A Brief History of Seven Killings

by James, Marlon

  —Hey, don’t shoot me because you swam out of Tacoma, Florida. Whatever you’re selling I’m sure as hell not buying. This conversation is being recorded.

  —We’ve already established that.

  —No worries, it’ll all be evidence for later.

  —For when I turn myself in?

  —For when we fucking catch you.

  —You accountants can’t catch a breath.

  —This from the case officer who got caught trying to bug an embassy at five a.m.

  —Did you know you were in the Horrors book?

  —What’s the Horrors book?

  —Can’t confirm that’s what they’re calling it, if they’re calling it anything at all. My biggest regret in life, I swear, is to have put my book out before this shit broke.

  —I don’t know what you’re talking about. And one day we’re gonna find your fucking leak.

  —One day soon?

  —Sooner than you think. This is an awfully long phone call. You sure you can afford it? I really have to close up shop, Bill.

  —Oh yeah, all that packing and saying goodbye. Wonderful. Poor President Ford. He was on the fucking Warren Commission and didn’t know we didn’t tell him everything.

  —What are you going on about now?

  —The Horrors book. Who gave it that name? You gotta wonder.

  —No I don’t. I swear sometimes, Adler, you’re not talking to me at all. It’s like we’re two girls and you’re talking about some boy just so the boy can overhear you. Few years out of the Company and you’re like those crackpots thinking aliens abducted you just to stick a dildo up your ass. Jeez.

  —Maybe it’s not a book exactly. Maybe it’s a file.

  —A file. In the CIA. The CIA has a file, and top secret to boot. How did you ever get this job?

  —Don’t insult my intelligence, Diflorio.

  —I don’t fucking have to.

  —I’m telling you about a file Schlesinger compiled for Kissinger, the same report he presented to Ford on Christmas Day 1974.

  —You’re talking to me about 1974. Dude, I hate to break it to you, but we’ve got a new President, and even he’s not going to be President much longer if today gets any worse. Iran’s blowing up all over the world press and poor William Adler, just now passing shit that everybody else shat in 1974.

  —Kissinger presented a version that dressed up the really juicy stuff. Schlesinger’s original file is still floating out there and I hear it’s a doozy.

  —Well, you’ve already had my opinion on your opinions, Adler. Running out of writing material, buddy?

  —You’re a garbage man, Diflorio. The only reason you’re not interested is that you’re not high enough to be interested. Schlesinger’s little memo has it all: all the little things that the average American thinks some spy novelist cooked up. The breakdown of Tom Hayden’s last shit. Who Bill Cosby’s fucking. Mind control after LSD. Assassinations all over the place, Lumumba in the Congo, for example, lots of stuff on your buddy Mobutu—

  —Correction: Frank’s buddy.

  —Well, you, him and Larry Devlin are interchangeable, you Latin American African boys.

  —The number of assassination attempts on Castro authorized by Bobby Kennedy himself.

  —Did you know that Haviland’s being pushed to retire?

  —Who?

  —Haviland. The man who trained you and me. Sorry, I forgot you trained yourself.

  —You realize if the American public or even Carter got hold of that book it would be the end of the Company? Your job would go down in fucking flames.

  —I swear at times I don’t know if you’re a fucking idiot or if you’re just pretending to be one on TV. What kind of world do you think this is, Adler? You are the one agent who doesn’t seem to know what’s going on on this fucking planet. You think your buddies in the KGB are on some humanitarian mission, is that what you think?

  —Ex-agent, remember. And you don’t know what I think.

  —Oh, I know exactly what you think. Originality is not one of the things you got going for you.

  —I should have known you wouldn’t have given a shit about this Horrors book. You’re the worst of the lot. It’s one thing if you approved of what your government is doing, but you don’t even care. Just punch the clock and cash the check.

  —I love how you assume you have me figured out. It’s one of your worst shortcomings, Adler, thinking you can read people when you can’t read shit.

  —Oh really?

  —Yes really. You know why? Because in all this talking about your Horrors book, in your breaking it to poor me that my government has been engaged in all sorts of fucked-up shit, in all your failure to spark my interest even once, it never occurred to you that maybe I’m not interested because I wrote the motherfucker.

