A Brief History of Seven Killings

by James, Marlon

  —And you ain’t never said that you was gonna turn that place over there into no crack house. Tired of this shit. The city owns these buildings, not you.

  She don’t live in this building. She’s in one of them house across the street, string of single brick house that make Bushwick look like Bronx. Three black boys and a girl fixing a bicycle right in front of her iron fence, but the fence not protecting no grass lawn, only concrete. Five house on the other side of the road and they all have fence. We in front of my building, three floors up is operations. Patrol car start to roll down the street too much so now we have to stash indoors and give the dealers just enough to sell a little at a time—never enough for police to give a shit. Better this way, at least you can control it. City fix up the building, homeless people move in, and we. They shut the fuck up, I make it worth they while. If they don’t shut the fuck up I remind the super that if police get the drop on operations that’s the end of fi him cut. Plenty building super in the Brooklyn want a cut of the business that I can bring them. But Bushwick is a piece of shit. East Village never give me a single problem, but Bushwick find a brand-new one every week. And all the way up this street I didn’t see a single spotter or runner.

  Two near-deserted block over the spotter was sitting on the curb with him boombox booming the freaks come out at night. Young boy still trying to grow into too-clean sneakers. He didn’t have either the sneakers or the boombox last week. Didn’t even see me coming until I was right in front of him.

  —Step the fuck off, bitches, I ain’t on the clock, he say without even looking up. So I said,

  —Look up, pussyhole.

  The boy jump out of him fifteen years.

  —Yessir! Yessir!

  —This look like the army?

  —No sir!

  —What a go on ’round here?

  He look down on the ground, like he afraid to tell me something that I wouldn’t like.

  —Brethren, your business is to give me the message. I don’t shoot the messenger. What going down with the business?

  He still looking on the ground, but he mumble something.

  —What?

  —Nothing, man. Ain’t shit going on ’round here for days now.

  —Fuckery that. Every basehead wake up and start do heroin instead? No way market just dry up.

  —Well . . .

  —Well what?

  —Well a brother gets tired of sending shit that way only to have them come back and say that I must be down with some wild goose chase or sumth’n cuz ain’t nobody with no goods in that alley. I done my job, I can spot a hitter a mile away. I approach them all casual-like and say yo, Bushwick is stupid fresh, you feeling for some heat or some pop rocks or some shit like that, and they nod and before they say some dumb-ass cracker shit I just nod to the alley behind the cut.

  —You know where the cut is?

  —Everybody knows where to find the fucking cut. They just don’t wanna mess with you. Anyways, usually you got two or three runners there to take them to the goods and get that shit sold, but for four days now, people come back this way saying I’m nothing but bullshit because they ain’t no runners in the street. And no dealer neither. Your bodyguard got so tired of this shit he gone and got a real job in Flatbush.

  —Where the runners go?

  —I dunno. They ain’t got nobody to steer anymore. Your dealers ain’t dealing.

  —What the fuck them doing?

  —Maybe you should go check the hithouse.

  I look at this boy acting like he brave and I think to either gun-butt him or promote him. Josey coming here in less than five hours, to fuck.

  —And hey, since I ain’t got no buyers to spot, I spot some other shit, yo. Two days now I seen some shit Pontiac cruising and I can just bet them niggers was Ranking Dons. They already sniffing out this place because they know security weak.

  —You see plenty for a little shit.

  —S’what paid for these kicks, yo.

  I looking at this boy and already thinking how me going need him to fix Bushwick before Josey come. I didn’t even notice that the damn woman follow me.

  —First that stank-ass heifer come all the way through my own motherfucking gate lifting up her dress and no panties and telling my young son that he can hit the pussy for two bucks. Good thing I’m at my window the second I hear any fussin’ at my gate. Next thing I know three lowlife goodfernothings come over here thinking this is the fucking crack spot because of some shit going on in your building.

