—Me shot him in the head.
—Where in the head?
—Back.
—How many—
—One time. You only need one.
—What did you do with the body?
—Dump it in a gully. Then tell the driver to burn the car.
—What did you do when you learned he burned all the evidence, sir?
—Me didn’t do nothing. I go to me bed.
He looks at her as he says the last line. A juror, dressed like a schoolteacher, doesn’t sleep for three days.
Three killers have outlived the Singer. One dies in New York. One sees and waits in Kingston surrounded by money and cocaine, and one vanishes behind the Iron Curtain where he sits knowing, waiting for the bullet to the head. Soon.
Three girls from Kashmir sling on bass, guitar and drums, fresh faces brimming out of burkas, propped up and held together by a backdrop of the Singer streaked in red, green and gold stripes, thick like pillars. They call themselves First Ray of Light, soul sisters to the Singer smiling with the rising sun. Out of a wrapped face comes a melody so fragile it almost vanishes in the air. But it lands on a drum that kicks the groove back up to where the song lingers, sweeps and soothes. Now the Singer is a balm to spread over broken countries. Soon, the men who kill girls issue a holy order and boys all over the valley vow to clean their guns, and stiffen their cocks, to hold down and take away. The Singer is support, but he cannot shield, and the band breaks away.
But in another city, another valley, another ghetto, another slum, another favela, another township, another intifada, another war, another birth, somebody is singing Redemption Song, as if the Singer wrote it for no other reason but for this sufferah to sing, shout, whisper, weep, bawl, and scream right here, right now.
One
You think he’s napping?
—Me no response for that, boss.
—Huh? Okay, fine, just point me to his cell.
—I point it out two minutes ago. Is not like nobody else down here in the dungeon.
—Dungeon? That’s kinda inappropriate.
—When you done see your way out.
—Not escorting me all the way?
—Don’t like the dark.
Footsteps echo as I walk and all I can think about is I kinda wished I saw it myself. No kidding. They swooped down on that lil’ motherfucker Griselda Blanco style. Such a wicked idea perfected in Jamaica. Give it to the dearly disappeared bitch, if nothing else she did leave us with one great invention. This is how it went down. With his dad Josey counting down the days until he was extradited to the U.S. for murder, racketeering, obstructing justice, narcotics et cetera, et cetera and so forth, it was up to his son, Benjy Wales, all grown up (but fatter, darker and more boring-looking than his dad) to rule as the don of Copenhagen City. Sorta like a regent, or placeholder, or some thing like that. So Benjy was putting together the Papa-Lo Memorial Commemorative Annual Cricket Match. Anyway, somehow this meant a meeting on King Street, which is east of West Kingston. It’s always tricky business when a don of the West heads east, worse, heads off by himself on a bike. He gets to the intersection probably just staring ahead, minding his own business, when this other bike pulls up right next to him. By the time he look over to see who it was, two men in black open fire, blasting his heart out of his chest.
Funny, eh? The thing about Benjy, yeah his pops is Josey motherfucking Wales, and he saw gunfire all the time, but he still traveled the world, well the States, went to a posh school and never had to go to bed hungry a single day of his life. What do you get? A fucking gunman who’s too used to the good life. He might as well be any fucking brat stepping out his pop’s apartment in Central Park West. His father who has brought this country to a standstill at least three times is in prison about to finally get his ass handed back to him, and what does golden boy do? He goes off by himself on a fucking bike? What did he think, that every other gunman would be in church? And a Griselda-style killing doesn’t just happen out of dumb luck. That shit was not just set up, but coordinated right down to that particular intersection. These young boys, they really don’t think. I’m fucking old. I used to think old was the first time you bent over and grunted ugh when you straightened back up. Now old is running into enemies too old to fight, where all you got left from an old war is fucking nostalgia. And any kind of nostalgia is something to drink not shoot over.
