A Brief History of Seven Killings

by James, Marlon

  —Oi, you can’t stay here. Pussyhole, me say you can’t stay yah so. Yow. Yow!

  —Haffi wait for Weeper. Haffi wait for Josey Wales.

  —Clint Eastwood coming? Who behind him, Francis the talking mule?

  —First. Is me come here first.

  —No brethren me see you from last night. You not first or last.

  —When you . . . You was in the second Datsun or first? Bam-Bam? So tired, so—

  [CLICK]

  —Hear that, pussyhole? You know click? You can tell difference between click and tick?

  —Second Datsun or first? Me know you name? You is . . . you is . . .

  —Like what you hear a second ago. Click or tick?

  —Is not a second ago. Weeper? Tell Bam-Bam to stop chuck badness with me.

  —Pussyhole, the click from a click ago. Me give you nothing to laugh ’bout?

  —Me never hear no click. Heckle?

  —After tick come tock. You know what come after click?

  —Me never hear no click.

  —Never hear the click? Well after the click come the fucking bang, want to bet say you hear that?

  —Chitty chitty bang sitting on a fence.

  —Boy you coked up?

  —Trying to make a dollar out’a fifteen cents.

  —Them make you smoke lizard tail weed?

  —She twist, she twist, she twist like this.

  —How much line them make you sniff?

  —You know Josey Wales? You know Weeper? You know if him coming?

  —You is a cokehead, pussyhole. Better if you was a battyman.

  —Me not no cokehead, me just want a line. Just a line. Weeper coming and when he come he going give me a line.

  —Cokehead.

  —Just tell Weeper—

  —Nobody name Weeper come ’round here.

  —He coming and when he come he going tell you who can and who can’t come ’round here. Is fi him house this! You going see. You going see.

  —House? You see any house here?

  Bush. No wood, no floor, no window, just bush. On the ground, under a tree hanging tamarind and bats. Tamarind in the dirt. Tamarind in the grass from one to another, tamarind to tamarind to tamarind to broken dish to Pepsi bottle to doll’s head to grass to weed to zinc fence. A yard, somebody’s yard. Somebody who scream as soon as I see that I’m lying in the grass in somebody’s yard. She screaming and screaming and I can see who it is.

  —You can’t come back here.

  —How you mean? But me come back.

  I looking for wood and stone and nail and dried blood but this is not the shack, this is not even inside and the woman is the woman I live with, the woman whose name I can’t call out. I say is me.

  —Madman, come out of me yard!

  But me is not no madman. Me is the man who live with you like you is the mummy and me is the daddy. And just then I realize that I can’t remember what she look like and don’t see her face but I know that me in her house. My house. The red house on Smitherson Lane fourth from the crossroad, the house with an inside kitchen that most people around here don’t have and have to cook outdoors.

  —But me live here as you man.

  —Man? Me no have no man. My man dead. Him dead to me. Get out now.

  She done talk. She pick up a stone. The first one miss and the second one but the third hit right in the middle of me back.

  —Wha the bloodcloth do you?

  —Come out of my pussycloth yard! Rape! Rape! Rapery in me house! Lawd me pussy ah get trample! Rapery!

  If there’s one thing that Papa-Lo simply can’t abide by is a rapist. Better you murder ten woman than rape one. The woman me live with stoning me and I running left and right like a ground lizard. She scream again and the sun shine down on me like a spotlight. See him there. The sun send demons after me, just as he send demons after Judas Iscariot.

  Come out, she say, and I turn around to see her raise her hand to throw another stone. I look at her straight, and don’t blink. She drop the stone and run into the little bedroom that me and she make wet so much that she have to hang out the mattress to dry. On the other side of the fence I don’t see or hear them but I know them coming. I look out from the fence and see Josey Wales with three men behind him that me seen before. One is Tony Pavarotti but the other two me don’t know them name. I want to shout out is what kinda a fuckery this after all the brethren never did even at the house. Before I can shout that it’s me pap pap pap go off in the distance then bang bang bang on the zinc fence, the last bang just missing my right ear. I don’t know why but I look out again so that Josey Wales can see that it’s me and not some rapist but he look straight at me as he running and fire again. Four bullets bust through the fence and two zip-zip right past me. I run around to the back of the house and jump the fence but don’t land when I thought I was going to. Not a road, but a gully deep like the way to hell. I can’t stop falling. I try to roll like Starsky or Hutch would do but my right knee land first and drive into the ground. No time for aieeeee. Running left would take me deeper into Copenhagen City and running right would take me downtown.

  In downtown buses on the street with no time to wait. The sun is so high that it hit only the tip of building. Boys younger than me run past with stack of newspapers on them head. The Singer Shot! Manager Critical! Rita treated and sent home!

  Jah live.

  No.