  —What? What did you say? Are you fucking shitting me?

  —Do I sound like I’m remotely interested in shitting you? Yes, you fucker, this little bookkeeper wrote it. What, you think the secretary of defense wrote the damn thing himself? You know, at first I felt kinda slighted that I didn’t appear in your book even once. Then I realized you really don’t have a fucking clue what I do, do you? You have no fucking idea. Because if you did, you wouldn’t have wasted my time for the past six and a half minutes. Instead you’d have fallen out of your fucking hammock and while you’re on the floor, thank your commie God that I’m not the son of a bitch they sent after you. By the way, your Sunbeam Coffeemaster’s broke and the view from your new apartment fucking sucks. Tell Fidel you want an ocean view.

  Of course the son of a bitch hung up. And he hasn’t called back. I suspect that he’ll never call me again.

  Fuck this desk. Fuck this office. Fuck this country. Fuck this year already. I’m going home.

  Papa-Lo

  Kidnap Mick Jagger and make two million. Me and Tony Pavarotti we out in a car, riding up and down a road that twist and turn like river, riding right up next to the windy wavy sea. Josey Wales didn’t come. Racing for the curb, the Ford Cortina. Swerve left then swerve right, a wave just burst on rock and froth splash and hit the windshield. This is how close to the road is the sea, how close we is to the sea and Pavarotti still driving, cooler than coolness’ mother.

  Tony Pavarotti with his nose like a Pavarotti. Can’t remember him mother nor father, can’t remember him growing up or doing the things boys do when growing up or getting into crosses boys get into. It’s like he be the sidekick in the movie, the baaaaaaaaad hombre who just show up in the middle and start walk and talk like we was waiting for him all this time. Tony Pavarotti just is, and you think hard about what you need before you call him. And he will lie and wait in an old building window all day, or up in the tree on the hill all night, or in the wall of garbage in the Garbagelands or behind a door for as long as it take for him to become a complete shadow and take out your enemy from three hundred feet away. He do work for Josey Wales but not even Josey had whatever it take to keep Tony at him side permanent and plenty people side with Josey permanent these days. We don’t talk. When I stay home I stay inside, and when I go I leave the country. I don’t go to him doorstep. But Tony Pavarotti is man who serve every man and no man and today all day he in my employ, in the left seat driving and hugging the thin road, too narrow for such an angry sea.

  Learn this: Jail is the ghetto man university. Slam clink slam. Babylon come for me two years ago—is it two years yet? I try to not forget any time Babylon encroach ’pon the I. In the truck to take me to jail a policeman spit in me face (him new), and one, when I say, Pussyhole, you spit smell like bubblegum, gun-butt me between the head so hard that is when they throw water on me in the jail I wake up. Both police dead before 1978 thanks to the man beside me who carry them to me as soon as me come out. Learn this all nice and decent people, Mama-Lo didn’t raise no son who walk with he back straight to get spit on like mangy dog. And this here Papa-Lo never ever forget. Man, like we don’t forget, we collect. We take them to the
end of Copenhagen City where only John Crow live and rich man shit drain into the sea and one start to wah wah wah ’bout how him wife not working and he have three pickney and me say all the worse for them now they have a dead pussyhole for a daddy.

  But back to when them send me to jail. And even if you could jimscreechy, slip through the system you can’t slip through the iron. Iron is iron, and iron stronger than lion and steel don’t budge. The bars say, There’s no way out, just cease and settle and if you ever plan to travel you better tap inside your head and tell it to start traveling. This must be how man end up reading book they otherwise wouldn’t read, and write book too. But the bars also say, Nobody can come in and stop the learning, so maybe a learning is a visitation in your head and maybe a jail make you still in the spirit so that you ready to hear it, because, gentlemens, nobody—and I mean nobody—can learn nothing if them not ready to listen.

