—No, you leaving today.
—It was a joke? I’m here all week? I say something that makes you laugh, you laugh and I say I’ll be here with more jokes all week? It’s from a stand-up . . . never mind.
—Why you going ’round asking about Copper?
—Well, I—
—You even ask that short-ass idiot, Shotta Sherrif.
—He didn’t really say much.
—Why would the man have anything to say? He didn’t even know him that good.
—Were you two friends?
—Josey Wales love everybody.
—I mean Copper, not Shotta Sherrif. He was really involved in the Central Peace Council, wasn’t he?
—Eh, what do you really think you know about the Central Peace Council? I bet you didn’t know that it was a joke. Peace. Only one kind of peace can ever come down the ghetto. It’s really simple, so simple even a retarded man can catch the drift. Even a white man. The second you say peace this and peace that, and let’s talk about peace, is the second gunman put down their guns. But guess what, white boy. As soon as you put down your gun the policeman pull out his gun. Dangerous thing, peace. Peace make you stupid. You forget that not everybody sign peace treaty. Good times bad for somebody.
—Huh. I could have sworn I heard . . . You saying the peace treaty is a bad idea?
—No. You just say that.
—So whatchu saying?
—Copper come from Wareika Hills, almost country. He didn’t understand how Kingston work. So he come down to Copenhagen to his good friend, Papa-Lo, then he walk over to drink rum with his other good friend, Shotta Sherrif, and everything sweet and safe as long as he in JLP or PNP territory.
—But then last May he go to Caymanas Park, which is—
—No man territory.
—Worse, he go by himself.
—Peace vibes turn him into a damn fool. That’s the problem with peace. Peace make you careless.
—How did the police know he was there?
—You think it’s that hard to find a gunman?
—But there was a swarm of them, not just two random dirty cops betting on a fixed race.
—Ambush. You like cowboy movies?
—I usually say fuck ’em, quite frankly. I’m part Sioux.
—Sue?
—Sioux, like Cherokee. Like Apache.
—You an Indian?
—Part.
—Seen.
—You know who set him up? Copper, that is.
—Maybe he set him own self up.
—But some of the men here said that he was Papa-Lo’s number two, maybe even number one, one day.
—A man who didn’t even live in Copenhagen City because him ’fraid of bullet? Who said that?
—People. And with him gone . . .
—By—look at that, the same fucking bullet him was hiding from. So what if him gone? You can replace any man in the ghetto. Even me.
—I see. How do you think the Singer will react to all this?
—Me look like the Singer keeper?
—No, I mean . . . No love lost between you and him?
—Don’t know what you mean by that, but that man gone through plenty. People just need to make him rest. Just ’low him, make him rest.
—He must be dedicated to the cause though, to come back again to do another concert, especially after what happened the last time.
—Haha. Nobody going to make a move on the Singer again.
—I’ll bet nobody thought anybody would have made a move on him the first time.
—The last time friend allow friend to run horse race con in him house. Him not allowing that shit again. Nobody shooting him in the chest this time because nobody stabbing him in the back.
—Hold up, you think they were out for the Singer’s friend? What’s this about a con?
—I don’t have anything to say about the Singer.
—But you were talking about his friend, not the Singer.
—Certain tree get pruned a long time ago.
—Now you sound like Papa-Lo.
—That’s what happen when people fade. They live on in your memory.
—I sometimes sound like my dad.
—I sometimes discipline like my daddy.
—Oh. Really?
—Yes, white boy. Some men in the ghetto actually know their father. Some of them were even married to their mother.
—I wasn’t saying.
—All the important things you saying so far not coming out of your mouth.
—Oh.
—Papa-Lo is the reason why we living fine in the ghetto. Papa-Lo is the reason that when I flush that toilet I never have to look at shit again. You take that for granted, eh, white boy? That once you press a lever you never have to think about your shit again. Yes, thanks to Papa-Lo ghetto people living fine indeed. Papa-Lo and the Singer is the same. Same thing going happen to the Singer.
—Excuse me?
—Excuse yourself.
—Not a fan, I gather.