Entry wounds to head, chest and exit wounds in head, neck, shoulder and back. Last week I spoke to this Doctor Lopez who was the doc on call in the ER that morning. Bombo r’asscloth, he says, I’ve never been so scared in all my life. And not just basic fear for himself but fear like it was about to be Armageddon in the ER. By the time Benjy Wales got to the hospital the boy was pretty much a goner, all that was left was to call it. But Benjy’s body came with around three thousand party crashers, all spilling in and out of the ER. All that was left was for the doctor to call time of death, but because three thousand people are outside, expecting you to pull a Jesus because that’s what doctors do for a don, you go through the most ridiculous theater not named kabuki. Doctor Lopez was telling me all this. They had to transfer him to a bed, which was already a waste of space, but by then the crowd was shouting BRING BACK BENJY so loud you could hear them all the way down in the valley a mile away. First they tried to restore the airway, which is what you’re supposed to do, to gain control of catastrophic hemorrhage. Except by the time they brought him in there was nothing in his lungs but blood. Meanwhile the crowd was getting louder, and the doctors had to go through this fucking charade with a corpse. Imagine trying to restore circulation to a body that’s just done with circulating. No pulse, no pressure, no level of consciousness whatsoever. It’s not that he had stopped, he was fucking done. I asked him at what time were they going to tell the crowd he was just dead, and he said, No lie, boss, by the time we started to resuscitate him I was hoping for a miracle too. Outside the crowd was pushing so hard they broke two glass windows.
The worst part was the defib. Every time they shocked Benjy and his body jerked, the whole crowd jerked too, even people outside who weren’t even seeing it. Electric shock-body jerk-crowd jump. Electric shock-body jerk-crowd jump. Electric shock-body jerk-crowd jump. After one hour Doctor Lopez finally called what should have been called from the minute they wheeled that body in. And then, whoa. Word then just circled through the crowd that they couldn’t save him. Benjy Wales was dead. They kicked down the ER doors first. Three thousand men, women and children, most of them with guns, the rest with the kind of heart that doesn’t need guns. We di bombocloth. We goin’ kill the whole ah unu, we goin’ murder down this whole bombor’asscloth hospital. Fifty doctor and nurse for killing Benjy. Some men grabbed a nurse and started slapping her. Doctor Lopez said he jumped in but two men grabbed him and gun-butted him in the head. They turned over the reception desk and the poor security guards did the only thing they could do. They ran. The doc doesn’t know how it happened, but just right then a new wave just washed over the crowd and they started shouting that it’s not the doctors that killed Benjy, it was the PNP.
By Sunday night they hit Lane Six of the Eight Lanes. They shot every man in sight and raped every woman in reach. Burned down almost a third of the houses and shot some children to seal the deal. Two days later they fucking decimated Lane Three. Then they took that fight to Miami with drive-by shootings, bullet holes in Honda Accords and night clubs. Two of my buddies said they barely made it out of the Rolex Club, the way the Jamaicans were shooting each other up. The Prime Minister had to reach out to the JLP to organize a truce, and even then they had to get the church to organize some peace marches. They only stopped when all this killing was getting in the way of Benjy’s funeral plans. I didn’t go to the funeral. I’m not even supposed to be here, officially. Okay, I lie. I did go to the funeral, but I think they might have mistaken me for a bodyguard or something. The last time I saw a funeral that big it was the Singer’s.
At le
ast twenty thousand people. There’s the former Prime Minister, of course. Needless to say, he was opposition in 1976, then Prime Minister in ’80 and now back to opposition in ’91. First a marching band, almost like in New Orleans, the men in white uniforms, the girls in red minidresses and pom-poms. Then coffin, black with silver handles with the dead boy in a black velvet suit. If you’re never gonna sweat why not go out in winter style? The coffin in a motherfucking white-horse-driven glass hearse right up behind the marching band. Then the former Prime Minister walking with Benjy’s queen woman in a skintight little black dress, thick gold chain like you see on those rap guys. Big earrings. As soon as you see her you notice every other woman there. Gold lamé minidress, pink minidress, white minidress, fishnet stockings, silver high heels, bird as hats, hats as birds, more cargo chains. One girl had a open back dress that plunged right down into her ass crack. Every woman moving down the street like it was a catwalk.
