Chapter 21: Friday, Nov. 17

In which the Corny Chard videotape turns out be the dinner show -- from the heart of darkness.

By Alfred Alcorn

Aug 22, 2001 | I still cannot quite believe what I witnessed earlier this evening, but the proof is there, in stark, horrific images. Yes, I have finally found the courage to watch the rest of the Corny Chard tape. It wasn't easy, but I fortified myself for it.

First, I left work early to be with Elsbeth for a while. She is so appreciative of the time I devote to her, even if it is spent mostly watching soap operas that, for me, blend one into the other, with the same people saying the same things to each other again and again. (Perhaps they are more realistic than I give them credit for.)

Then, deliberately, almost self-indulgently, giving myself plenty of time, I dressed in a tuxedo in preparation for Father O'Gould's presentation of the first Fessing Memorial Lecture and the dinner to follow. I kissed Elsbeth goodbye and drove over to the Museum. From a bottle of good scotch that I keep in the office closet, I poured myself a healthy double. I took the scotch and Corky's video down through the deserted exhibitions to the Twitchell Room.

I think being dressed in a tuxedo and sipping neat scotch definitely helped as I inserted the tape and pressed the button and rewound it just a bit, a final delaying action. I saw again the figure in an elaborate headdress dancing to the pounding log drum and then appearing in front of Corny, who has had his clothes cut away. I hear Corny say, "Ferdie, keep the camera on the shaman in the cockade of red macaw feathers. Oh, God, I think he's doing the cleansing dance right now."

Then we see the man in the brilliant headdress and painted near-naked torso dancing around and bending over an object on the ground. Corny comes into view again and a harsh, familiar sound is heard off-camera. Corny gasps. "Oh, God. That's a chainsaw. Bricklesby said nothing about that. It's not in the tradition. Oh, God. Or am I hallucinating?"

I held my breath and resisted the impulse to hit the stop button as the shaman appears with the old chainsaw. It sputters and belches smoke. And I force myself to watch as in one horrific motion, the saw is brought up under Corny's outstretched left arm. Corny screams as the whirring blade slices off the arm through the biceps spewing blood and bits of bone. I turn away.

Incredibly, it is Corny I hear next. "Follow the arm, Ferdie," he says, his voice weak and choking. "Get a close-up on the ceremony. I think ... I think it's going to the ceremonial grill."

As I watched, amazed and horrified, the camera closes to where the severed arm is being sanctified before being placed over the sacred fire. Corny is heard voice over again. "Ferdie. Keep the camera on the ceremony. They're going to keep ... chopping me up. Get as much as ... you can. Especially when they come for my heart. Try to ... get it down ... especially the cutting ceremony ..."

The camera swings back to Corny. One native has successfully tied a tourniquet of leather thong around the stump of Corny's severed arm, while another paints the bloody stump with a thick dark paste from a gourd.

Corny keeps talking, more breathless than ever. "I'm not really in any great pain. I know they are taking me in parts, but they want to keep me alive as long as possible. It's only death. I'm ... I'm ... like the center of the universe now. Their universe. This is a true honor. Groundbreaking. I smell my own flesh cooking. Not bad actually. But I know I couldn't eat any. Not that auto-anthropophagy is unknown."

Ferdie pans back with the camera. The shaman is dancing around again with the chainsaw, which is turned off. As though part of the ritual, he pulls the cord. It doesn't work. He pulls again, and the infernal thing roars to life with a great belch of smoke. The camera swings back to focus on Corny again. He's breathing in gasps. "God, I hurt. And this is just the beginning. But this has got to be the first for an anthropologist. Norman, don't let Joss see this. Promise me. Here comes the shaman for more of me." Corny screams again as the shaman, not as neatly this time, saws off his right leg half-way up the thigh with another spewing of blood, bone, and flesh.

Next Page: Corny expresses his preference regarding copyright

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