  My own building. The cut. The worst-kept secret in New York City. Red brick like red dirt in Jamaica, two window for every room looking out. Fire escape in the middle. Three steps up to dome entryway like the place was posh but the only rich people who ever live in Bushwick used to make beer. Me and Omar outside for almost ten minutes now, and while this woman from clear across the street who live by her window know I was here, no dealer or bodyguard come outside yet. And the boy was right, no runner nowhere.

  —Omar, go check inside. Find out if them two bombocloth boy in there.

  —Yeah.

  Omar look left and right. Habit. Then he dash past the crack ho sitting on the stoop to the front door that open with a little push. Fucking bad sign. I was about to tell him to pull out him gun, but didn’t have to. Up the road is a Dodge van resting on four blocks until somebody come with wheels. The kids fixing the bike disappear down the subway station for the L. This woman yelling that while she don’t give a hoot if any nigger want to be enterprising and that business is business and if some stupid nigger or cracker wants to blow his money on that shit that’s fine, but ain’t nobody told her that there was gonna be no crack house. And what kind of dealer sets up a crack house right near where they sell crack? I was about to tell her to go fuck herself because once a junkie get some rock him just itching to smoke that shit right away without delay, so a safe place to light up nearby, with more shit they can buy, means two times the money. Plus now they don’t have to worry about police finding any drug paraphernalia ’pon them. But my reason here is not explain things to this bitch like she is my school principal.

  Omar is at the door nodding no. Is not until he nod that it hit me that the boy was right and they really abandon the cut for the crack house.

  Two blocks west, corner Gates and Central. The only two buildings left on the block that somebody didn’t set fire to or that didn’t get burn down by accident. There is one on almost every block or street in Bushwick now, a house or apartment or brownstone somebody burn to the ground so that people can collect insurance, since nobody was ever going sell a fucking house in Bushwick. We at the corner Gates and Central. The crack house.

  —Fucking Jamaicans acting like you all that. You ain’t all that. You can’t even control your damn shit. You ain’t shit, none of y’all. What you need to do is hire me to run yo biz ’cause you can’t run a damn thing. And—

  I slap the rest of that sentence out of her mouth so hard she stagger back. She shake her head and almost scream but my punch reach her mouth before anything come out of it. I grab her fucking throat and squeeze till she sound like duck.

  —Look, you fucking fat bitch, me done with you a nag-nag in me ears like is bloodcloth mosquito. Don’t you get some money every week? So you want money or you want dead, which one you fucking want? Which one? Uh-huh. That’s what me was thinking. Now get the fuck out of me face before me use you fucking fat belly for target practice.

  She grab herself and run. I start walking to the crack house and Omar and the boy follow me.

  Somebody using the Condemned sign as a table. I didn’t have to look far. One of my dealers on a mattress right in the front room, just left of the bombocloth doorway. He look like he just take a hit, the pipe dangling off him finger like it about to fall, but he recognize and grab it. I can’t see him eye.

  —Oi, pussyhole. You a pilfer you own supply?

  —Oh, wha’gwaaaaaan, brethren? You come for a hit? A no nothing. Me not selfish, brothe
r, me will share it with you.

  —Pussyhole, who a guard the cut if you in here so?

  —The cut?

  —The cut. The place with the stash that you supposed to watch. The place where you suppose to deal out supply to you fucking runner them. Where them be by the way?

  —Runner? Runner . . . what . . . what steer . . . so you want the hit or . . . ’cause me’ll take it if you don’t want it.

  Then he look at me like he know I going take it.

  —You understand how you fuck this up, boy? Now me have to find new runner, new dealer, even new bodyguard, and all in just four hour, because the fucking dealer turn user.

  —Dealer turn user . . .

  He say like he trying to echo but also want to sleep.

  I don’t bother look into the crack house, but the same woman who try to suck the little boy cock poke her head in the room like she know him. Or me. I wave my gun at her and she don’t even jump, just look up and down and gone back into the dark. Omar by the window. The city board it up but the junkies knock it back out. Just my dealer on the mattress with him lighter.

  —Where your number two? I say.

  —Who?

  —You know what? Get the fuck up, before I buss you shit in here.

