the courts, and even if I ever do get out of here, I’m sure I won’t be able to reintegrate into society. I don’t stand a chance.
For months, the Seagull Meat case provided ample fodder for the tabloids.
There was always some new piece of information, an interviewee, a morbid detail.
The evening news segment from when the police found the guest lists from the past few years was one of the most streamed broadcasts in the history of Brazilian television.
There were a lot of influential people involved, and they concealed some names, but not all.
My trial was basically its own television program, a live-action soap opera with high ratings: A young man and his friends come from rural Paraná and strike gold hosting cannibal dinner parties.
Since my three friends were all lucky enough to be dead, the blame fell entirely on me.
I’m the psychopath, the maniac, the face of evil in your nightmares on a stormy night.
That’s why I’d just rather stay here, in this state-run hotel, with food and clean clothes.
My days behind bars are lazy, empty, and sad.
Most of the prisoners like and respect me because I have a way with words and can write well.
Some troublemakers tried to get under my skin at first, picking fights and harassing me, but they eventually backed off: They’d seen enough photos of what the police had found inside that villa.
There’s a whole bunch of unofficial photos taken by the first cops to arrive on the scene.
Almost all of them made their way to the internet, they’re not hard to find.
The other day, while eating the cafeteria slop, I learned that my nickname in here is Cannibal.
I like it. I spend most of my time by myself, though a few curious (and brave) people will occasionally try to strike up a conversation by asking how it all began.
I tell them the seagull meat riddle, but they don’t seem to believe it was really like that.
They look at me skeptically when I say the whole story can be summed up in that one line: the husband who kills himself after finding out he’d eaten his own wife.
Most nights, I think about Arthur. I also think about Piglet, Miguel, even Hugo.
I have plenty of time on my hands, to think, to sleep, even to write a book.
Any writer complaining about not having time should just go kill somebody and spend a few years in jail.
I could write more books than Agatha Christie in here.
So I’ve decided to tell my side of the story.
I think it’s important. Besides, writing keeps the loneliness at bay.
What with all that crap in bookstores right now, from coloring books and religious garbage to the BookTok fads, maybe with a bit of luck my books will sell and I can make a little money.
I wrote the first lines of this story in September 2024 and made quick progress.
I don’t have much else to do here. My routine is simple: I read the paper or books, watch TV, exercise in the yard, and try to avoid getting into trouble with the other inmates.
It’s funny how we can create a new world on the inside, turning whatever happens on the outside into a kind of parallel reality.
It doesn’t matter who the next president will be, the state of the economy, the city’s crime rates, whether the subway is running, the exchange rate against the dollar.
When you’re stuck, to hell with everything. Or rather: almost everything.
I don’t know at what point I started to suspect something was wrong.
In March 2025, I saw a report on the news about an attack on Bishop Lygia.
While on tour and traveling by bus through the Midwest, she and her crew were surrounded by several dark pickup trucks.
The hijackers got out and shot up the bus, leaving no survivors.
At the time, the story caused national uproar, but I found it all very amusing. Where’s your God now? I thought.
In the spring of that year, I managed to get online for a day through a smuggled cell phone.
After typing my own name into Google and finding horrific photos of myself in a prison uniform with my ear cut off, I typed Pingo d’água.
Several websites mentioned the controversial dismantling of the Universal Church of the Crucified Lord headquarters after the pastor’s death.
The information was vague and conflicting, but I managed to glean that the old buildings had been purchased by a foreign investment group.
What could an international company possibly want with that dump?
According to major news sites, the business owners had decided to demolish everything and rebuild the adult entertainment complex that had once been planned for the town.
There was a lot of criticism, with processions and pilgrimages by the faithful, but nothing could stop it: Construction continued at full steam and the opening of the new brothel was scheduled for March of the following year.
There was something weird about it. Over the next few months, I thought up countless theories.
The answer came on a Monday morning in December.
I was reading George Orwell in the prison yard under the scorching summer sun when a guard told me I had a visitor.
I thought it might be my mother, that she regretted having washed her hands of me, but the guard pointed to an approaching tattooed blond woman.
I didn’t recognize her until she neared and took off her sunglasses: It was Cora.
Cora with blue contact lenses, filled duck lips, a thinner nose, and a dragon wrapped around her left arm, but still Cora.
Like a doll. I gave her a tight embrace, and she smiled back at me.
“I’ve missed you,” I said.
Cora nodded, motioning for us to move to a more private corner of the yard. “Please don’t tell anyone who I am.”
“Sure, sure.”
Her name had appeared in a few articles when the case first broke, but since there were no photos or sketches of her, that line of investigation eventually died. Cora was invisible to the police.
“To be honest, I don’t even know if I should have come,” she said, rubbing her hands together. “But I thought it was for the best. You’d find out sooner or later.”
“You were the one who bought the church in Pingo d’água, weren’t you? With the money you saved up from the dinners?”
She smiled at me, full of pity.
“Piglet and I bought the church, Dante.”
A jolt of electricity rattled inside me. I glared at her, but Cora looked away, crossed her legs, and sat up straight.
“I’m sorry, Dante,” she said. “We gave you every opportunity to join the business, but you didn’t take any of them. You would’ve fought, tried to take us down, and you were determined to find out who Vladimir was. You never even came close.”
It was pathetic. I couldn’t even form a sentence.
“Piglet and I are doing really well. The dinners are going full steam ahead and he’s excited about the idea of reopening the brothel. Since you were going to find out any day now, he asked me to come here and let you know.”
Some prisoners were beginning to watch us. I couldn’t hold back the tears.
“Why would you do this?”
“Piglet always said that the best way to get out of something is to place the blame on someone bigger than you. He did a job at Umberto’s house and realized the old guy was the perfect front man.
That’s how Vladimir came about. Umberto never suspected a thing, he only spoke to me, Virgínia, on the phone.
That’s why Piglet didn’t want him to meet me ever.
It would have meant the end of our little charade. ”
“But … I don’t get it … We only needed the one dinner to cover the rent money!”
“My lil’ Love Nugget had a brilliant idea, Dante.
He didn’t want it to end with just one dinner, and I was the perfect partner.
It was no coincidence that I came over that first time, when you were hoisting up that old woman in the living room; it was no coincidence that those first cuts of meat spoiled overnight.
I unplugged the freezer. It was the only way to keep the business going. ”
“I was your fucking friend! Hugo and Miguel are dead. I’m stuck in this hellhole!”
“We tried to protect you. After you visited the slaughterhouse, we thought you’d give up.
The woman you followed through the antique mall was a plant, a friend of mine from my streetwalking days.
We even made up an informant for Ruth, that nosy journalist, just to make you suspect Umberto.
But you wouldn’t give it a rest, and now you’re here, trapped. ”
“What’s stopping me from calling the guards right now and telling them who you are?”
“If you did that, you’d be putting your family in danger. In fact, you’d be putting yourself in danger. Piglet wouldn’t be happy if something happened to me. I’m the love of his life, a birthday gift from God.”
Cora got up, placing her hand on my face.
“I hope you’re happy. You probably don’t believe me, but I like you.” She rummaged in her leopard-print purse and handed me a business card. “When you get out of here, look me up. I can get you a job at one of our branches. You can count on me, Dante.”
“Fuck you, Cora.”
She began to walk away, popping her wide ass under the stares of the other inmates. When she was a few feet away, she turned to me with a smile and shouted:
“Hey, Dante … remember that blowjob I promised you? The offer still stands, if you want.”