—Rather check for Dennis Brown.
—He seems to have believed in this truce.
—You ever get locked up in jail, white boy?
—No.
—Good. Because once them put you in jail, police beat everything out of you. Is not just the beat in the face with the baton or the kick in the back or the punching out two good teeth so you can’t eat good and nearly slice off your own tongue. Is not even when they put two electric cord, one around your balls and the other on your cock-head and plug in the socket. That’s just the first day and not even the worst thing that happen in jail. The worst thing about jail is how they separate your own time, your own date, even your own birthday. Is a hell of a thing when you can no longer tell if it’s Wednesday or Saturday. You lose sense. You lose grip on what really goin’ on outside in the world. You know what happen when you don’t know night any better than day?
—Tell me.
—Black turn into white. Up turn into down. Puss and dog turn friend. You ask yourself, This peace treaty? Was it between two communities or just two man in jail too long?
—What do you think about—
—I not here to think.
—No, I mean about the Singer.
—You keep thinking I supposed to be thinking about the Singer.
—No, I mean the second concert for peace last year. Maybe he thinks he has big stakes in this peace process.
—The first concert was for peace. This one was for a toilet.
—Huh?
—You work for a magazine and don’t know nothing at all? Maybe you work for a Jamaican newspaper.
—Still, to come back after two years, after they nearly killed him.
—They who?
—I . . . I . . . I don’t know. The assassins.
—Like a Bruce Lee movie.
—The killers.
—Like a Clint Eastwood movie.
—I, I don’t know who they were.
—Ha, Papa-Lo seem to know. I have a question for you about the Singer, maybe only you, being a foreign man, and you educated?
—Yes.
—That only an educated man can answer. You know what they mean by literary device?
—Yes.
—So when the Singer get shot in the chest with a bullet that was meaning for his heart, you think him take that as just a shot in the chest like any other shot, or he take it to mean something more than that? A literary device.
—Device. You mean a symbol?
—Something like that.
—You mean if he thought being nearly shot in the heart might mean . . .
—All the things that shot in the heart can mean.
—How do you know he was nearly shot in the heart?
—So I hear.
—From who?
—From the natural mystic blowing through the air.
When I told Priest that I spoke to Josey Wales he was standing in the rain and refused to come in. You know how even in the d
ark you can tell how a person is looking at you?
There’s a man in blue sitting on the edge of my bed. Sid Vicious died two days ago. Nobody knows shit, but word was that his mother just fed the fucker heroin and right after coming out of detox. Rock is sick and dead in New York City. Found him sprawled out naked in bed with a probably also naked actress. Twenty-one. Fuck punk anyway. The only thing we agree on is Two Sevens Clash. My mom would be proud, Lord knows it wasn’t the greatest idea being an audiophile when the band du jour was Hawkwind. But Sid Vicious died two days ago. And months after killing his girlfriend. Dead men, all these dead men. Only four people know the Singer nearly got shot in the heart. The Singer, his manager, his surgeon and me, because I caught him on a lucky day when he didn’t try to kick my ass for following him all over London. Only three people know he was eating quarter of a grapefruit, having cut off half to give to the manager. Only two people know that the Singer said Selassie I Jah Rastafari and I only know because I caught him on a lucky day in London.
There’s a fucking man in fucking blue sitting on the fucking edge of my fucking bed. And I’m starting to feel like I’m the murdered character in the game Live about to tell the murderer to grab his fucking weapon and fucking get on with it already. Just fucking get on with it.