  He look at me. First him eye glaze but then is like it get clear, or maybe he staring at me hard for the first time.

  —Don’t take no order from some faggot with ’icky ’pon him neck.

  I look him in the eye when I lift up me gun and blow a fucking hole straight through him forehead. He still looking at me when he fall right back on the mattress. I grab him left foot and pull him over to the side of the room right under the window. The woman come to the doorway and look again, bend down and go for him pipe. I aim the gun at her.

  —Move before me fucking shoot you.

  She turn and go back in as slow as she come. I pull him over and set him up that it look like he crouching down. I fold him arms over him knees and push him head down so it look like he either sleeping or coming down from a bad trip. Two rocks fall out of him pocket. I put the pipe, the lighter and the rocks in me pocket. Omar outside waiting on me.

  —Omar, find that other dealer. And bring that fucking spotter to me right now.

  John-John K

  Fuck I wish this was over. Or at least that I never met that Cuban bitch. Or never ran into Baxter. Or went to that fucking club. Or that fucking boy didn’t give me one more reason to head to Miami in the first place. Because then I would be back in Chicago looking for that fucking boy, who I’ll just bet hasn’t missed me for a minute. Hey baby I’m sorry and I’m back. Oh yeah, didn’t notice that you’re gone, did you bring any poppers with you? And that would be it, wouldn’t it? That’s the truth like a stone groove. How the fuck did that happen? Was this all that it took to need somebody—not have him fucking need you? But there was that one time. That one time when—

  —Papi, you gonna slip me some green or not? Also I’ma gonna need some cab money to get back to the meatpacking district.

  I gave him fifteen bucks. The boy looked at me funny then shoved the cash in his left front pocket. He pulled his pants up and whispered fucking cheap faggot. If this was only a year ago I would have punched him straight in the face. He would have staggered backways and tripped on his own pants. Landed hard too, head clapping that side table right there on his way down. I would grab him even as he’s dazed as shit, drag him out to the fire escape and dangle him off the railing. Fucking cheap faggot, huh? I’ll show you who’s the fucking cheap faggot. I’d pull him back up, but only after he pissed his jeans. But I chilled and let him go.

  There wasn’t a book out there about enforcing, but if there was, I’d be fig. 1 in the chapter How to Fuck Up. Ice cool, nah, ice cold, smooth as fuck and just a little psycho. Not me. I’m the sloppy Chicago hoodrat with thin skin and shitty temper that lucked into something he had no business getting into. There was grand theft auto and there was the sloppy hit over on west side, but in between I got black space, a cloud instead of a memory. Before this boy I never even had a reason to remember a phone number. And fuck him for that anyways. That son of a bitch was probably home and ignoring the phone calls.

  It’s getting late. I know that because Griselda called thirty minutes ago, when I was fucking busy with this trick to say chico, it’s getting late in between telling her son to turn off that fucking TV and eat his tamale.

  The Jamaican. Griselda’s Hawaiian Shirt losers were right about the address. I doubted it for a second, mostly because I don’t know shit about Flatbush. And those boys are fucking losers. East 18th Street, Apartment 4106, fourth floor of a red brick six-floor walk-up. Studio facing east for a sunrise view. She left it up to me to find out if he was home or not. Good old New York, the whole street was nothing but six floor walk-ups all the way down for two blocks. At least the entrance still had a blue awning. Figured I’d just stand here at the curb on the other side of the street until it was darker because hey, a well-groomed white boy wasn’t conspicuous at all. The other buildings just proved that black people in NYC weren’t ones for aesthetics. Aesthetics. Listen to me, the fucking faggot.