  The car hit a bump but Tony Pavarotti don’t notice. I wish I didn’t jump like a man who can’t drive a car. He the only man I know who drive with glove, they cover him palm but show him finger with a cut-out for each knuckle and the back of him hand. Brown leather. The sun running away before we get to the bay. It don’t have what it take to witness when man get dark. The moon now, the moon is better company especially when it full and fat and deep like it just rise out of blood. You ever see a moonrise? I want to ask Tony Pavarotti but I don’t think he would answer. You don’t ask a man like this them kind o’ question.

  I pull two cigarette out of my pocket and give him one. He stick it in him mouth and me light it. Palisadoes strip, past the airport, on the stretch to Port Royal where James Bond drive the man off the road in Dr. No. We drive along until we reach a fort that build from before man like me come over on the slave ship. 1907 Earthquake—half of it sink into the sand but if you drive fast it look like the fort was just now rising out of it. You see cannon peeking out of sand and you wonder how tall and proud it must did look when Nelson hop on him hob-leg all around it. Nelson we learn about in high school along with Admiral Rodney who save Jamaica from the French. Who going save Jamaica now?

  Farther down this road is Port Royal and Fort Charles that everybody done know. But few people know the beach bush hide two more forts including this one. I stick my head out the window and watch the last sun streak turn orange, then pink, then nothing and I can hear the sea growing wild even over the car engine. Me and Tony Pavarotti driving to the lost fort in between the sinking sun and the rising moon and the disappearing shadow. We make a sharp left through prickle bush and swing over a rough bump. Me hold the door like a man that can’t drive. We ride over a mound, that look like a mountain top, because from the top is a steep drop right down to the beach. Bumpy ride down, swing to the left then right, pull you hand into the car before the prickle bush slash the window—my hand would be bleeding right now. Down, down, down. The car swing left, again then right, then jump—we going roll over right now, have to, how this bloodcloth man can so calm and don’t say nothing but grip the steering wheel like race car driver? The car skidding down, me about to shout out hey! But then we brake. Tony Pavarotti slow the car down to crawl as we come the thin strip of beach up to the entrance of the fort. No gate so we drive in. Kingston is a now place across the sea.

  The car stop. Tony wind down him window and climb out in one swing, like is the style. Him on the right, me on the left, we both reach the trunk the same time. He stick the key in and fly it open. If the first boy could scream he would scream at the weak light, this is for sure the most brightness them see in three hours. It did take all me rage to push the last two in the trunk meself for me would a deal with them from long before, almost two year before, but by now me no have none of that left, nothing left to pull the first one out but two hands. Him light like a feather when me grab him by the collar. The handcuff behind him back stain sticky with blood and his wrist white where black skin supposed to be. He smell like shit and iron. Boy bawling over tears so him cheek and eyes red and him nose have booger running down over booger. The man Tony Pavarotti pull out just the same, both of them stink and also wet from them own pee-pee.

  On the way over here me did all set to ask them, You remember the beach, pussyhole? You remember when you pull gun ’pon the Singer ’cause other man fuck up your samfie business but you want him fi pay for it? You did know then that him mark you face? You did know you was dead from the second you pull gun ’pon the man? You might as well did pull gun ’pon God. Me did have all them things fi say to the two but now, in the fort where Spanish man and British man and Jamaican man dead over years and years, reminding me that one day me too soon dead, me don’t have nothing to say. And Tony Pavarotti never ever say nothing.

  But them saying plenty. Even with the gag me can make out letter and word and sentence. Each blink of their red eye fierce and squeezing out tears. Beg you, Papa do, me never did involve, look how me still poor. Beg you, Papa do, the Singer did already gimme mercy. Beg you, Papa do, all me know ’bout is the horse race, me no know ’bout the ambush in the night. Beg you, Papa do, make me go out to sea and me will swim ’way like mermaid to Cuba and never come back to Jamrock again. But me don’t care. There is a bunch of man who ambush the Singer in the night. There is a bunch of man that pull gun on him at the beach ’cause they drag him into horse race con-plan fuckery him never have nothing to do with. A wind in the air say them was one and same man. Another wind say them be two different entity. But even to that me run out words to say. Me just don’t care. Them drive a gash between me and the Singer, a cut that heal but leave a scar. Man must get punish for drawing gun and man must get punish for firing it too. The devil who standing waiting at the gate of hell can do all the sorting out. All this me think to say to the two, but don’t. Me, Papa-Lo, the biggest most magnificentest man in the ghetto. Me might as well be Tony Pavarotti. He already dragging the first one through the bush, out onto the black sand beach.