Josey tried to get leave (which is a weird way of saying it) to go to his son’s funeral but they wouldn’t allow it. Why would they? Let the don out of prison to twenty thousand of his own people, how the hell would you get him back? U.S. government probably heard that idea and screamed a thousand no’s. Funny that for most of the eighties when Josey built his empire—with major help of course—they didn’t so much as give a fuck about him. Fucking New York, man, I told him he shouldn’t have done that shit. Black boys really gotta learn to control their fucking tempers. That day in 1985 Josey Wales shot out of nowhere to near the top of the DEA and the Feds’ list. And as soon as the JLP got kicked out of power he became one hell of a sitting duck.
But before all that, the bigger he got the more untouchable he was. Josey is driving down some street, I can’t remember which, but this is in a place called Denham Town. Wales drives straight into a bus. Comes out and he’s mad. But the driver is just losing it and drawing a crowd. Don’t know what he said but he just going off and off, and shouting and threatening and God knows what. The only time he shut up was when some woman shouted is Josey Wales and the whole street scatters leaving the poor bus driver. Josey’s not even looking at him when the man makes like Road Runner straight to the police station. Poor guy. About thirty minutes later, Josey Wales shows up at the police station with ten of his boys. They walk right inside, grab the bus driver, and walk right out. Not a single cop even gets up. The man must have shat himself and bawled like a fucking girl when he saw the policemen looking the other way in their own fucking station. Right outside, with cops and people watching, those with guns shoot the bus driver, those without guns stab him. Was like crows upon fresh carcass. They arrested Josey, of course, but the prosecution just couldn’t find any witnesses. Not a single one.
Meanwhile Cali is saying this motherfucker is a badass like no other badass has ever been fucking bad. Give him and his posse the U.K.
This was the man who went into Rema with his boys, and killed twelve just like that. Why? Because some of the guys there started to complain that their little community was being neglected. Josey was always one for making his points clear. Police filed a warrant, Josey skips to the USA, but by now he’s a Person of Interest so he skips back to Jamaica. They take him to court, but the one witness suddenly she’s got amnesia, no wait, she wasn’t there, no wait, is a long time now she hasn’t changed her glasses prescription so now she’s blind as a bat. Really she just can’t remember and was so confused by the whole thing, because gunshots were flying everywhere.
But last year, his daughter was outside some club with her boyfriend and some Eight Lanes goons just sprang out of nowhere and opened fire on the two of them. They just Swiss cheesed the dude till he ran out of places to spring holes. Girl was cradling his body when they walked up right to her and shot her clean in the head. All I could think of was at least they didn’t rape her first. I still wonder if they knew who she was. I mean, fact is, like with Griselda in Miami, if you keep pushing and pushing too far, sooner or later your enemies are going to push back. And if you keep making enemies, sooner or later they’re gonna reach critical mass. Only a matter of time before you make enemies as ruthless as you, after all you’re the one raising the bar. Me, I’m never in a place long enough to build a roll call of enemies. That shit is like any other relationship, you nurture it. That’s why I never was one for Colombia or Kingston. I’m a facilitator. Speaking of critical mass, by now the Feds had racked up multiple charges against Josey and they wanted him bad. Somebody had to win the war on drugs and it sure as hell wasn’t going to be a nigger from a Caribbean shithole who should have stuck to pot. This time, they got him in prison. And this time, he’s going to rot.
Yeah, I went to him in prison and it wasn’t visitors hours either. As soon as I said hey Josey, he sat up on the bed and took a good while to look up. When he did, he was smiling, but a small one almost like he was shy. And then he said,
—I knew they would send you.
—How’s things, mijo?
—Looking at you the better one, Doctor Love.
Two
Miss Segree? Miss Segree? Millicent Segree? Miss Segree?
—It’s not Miss.
—Oh. I’m sorry.
—No problem, Mrs. Segree.
—It’s not Mrs. It’s not Miss, it’s Millicent Segree.
—Okay, ma’am.
—You know what? Fine. How much is it?
—The entire prescription is fourteen dollars, ma’am.
You know, most of this feminism business was nothing more than white American women telling non-white women what to do and how to do it, with this patronizing if-you-become-just-like-me-you’ll-be-free bullshit, but if there’s one thing I agree with is damn, I hate when a man feels I’m obligated to disclose my marital status to somebody I don’t even know. Even this bullshit about status itself as if married and spinster are the only two choices for defining myself. Or because I’m a woman I’m supposed to have a status at all. Hey big boy, here’s my status. Hi, before I tell you my name here’s my status. Maybe I should just say I’m a lesbian and throw the problem back in their faces for them to define it.
