October 03, 2010
An Irishman’s home is his coffin.
“James Joyce, Ulysses
The dead use a graveyard forever.
“Nathan Englander, The Ministry of Special Cases
Over the last couple of months, corpses have turned up all over the world. In August alone, the following bodies were found:
“¢ In Bosnia, near Lake Perucac, the International Commission for Missing Persons discovered fifty bodies from the 1992 Visegrad massacre.
“¢ Seventy-two bodies, apparently of migrants headed for the United States to seek work, turned up on a ranch in Mexico’s Tamaulipas state.
“¢ Also in Mexico, divers retrieved the skeleton of a boy who died 10,000 years ago in Yucatan.
“¢ A historian found the frozen and well preserved remains of an Italian soldier from WWI in the Dolomites near Italy’s border with Austria.
“¢ Police in Boone County, Arkansas, unearthed the deceased Lisa Marie Davis and cast doubt on her husband’s explanation that he buried her beside their house for sentimental reasons after she killed herself.
“¢ August’s most puzzling discovery was a British spy’s dismembered corpse. Thirty-one-year-old Gareth Williams was found stuffed into a sports bag in his London flat. Police originally ruled out suicide. A month later, they changed their tack and called it accidental suicide. Their explanation”wait for it”was that Williams had stuffed himself into the sports bag, locked on the outside, in an original-if-fatal act of autoeroticism. British police appear to believe, with considerable justification, that the public is as gullible as they are. This is the country whose cops framed innocent Irishmen for famous bombings in Birmingham and Guildford in 1974, killed an innocent Brazilian on an underground train in 2005, and have never had an officer tried for shooting an unarmed civilian or framing an innocent suspect. The word “impunity” comes to mind.
This month, the toll mounted:
“¢ Reality-television chef Joe Cerniglia’s body was found in the Hudson River.
“¢ An unnamed corpse turned up in Fort Bragg, North Carolina.
“¢ Police found another unidentified male body, this one in an advanced state of decay, in a Manchester, England, apartment. Detective Superintendent Neil Hunter told reporters, “It is frustrating identifying exactly who he is, but we are working on it and want to let friends, family, associates, and relatives know as soon as we can.” Following protocol, Manchester police will either declare the cause to have been suicide or, if the national press cries for a culprit, frame a vagrant or anyone else not related to Rupert Murdoch for murder.
“¢ A young woman’s bound corpse turned up in a flat in East Cleveland, Ohio. Press reports said the police suspected “foul play.” At least they did not say she killed herself before she tied her hands and feet with ropes.
“¢ A fifteen-year-old Algerian girl’s body was discovered on a roof terrace in the Saudi city of Mecca. Police immediately arrested two Yemenis on suspicion of attempted rape. (In Saudi Arabia, Yemenis are as common among the “usual suspects” as Mexicans are in Los Angeles, Muslims in London, and Algerians in Paris.)