  The trick, the whole thing is, the whole reason was to bring him back, not for good but to knock down the first domino. To bring him back for this concert though we already talking things bigger than that. Better than that. Things, boy, I don’t know, Jamaica, you ready for it? My head hopeful but not at ease, it so uneasy that the only thing that put it to rest is remembering that poor Papa-Lo heart never at ease. I mean, what make sense in England don’t must make sense here. England is England and London is London and when you in a city so big you also start to think big and talk big and you foretell grand tidings and then you come back to Jamdown and you wonder if your head did swell TOO large.

  Plenty people even in the middle of sufferation going pick the bad they know over the good they can only dream about, because who dream but madman and fool? Sometimes war stop because you forget why you fight, sometimes you tired of warring, sometimes people who dead come back to you in you sleep and you can’t remember them name, and sometimes you come to see that who you supposed to fight not even your enemy. Look ’pon Shotta Sherrif.

  The beach is sand until it reach the sea. There it change to rock that roll and tumble with the waves and cackle like a woman duppy when more waves rush in. Kekekekekekeke. Tony Pavarotti drag the boy right down to where sea hit sand and kick the back of him knee so that he fall like he about to pray. And then he do. Quick and wild, like he can’t get one word out before he rushing out the next. Kekekekekekeke. The boy in him white brief that yellow in the front, brown in the back. Tony Pavarotti in navy blue—soldier shirt with epaulette and plenty pocket and gabardine pants roll up over him soldier boots right above the calf. Him steady the boy head slow with both hand, almost soft, almost like he taking care. The boy mistaking the soft touch for mercy. He crying again and him head shaking too much. Tony still him head again. Kekekekekekeke—pow.

  The boy in my hand scream into the gag, but he also go weak and I have to drag him to the beach. Water don’t reach him pants yet so I know the new wet is fresh piss. Tony leave the car on and I can swear I hear the radio, but is p
robably just the rock. Kekekekekekeke. I drag this boy right beside the other body and push him down on him knee. I did make him keep on him green shorts. I steady him head but he turn just as I pull the trigger. Pow. Pow through the side of him temple and an eye pop out. Kekekekekekeke. He twitch and fall. Tony Pavarotti point to the sea, and I say no, leave them.

  Lockdown remind you that what make you brothers is not blood but sufferation. And when as brothers you suffer together you also get new wisdom together. Because I pick up a new wisdom the same time as Shotta Sherrif and when we take a stop and realize say we really of the same mind we take the reasoning to England and realize the Singer have the same wisdom too. In fact he wiser since him did run him own house under that wisdom where for a long time enemy used to meet as friend, even when we fight like wild animal everywhere else. People think this is about a concert or is about white man from the PNP shaking hands with white man from the JLP, like you can fix cancer with a vaccine. Even me did know this concert was nothing and me was the one who pull up Seaga onstage meself.

  Shotta Sherrif was on the stage but then him jump and start follow around Mick Jagger who was walking up and down and reasoning with the people and vibing with the rhythm like he don’t know the grounds swarming with bad man. Every minute he flashing that big teeth grin. Make we kidnap Mick Jagger and hold him for two million dollars, Shotta Sherrif say as joke but then he watch Mick Jagger dip in and out of the crowd and I know he start to think it for real. For white boy let loose and grin like rich politician pickney talking ’bout them trip to Mi-yah-mi. Shotta chase off what he say with a hahahaha but the Singer did hear him and shoot him a look Moses only wish him did have in Ten Commandments. Anyway, make them think he come back just to sing pretty song ’bout love just ’cause him make pretty album. Make him go to sleep while we work like Nicodemus. Because when me and Shotta Sherrif done talk ’bout planning the concert, we didn’t stop talk, and we still talking now. The sun setting.