This is a horror story, part of my Swedish Pizza collection. Content warning: violence.
A slice of pizza, seven feet tall, stands in front of me. The tip of the slice's triangle points towards the ground, legs coming out from the sides. I look at the pizza and the pizza looks back, eyes as big as dinner plates. Or maybe small pizzas. The pizza offers me a hand to shake. I grasp it and the pizza pulls me into an embrace. Padded arms wrap around me and I feel safe.
This is Pizzapizza - but every time I say the mascot's name, Anders tells me I've got it slightly wrong and repeats the word. "Pizzapizza". Then I try again. We're laughing as I can't pronouce it correctly, and Pizzapizza does a little dance, hopping from one foot to the other.
I'm a little suspicious about the pizza after my recent experience, but Anders assures me there is nothing strange about the food here. We order and take a seat at one of the picnic tables. We're on a wooden platform at the edge of a forest. It's beautiful. I watch Pizzapizza entertaining other customers.
When the waiter brings our food, Pizzapizza follows him, doing a little dance beside our table. I laugh, happy to play the foolish tourist, getting up to do my own silly dance, hopping from one leg to the other. But Anders grabs me and tells me, no. He sounds a lot firmer than he should be. As if I've done something wrong. I don't think I've seen him so serious, but I sit and take a slice of the pizza.
The pizza is as average as Anders has suggested, but the location is pleasant enough. I've ordered pepperoni for the topping, ignoring the weirder flavours that Sweden’s famed for. There's plenty of time for that. Anders and I don't talk as we eat. Somewhere in the distance, a church bell chimes. As if that's a signal, two men walk forward. They're carrying smooth wooden clubs, about 18 inches long.
I've no idea what's going to happen until it's underway. The mascot is knocked to its knees. The mascot's insane permagrin doesn't change under the blows, but I hear for the first time the wearer's voice. He's shouting something in Swedish which can only be begging for mercy. Begging not to be hurt.
Before I can stand up, Anders has placed his hand on my arm. I look around at the families who are watching this on a sunny day, who seem unconcerned. The clubs batter Pizzapizza so hard that the padding does little good. A loud crack suggests broken bones, the screams ebbing down to whimpers. The scene goes on for far too long, relentless thumps on a silent body.
Once they're done the men are tired, breathing heavily. One turns to me. "Will this be in your article?"
"No, no, no," I tell them. "I'll say nothing."
The other one clasps my shoulder. "We did this for you. It is an old tradition."
"You want me to write about this?"
He nods. "Every year, we perform the sacrifice of Pizzapizza."
Some of the families now gather around the fallen mascot. The two men drag it away from the tables to an area with more space where people can pose for photos.
"You are very lucky to be here," says Anders. "Everyone else has been in a lottery so that they can watch."
I pick up another slice of pizza. There are four more on my plate. I hope that, when the last is finished, I am not forced to pose for my own photo with Pizzapizza's corpse.
Background
I’m not sure how I feel about content warnings. I know that I appreciate them for movies, as there are certain things I don’t want to see handled as entertainment. Does the Dog Die has proved invaluable for making sure that potential film choices are suitable. Some people think content warnings spoil a film, but I also wonder if they work as part of that story’s framing. A way of building up some suspense, maybe.
I’m not sure this story needs a content warning, given it’s just a fiction character being beaten to death, with the violence hidden by a costume. Next week’s story definitely needs a warning.
As mentioned at the top, this is one of my Swedish Pizza stories - the first one I shared was Boet. This collection started as a joke with my friend Lou Ice about a preposterous idea for a horror collection, themed around eating pizza in Sweden. I talked more about this in the background for Boet, including how it was inspired by the Anders Fagers collection, Svenska Kulter. Once I complete the drafts for True Clown Stories, I will probably write up the 11,000 words of notes I have on Swedish Pizza. Because the world needs more transgressive writing about pizza.
Recommendations
Last Thursday I went into Leeds with my best friend, her daughter, and her daughter’s friends to watch Bikini Kill. It’s the first time I’ve been to a large gig in years, and the experience was a total drag. Obnoxious and oppressive security, a priority queue for people on a particular mobile phone network and £7.80 pints of beer. Not very punk rock.
But that all seemed worth it when the band took the stage. Powerful and energetic, it made me realise how much I’d been inspired by the ethos of indie rock. I missed out on riot grrl at the time - not surprising when I was raised in a misogynistic all-boys boarding school - but I absorbed a lot of the ethos second-hand through Kurt Cobain’s interviews1.
Before the gig, I read Kathleen Hanna’s autobiography Rebel Girl. It’s an awesome book about her experiences in the punk scene, as well as how she built up riot grrl from a cult in Olympia to something that inspired young women internationally (and, you know, coining the phrase ‘Girl Power’). It’s a hard read too, as Hanna describes the misogyny and violence faced by her and the people around her, but the book is ultimately inspiring.
Seeing Bikini Kill, I was also aware that, after three decades of corporate toil, I’m a long way from being punk myself. But I still believe in the importance of making the art that you believe in.
While Cobain promoted feminism, his treatment of Victoria Clark, Britt Collins and Mary Lou Lord undermines his support. Lord discusses her relationship with Kurt on the How the Hell Did that Happen podcast and Clark has written about her experiences.
How very timely! Riot Grrrl was on my mind yesterday, after Andrew O'Neill put a shout out for punk zines. My ex's little sister and her friends (who were in the band Skinned Teen) put out what I think were the UK's first Riot Grrrl zines, so yesterday I started scanning them and uploading to archive:
https://archive.org/details/drop-babies-zine-issue-1-uk-riot-grrrl
https://archive.org/details/voop-issue-1-uk-riot-grrl-zine