Xanax for anxiety. Valium for sleep. Prozac for depression. Phenergan for nausea. Tylenol for headaches. Mylanta for bloating. Midol for cramps. I mean, Jesus Christ, menopause come already. Isn’t there some fast-track for a hot flash? It’s not like I’m ever going to breed, so why keep the damn store door open? I’m at the Rite Aid on Eastchester in the Bronx, just a block from my place on Corsa Avenue. August means I’ll be living there two years. Of course despite working at Beth Israel which, it goes without saying, has a pharmacy, I fulfill prescriptions on Eastchester because who wants to see a nurse buying so many pills? Yeah things are confidential but I’ve never come across anybody who if given the chance wouldn’t talk your business. This just make things less complicated and in the past few years I’ve just gotten allergic to complicated things. Even men. You can’t stand a man who’s the same yesterday, today and forever? Give him my number. It’s always when they start to talk about their feelings and—I love this one—where is this going? that I get so sick I have to reach for the Phenergan.
So I cross the street to the bus stop and pop one. Zantac. I’m going to need a Zantac after wolfing down a muffin for breakfast. I wish Dunkin’ Donuts wasn’t all the way on Gun Hill Road, I could use some coffee. But I can’t stand Gun Hill Road. Especially on these wet days when winter can’t decide to leave and spring can’t decide to show up. And I’m not ruining one more shoe while they figure it out. Outside the station is always the same old men with nowhere to go and I can’t tell if they’re looking at me as men, or as Jamaicans. To make it from street to door to turnstile to train would be hard enough if I didn’t have to stand there in pigeon shit waiting on the 5. And it never fails, nobody waiting on the train looking like they have anywhere to go. No shopping bag, no knapsack, no briefcase, nobody carrying anything. Me looking like Miss Virgin Mary because I’m going to the hospital. Not a nurse, trainin
g to be one.
The school director looked at me and said we don’t always get women at your point in life, usually they’re just starting out. Who’s to say I’m not just beginning life right now? I said to the man who was clearly not buying it, but for some reason didn’t feel like telling a woman she was too old. Every day I go to work, I try to figure that one out. But then Lord knows I know everything about knowing people only in the context of them needing something from me. Millicent, it’s too early in the morning to be so bitter. You actually like the white stockings and no-sex-here shoes, remember? Meanwhile at Beth Israel you’re in triage and find that you like it very much.
But two weeks ago, for like seven days Jamaicans kept coming in with all sorts of gunshot wounds. All of them men, four of them by the time they got here, there was nothing to do. Girlfriends and baby mothers screaming out woi! Wha me a go do with the pickney dem? As if I knew the answer. Me, I’m putting on an extra-thick American accent and saying shit like wah-der instead of water because I don’t want anybody to figure I’m Jamaican, which is just fuckery because so far I did like that the hospital thought I was their own Madge Sinclair from Trapper John, M.D. One of the doctors even called me Ernie once and even though I said my name is Millicent, Doctor, I couldn’t stop grinning. But it was just weird, these Jamaicans with gunshot wounds coming from the Bronx, which is not exactly near this hospital. I didn’t ask what was going on this week but a doctor did, and one of the men with three bullets in his backside says, Them kill young Benjy. Is armagideon now, Kingston, Miami, New York, London. Them kill young Benjy. Who is this Benjy and how did he die? the doctor asks. I’m there squeezing the IV bag in my hand so hard it almost bursts.
—Nurse? the doctor says. I hook it up to the man’s arms without looking at him. I didn’t want him to give me the eye of recognition. I’m not no kindred spirit. Who’s this Benjy? the doctor asks again and I want to say shut the fuck up, but all I can do is start an IV. Thank God, when I finally look at the man he was giving the doctor this stare, eyebrow raised and indignant like he’s thinking, What you mean who’s Benjy? I certainly didn’t want to know.
A Brief History of Seven Killings Page 62
