A Brief History of Seven Killings

by James, Marlon

  The first time I came to Jamaica we flew into Montego Bay and drove to Negril, me and a girl whose dad was ex-army. I loved that she had no idea who The Who were, but listened to The Velvet Underground because she grew up with German kids on the army base. After a few days, it wasn’t as if I felt I belonged, nothing as cheesy as that, but I did get the feeling, this sensation or maybe it was just a belief that said, You can stop running now. No, that did not make me want to live here. But I remember waking up early one morning, right at the point where the temperature finally dips, and saying, What is your story? Maybe I meant the country, or maybe I meant me.

  I’m being obvious. I’m better thinking about what’s ticking in this country, right about to boom.

  The general election is in two weeks. The CIA is squatting on the city, its lumpy ass leaving the sweat print of the Cold War. The magazine is expecting nothing much from me but some paragraph on whatever the Stones are recording, complete with a stupid pic of Mick or Keef with headphones half on with a Jamaican in the shot for some color. But fuck that. What kind of game is Mark Lansing running? Cocksucker isn’t smart enough to pull a total scam all by himself. I should head back to Marley’s house tomorrow. I mean, I had an appointment. Like that means anything in Jamaica. Who is this William Adler anyway?

  Josey Wales

  Weeper is a man with a whole heap of stories. All of them start with a laugh, because Weeper is a man who love to joke. And that is how he play fisherman on you because the joke is the hook. But once he hook you the man drag you down the blackest, reddest, hottest pit of hell you could ever imagine. Then he laugh and just hold back to watch you try to climb your way back out. Just don’t ask him about the Electric Boogie.

  Make sense that I would be in a bar seeing woman dancing, and man watching, and music playing and what I doing? Thinking about Weeper. Jungle never produce a rudie like Weeper before, and not going to again. He is not like any other man who live in Balaclava before the fall of 1966. Weeper’s mother send him to school all the way to secondary. Not many people know that Weeper pass three GCE subject, in English, mathematics and technical drawing, and was reading big book even before Babylon send him to prison. Weeper read so hard that he had to start stealing glasses until he find one that work. Now the rudie in glasses make people think there is something behind him face. His baby mother get a good job in the freezone only because she was the only woman in freezone history to send in a real job letter, of course one that Weeper, not she, write.

  Now every Weeper story have only one hero, and that is Weeper, except for the man who send him letter still, the man who he love to talk about all the time, this man who did this, this man who said that, this man that teach him this, and with a little coke or even less H, he let the man do that and both of them feel good. Weeper will talk about the man like he couldn’t care less what anybody else think, because everybody know Weeper is the fucker that will kill a boy right in front of his father and have the father count his last five breath. Just don’t ask him about the Electric Boogie.

  Weeper even have a story about the Singer. A man can’t pay attention to everybody, especially if he in a place on a mission, but Weeper for some reason take it personally. Nineteen sixty-seven and Weeper was a boy from downtown in Crossroads, the middle ground between uptown and downtown, staying out of trouble, thinking that with Maths, English and Technical Drawing he could apprentice for some architect somewhere. Weeper didn’t forget to comb him hair that day. He was wearing the grey shirt and dark blue pants his mother buy for church. Picture Weeper walking through Crossroads like a head cock, rocksteady bouncing in his shoes, looking way too boasty for a boy downtown. Picture Weeper looking different from everybody else, because unlike everybody else he have somewhere to go.

  As Weeper make a left to go to Carib Theatre the police draw down in numbers. Two truck full with police, one grabbing him, another butting him with the rifle, another kicking him in the head when he fall down. In Gun Court the police say he resist arrest and wound two officer with intent. Milord says, You are charged with one count of robbery of the Ray Chang Jewellery store in Crossroads along with wounding with intent, how do you plead? Weeper say he don’t know nothing about no robbery, but the police say they have witness. Weeper say you don’t have nothing, you just round up any black man you see uptown like Marcus Stone from Copenhagen City in jail for a murder that happen forty-eight hours after he was arrested. That made the law look either stupid or corrupt or both. The judge give him the chance to reveal his accomplices. Weeper say there are no accomplices because there was no crime. Weeper was innocent but he couldn’t afford a lawyer. The judge give him five years in the General Penitentiary.