My left leg has gone to sleep. I’m seeing some black men and more black men and they are merging into one black man and no black man at all. There is a bald-headed man in blue sitting on the side of my bed, rubbing his head, rubbing his shiny sweaty light brown head. His shirt is navy blue. Fucking left leg has gone to sleep behind his sinking ass. Stare at the ceiling, Alex Pierce. Count grooves in the stucco, look for Jesus. There’s Jesus. Look for a cross. Look for Italy, look for a shoe, look for a woman’s face. The man on my bed holy shit a gun he has a gun motherfucker has a fucking gun waving it he’s waving it at his temple at me at his temple he’s about to pull a fucking Hemingway why would he sneak into my room to off himself motherfucker I’m not going to be your audience fucking Christ don’t fucking pop off that shit and splat your brain all over my clean sheets dirty sheet fucking scum fuck cum-encrusted pubic-hair-littered sheets but they’re mine and I don’t want your fucking blood and brains all over them oh he’s not going to shoot himself he’s going to shoot me he’s going to shoot me fucking heart stop pumping he’s going to hear, nobody can hear a heart pump yes he can he’s going to hear you oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck he’s spinning it he’s dangling it he’s a cowboy and this is his six-shooter High Noon Liberty Valance Sons of Katie fucking Elder at least I’m gonna die like a true Jamaican that is not funny it’s not fucking funny fuck this I’m not going to die today I’m not going to fucking die today stop spinning the gun like a motherfucking gunslinger like you just picked up the worn-out copy of Gunfighter Ballads that’s in every fucking Jamaican’s house I’m not going to die today my mother is not going to be left standing out at Minneapolis–St. Paul Airport sorting out a fucking coffin box, or worse, putting up posters all over Kingston saying MISSING HAVE YOU SEEN THIS MAN? Coming on Dick Cavett to talk about her poor son and the horrible bureaucracy in Jamaica who won’t assist her and it’s a conspiracy, really it is, or at least a cover-up, maybe it’s just really bad incompetence that took her son and she knows something was up, somebody did something and she’ll move heaven and earth to find out the truth even if the police, the minister, and even the ambassador won’t lift a finger to help, I’ll become a story and she’ll become one of those haggard old women whose other children will desert her (she was the world’s greatest mom before she became obsessed with a ghost) and will have nothing but cigarettes and the mission left, the mission to uncover the truth. She’ll also do 60 Minutes and more Cavett and when everybody starts to forget she’ll . . . I don’t know what she’ll do.
Jesus Christ, please make him go away. Please let it be that I’ll close my eyes, I’ll close them for as long as you want, and when I open them he’ll be gone. Do you want me to pray? Because I will, I swear to God. Swear to God. Swear to you. Oh fuck this. I will not think what heaven is like. Who the fuck does that? I will not do it. I’ll just say to him that if you kill me now right here I’ll look you in the eye and stain myself in your head for as long as you live. I swear I’d haunt you like a motherfucker so hard that an exorcist would look at you and say goddamn, my son, there’s really no help for you. I’ll come with that crucifix fucker Linda Blair and that sister fucking mass-murdering motherfucker from Amityville and I’ll cut out one chunk of your brain so that all three of us can live there and then we’ll eat you from the inside out, like cancer. I’ll fucking haunt you, motherfucker. I’ll make you scream devil deh ’pon you in church and I’ll make you see blind and fuck your sister and I’ll make you talk to yourself everywhere because only you and I will know you’re talking to me. And I’ll drive you off the causeway into the fucking sea and you still won’t die because I won’t make you die, I’ll make you live a hundred years to haunt you forever and I’ll write my name in the mirror every time you take a shower and one day you will read get ready to suck cocks in hell on the ceiling and I’ll make your bed shake and elbows itch and you’ll scratch so hard everybody will come looking for the heroin and no dog will go anywhere near you because they can sense when a spirit is living rent-free in your head, so you better turn away, you better get up and walk out of this room right now or I swear to God I will. I will. I will.
Phone rings.
He jumps.
I jump.
Gun in mid-spin, gun drops.
He looks at me look at him.
Bends down for gun kick him kick him.
Kicked him in the back and again in the back of the head.
Roll now, climb out of bed—he grabs my foot.
Get the fuck off me get the fuck off he’s climbing.
Punch he catches my hand won’t give it back.
Pulling off the bed screeeeeee—hand around my neck.