  A reasonably well-groomed white boy with a blond buzz cut in an army surplus jacket. I almost took the heavy-duty suitcase they put out for me, the one with the fucking Uzi supplied by Pink Hawaiian Shirt, no doubt because that’s how they do things in Miami. He really took a shining to explaining my job to me. Instructions were to use it then drop it, Mafioso style. But since I was wiping out one man and not an ethnic group, I stuck with my 9. Okay, my 9 and an AMT because a girl needs a backup. Jesus Christ, I wish I could halt this encroaching case of the gay, which seems to get worse the more I stay in this piece o’ shit city. The AMT if you need to get close muchacho, Pink Hawaiian Shirt said. Maybe this gaydar shit really is a thing because if I stayed just one more night in Miami that pendejo would have been balls deep in my ass. You can take that shit to the bank. Back in the hotel when I saw the Uzi, I said who the fuck am I supposed to kill, a Kennedy? Nothing to do now but wait.

  Chicago. He was home, wasn’t he? Crouched up in a corner somewhere in the apartment and not answering the fucking phone, now there was a kid who hated a bed. Maybe he was crouched like some bird at the foot of his daddy’s bed trying to imagine how to kill his dad, you ever work pro bono? Look, I know I was sloppy. Sloppy and brash and I didn’t think most of the time. And kinda stupid. And people had been warning me for years about my supposedly short fuse, even my pop who didn’t think I had the ammo to match the aggro.

  That second hit, on Southside to boot, to rub out a goon that cooked the books for the mob on 48th and 8th. Shit did not go as planned, to put it mildly. The man so fucking fat that slugs to his body just came to rest in blubber while the monster just laughed. Took me a while, after the man called me a little pussy meow meow, to figure out that I should just go for the head. But even after the bullet went right through his left eye and the back of his skull sprayed the bed board and wall, the man kept laughing and wouldn’t stop.

  I kept shooting and shooting, moving in closer and closer until all that was left was the stump of his neck and loose hair. But the laugh followed me all the way up 8th Street, and I couldn’t outrun it.

  When I got back to my apartment I just felt fucking cold and I was shaking and that laugh was under my skin. Rocky touched me and I grabbed that boy hard and pushed him against the wall. I let him go and let him undress me like I was some kid, and carry me to the bath and rub my hair while the tub filled with warm water. Easy, baby, easy was all he said all night. That fucking boy, that fucking boy, the last thing I need to think of when I’m supposed to be busy.

  And now I’m losing my shit in Flatbush. Acting all stupid over this fucking faggot who got the jump on me, this boy colder than fucking midnight for taking up with a guy who kills people because sooner or later he’s gonna kill that one, the one where it all started, the one who made him this fucking way. Fuck this. I’m gon
na fire a shot and blow a bullet hole in the fucking world and the jocks, and the kids who caught me looking at another kid in the shower, and whoever in the gym yanked my fucking towel and exposed my fucking boner.

  If I keep this up I’m not going to make it. There’s nothing to do but wait for Griselda to call again. Or maybe one of the Hawaiian Shirts would show up, since she must have sent one to make sure I carried it out, then clean up. Maybe Pink Hawaiian Shirt, who knew too much about clubs, and maybe he would let me go if I sucked him off. I mean, even a bad blow job makes a man close his eyes hoping it’ll get better. I only needed a second to grab this gun and blow clear through his head from the chin, and watch blood hit the roof. Sometimes I wish I was back in Chi-Town breaking into cars.

  Ten feet away, a phone booth.

  —Hello?

  —Rocky? Where the hell were you? You gonna answer me goddamnit?

  —John-John.

  —I called you. More than once.

  —I really need to sleep.

  —I guess you had a fucking busy day.

  —No, not really. Was figuring out what birthday card to send to Dad. I do every year. Why did you call me, John-John?

  —What? Huh? What do you mean?

  —I’m always pretty clear about what I mean. Why are you calling?

  —Well because, because.

  —I just watched one depressing episode of M*A*S*H and an even more depressing episode of One Day at a Time. It was either Lou Grant or bed. Although this episode had to deal with some spazzy suicide chick but then it was only part one, One Day at a Time, I mean. What do you want?

  —What? What do I want? I don’t want anything.

  —I really need to get some sleep.

  —Then fucking sleep then.

  —Huh? You’ve got a problem, don’t you?

  —I don’t have a problem. It just takes the fucking cake, huh? How somebody who does nothing all day can be so tired.