  Bam-Bam

  Don’t hide in plain sight, don’t hide in plain sight, pussyhole. That shit come from movie and gunman only see what in front of them. Don’t hide in no crowd either ’cause all you need for crowd to change to mob is one See him there! No him dat? and we become me and them. But he was with them, and from them and everybody now against me. I want my daddy to come back and my mother to not be a whore and Josey Wales to not try to find me. Last night, man, last night. Weeper jump out first, then Josey Wales and me no know, me just jump. Me no wait ’pon Demus. No, star. But then me no get far when bullet start chase after me, brap brap brap. Me run thinking police deh ’pon me. Me turn left and bullet turn left. Me turn right and bullet turn right. Me run until me back in the Garbagelands and bullet still a follow me. Me dive into a big pile of garbage that smell like shit and piss and rotten egg, and it wet. Wet and stink, and the wet and stink drip in me hair and on me lip. Me don’t move. The stink garbage shelter me, hide when them pass. Not police.

  Josey Wales and Weeper both with gun cocked.

  —You think you get him? Weeper say.

  —How you mean if me get him? Me look like me ever miss?

  Weeper laugh and wait. A red car drive up and them get in. Now me can’t go back home. Me stay in garbage until the wet stink dry on me. Me don’t move until me know all of downtown Kingston gone to sleep. Me run out of the Garbagelands and through the empty marketplace. Near here is where Shotta Sherrif live. Me sight a shop that either didn’t close or just opening up since is curfew. All me hear on the transistor radio is treated and sent home, but will he perform? And me know Josey miss. The dutty stinking pussyhole miss, me know me should a go back and finish him meself. Me know me should a gone back and make sure. Eight r’asscloth bullet the man fire and still miss. And now him after me.

  Me need coke, even half a line, even one third of a line. Last night, in the middle of the night somebody splash something in my face and I couldn’t breathe. Not water, water run off quick, this stay on me face then run down slow, into my nose and mouth even though I blow and blow. Like saliva. Like God go to sleep on top of me and drool all over my face. I wake up choking and he still on me breathing his hot stink breath into my nose, no, a dog. A dog was licking my face. Me jump up and yell and kick the dog and watch it yelp and run away on three legs. Now me deh ’pon a park bench in National Heroes Park. They say he coming, they say it right there on the wall, that poster with the Singer pointing to the sky, Smile Jamaica a public concert, Sunday December 5 at five p.m. He beat death like Lazarus, like Jesus. People in the park tal
king, already people coming, walking right past me, the madman on the bench, and saying that they hope police going deal with me so that decent people don’t have to abide by no stinking madman. They come from early in the morning, people waiting for him. I blink and see them running in and out of the people and coming for me. They look like babies but one have three eyes and one have teeth so long they hang out of it mouth and one have two eye but no mouth and one have bat wings. Last night after me get ’way from Josey Wales somebody start chase me again. They chase me all the way up Duke Street to the park. No, last night me catch a sleep ’pon the railroad tracks. No, last night me did fall asleep in the Garbagelands because Josey Wales was shooting at me and me only wake up because somebody set my heap on fire. I don’t know if this is two nights since I shoot him or one. But the newspaper wouldn’t take two days to tell the world that the Singer get shot and live. That not even gunman can silence him. Everything is one day, no two. Me know we go after him on December 3. But people coming into the park two by two and four by four, so it must be December 5.

  Josey Wales pop in my head and I remember running from him and I remember that I was telling myself don’t cry, don’t cry, don’t cry, you little battyman, but I cry anyway because I didn’t understand and I don’t understand why he was shooting at me when he send we out and then for the first time my mind run on the others and I wonder where they be. Or if Josey Wales shoot all of them already and is only me left. And I don’t know if this make sense to big people, but it don’t make sense to me. I didn’t stop running even after I couldn’t hear Josey Wales no more. I take foot from the Garbagelands and run and run and run all the way downtown, on Tower Street going east to west past haberdashery and Syrian shop and Lebanese supermarket all closed until the general election pass. Tower Street cut ’cross Princess Street and them beggarman, Orange Street and them higglerwoman, King Street and them tradesman and Duke Street and them lawyer lawyer. I turn up Duke Street and run into darkness. And I realize it’s not Josey Wales coming after me, or Papa-Lo or Shotta Sherrif, it’s him. He beat death and he coming after me. He not even coming, but sitting back maybe on some hill somewhere and setting a trap knowing that people like me born fool, and going fly straight into it. National Heroes Park. Is him park today and he own every single man who will set foot in it. All of Kingston. All of Jamaica.

  Thick juice like saliva on my face, in my eye and in my nose. Me wake up choking on bench in the park with bird shit on my shoulder. Me don’t know if me drop asleep again and wake up, or if the last time me wake up was a dream. People are already in the park to wait and see. I see and wait. For them, for the police, for JLP gunman, for PNP gunman, for you. By four o’clock there must be thousand more, all of them waiting but something different. These people are not JLP or PNP or any other P, they’re just man and woman and brother and sister and cousin and mother and bredren and sistren and sufferah and I don’t know these people. I get up and walk and move past them, in between them, around them like a duppy. Nobody touch me, they don’t step out of my way, they just don’t see me at all. I don’t know people who don’t pick side. I don’t know what they look like, what run in their head before they say something, people who never wear Jamaica Labour Party green or People’s National Party orange. And these people getting bigger and bigger and the crowd bigger and the belt around the park about to burst and spill but they waiting on him and they sing him songs until you come.