Squeeze. I’m red I’m red I’m getting redder a fat red goose where are your eyes. Cough cough hand grip my neck squeeze crushing Adam’s apple he don’t care can’t punch can’t kick scratch scratch he’s not even trying to stop me scratch his cheek scratch his face he slaps me away like I’m a bitch a fucking bitch cough he sitting on my chest I can’t breathe I can’t breathe vise grip Jesus Christ Jesus Christ he grabs my right hand like I’m a silly little bitch such a silly bitch such a silly bitch I’m a fucking silly bitch can’t move pinned my neck burning head bursting head light head dark no I need to tell her tell her that I knew she was going to leave from the day I met her fuck this life flashing business any time now relax the feet first, relax the feet first let them find me at least in peace what the fuck the phone is ringing I jump and he jumps not on my neck too slow turns back his hand on my hand slap my hand on his hand slap his hand my face knuckle punch I slap if I’m a girl I’ll be a girl he’s not saying anything my fingers are slippery his hand on my neck not a strangle a pindown he’s looking for it oh fucking shit the gun the gun the gun he looks I look at the lamp the fucking heavy lamp the crochet the Gideon Bible Jesus fucking Christ the letter opener compliments of the hotel on the stationery he turns around back to me back to hand it to me gun? No gun? Can’t see the gun can’t remember when I grabbed it sharp end dark end why won’t he say anything he’s about to squeeze my neck I squeeze the letter opener he in mid-squeeze I’m in mid-swing straight for his neck, my knuckle slam right under his chin feels like a punching, my finger slips off fuck no, it’s gone in deep. He looks at me through high eyebrows eyes wide he’s not touching it, the letter opener in his neck blood trickles then spurts then spurts more like tap just burst his eyes are doing that thing like they can’t believe what the rest of the body is doing. Not speaking, he’s not speaking he’s jerking, he’s rolling off me, he’s on the bed, he’s off the bed, he walking to the door right knee buckles stand up straight right knee buckles he’s on the ground.
Josey Wales
I already know: t
here are three things that should never come back. One is the spoken word. Two I forget in 1966. Three is a secret. But if I was going to add a number four, that would be him. How many bullets need to miss your heart and lodge in your arm before you reason that home is not home anymore? The bullet in the arm no doctor would remove because they know if they touch it you would never play guitar again. I just sit down in the nice chair my woman just polished until the phone ring. How many bullets? Maybe fifty-seven? they say he said, but nobody can tell me when or to who, that for the fifty-six bullets fired at the house, the said culprit shall also die by fifty-six bullets. Now that kind of prophecy need a new sort of reasoning. Is that fifty-six for each man, fifty-six multiply by eight? Or fifty-six divided by eight, which would take long division and I don’t have time to be that smart.
Or maybe he thinking fifty-six for the man behind the plan, the top ranking, the Don Dada. Ask me just how sick and tired I getting from all this witchdoctor Obeahman fortune-teller fuckery. If a man call himself Rasta today, by next week that is him speaking prophecy. He don’t have to be too smart either, just know one or two hellfire and brimstone verse from the Bible. Or just claim it come from Leviticus since nobody ever read Leviticus. This is how you know. Nobody who get to the end of Leviticus can still take that book seriously. Even in a book full of it, that book is mad as shit. Don’t lie with man as with woman, sure I can run with that reasoning. But don’t eat crab? Not even with the nice, soft, sweet roast yam? And why kill a man for that? And trust me, the last thing any man who rape my daughter going get to do is marry her. How, when I slice him up piece by piece, keeping him alive for all of it and have him watch me feed him foot to stray dog?
I remember last year at these peace treaty parties that spring up in West Kingston like head lice, a Rasta trying to give me a reasoning about who is carrying the mark of the beast. Nothing set a Rasta on fire more than talk of “Armagideon.” So the Rasta say,
—Yow me no buy nothing that no fresh, brethren, because everything in package now carry the mark of the beast. You know, them code number in the white box with the black line.
I was trying to watch this man who was checking out my woman, looking warm under the streetlight while people dancing around her, some man from the Eight Lanes who didn’t know that this woman’s ring finger marked. No need to worry—she already know how to deal with that kind of man—she deal with them harder than me. But that’s the thing about Rasta reasoning. Even when you know it’s total fuckery from the start to end, it still have a hook to it.
A Brief History of Seven Killings Page 41