  The day before prison, police pay Weeper a visit. Boys from Copenhagen City, Jungle, Rema and Waterhouse not friends with the police. But police show him what to expect from prison. Even then, even after the sentencing, Weeper is still holding on to hope, because his mother was still alive and he has three GCE passes and is about to make something of himself. Weeper think it an even match, they with the power, he with being right. He thinking surely a boy wearing glasses can’t be a rudie. Weeper thinking even up to that point that God at any minute was going to take Daniel out of the lion’s den. Six policemen, one of which say Weeper, we come to give you something. Weeper who up to that point still named William Foster, but the police say him cry like a girl. Weeper, who can never keep a smart word in his mouth where it should stay, tell the man that he kinda pretty but ’round there is only exit not entrance. The first swing of the club didn’t break his left hand but the second one did. The policeman says you goin’ tell h’us h’all o’ you accomplicisties. Weeper bawling from pain but still he can’t lock off the smart mouth. Don’t you mean accomplice? he says. The police say we know how to make you talk, but they know Weeper have nothing to say, they were the same police who just pick him up because dutty ghetto boy have no right to palaver in decent clothes like him is somebody, and is thief the bloodcloth boy thief the clothes from decent people and nasty naigger must always know them place.

  They break the left lens of his glasses, a break Weeper wear even now, when he can afford to change it. They take him to a room in the lockup he never see before. Take off all his clothes, even brief, and tie him down to a cot. The policeman say, You know what them call the Electric Boogie, pussyhole? One of them come ’round with an electric cord they rip out of a toaster. They split the two wires. Mind they call you a battyman one police say when another grab onto Weeper’s cock and wrap the first wire ’round the head. Then they plug in the cord. Nothing happen when they do that, but something happen when they take the other cord and touch his fingertips, gums, nose, nipples and asshole. Weeper didn’t tell me any of this, but I know.

  Weeper was something new to prison. A man that damage before, not after they lock him up. I hear that the first week in prison everybody stay out of his way because a wounded lion was more dangerous than a healthy one. Anybody could take him, but whoever did was going to hell with him. Weeper can carry whole line of conversation with his eyes alone. Still do, another reason why he’s the best to work with. He on one side of a grocery shop, I on the other side, and between two winks and a stare we both know that he’s taking the back door and I’m taking the counter and shooting anybody who so much as reach down to adjust their pants or go into their handbag. Weeper’s gun have five notches on the left side, none on the right. Each notch, a policeman. And—

  —Yow! Yow, Josey! Brethren, come back, planet Earth need you.

  —Weeper? Is when you get here? Don’t think I see you come in.

  —I and I come in two minute ago. You think that’s a good idea making dream distract you in this bar?

  —’Cause why?

  —Huh? Nothing, star. Man like you don’t have to watch you back anyway when man watching it for you.

  —How come you just coming?

  —You know me, Josey. Every road must have a roadblock. So is which world you comi
ng back from?

  —Pluto, the one far out.

  —Seen. Where the woman have one breast but two pussy?

  —No, man, more like Planet of the Apes.

  —Might as well sink down the cock ’pon two monkey, since—

  —Don’t start with that man come from monkey fuckery again, Weeper.

  —Who say that?

  —No so your atheist evolution idiot brethren chat ’bout.

  —Yeah, man, me and top-ranking Charles Darwin. Brethren, nobody come from monkey. Well, except for Funnyboy, must be some gorilla poom-poom him push out of.

  —Weeper, what the bloodcloth.

  —What? What?

  —Brethren, me pretty sure my beer was more than half.

  —Good to know.

  —Pussyhole, you drink off me beer?

  —Didn’t look like you was using it. What Granny used to say? What stay too long serve two master.

  —Granny know, say you drink man backwash?

  —For serious, is where you did gone?

  Weeper even more chatty than usual. Might be because of this bar where liquor loosen every tongue but mine. He know I hate him getting high when we in the middle of business. He going to say that the C take the edge off, but that’s just some fuckery he hear from a white man in lockup on narcotics charge until the embassy come for him, or from some movie, he don’t know what the fuck it mean. In this state he will pick a fight when there is no fight to pick. And he more paranoid than Judas hiding after he betray Jesus.

  —Hey Josey, your Datsun outside? Man over there. Three o’clock.

  —What, what the bloodcloth you talking ’bout now? And what it have to do with my Datsun?

  —That man, three o’clock.

  —How much time I must tell you not to use that American movie bullshit with me?

  —Fine then, pussyhole. Man behind you to the right—don’t look. Tall, dark not handsome, lip like fish hanging off, at the bar but talking to nobody. Three times now he look over here.

  —Maybe him like you.

  Weeper look at me hard. For a second I think he going to say something stupid and make me cuss him out. Weeper earn the right to do what he want to do, even if it is some sodomite business. He’ll talk about it all the time but sideways like an Aesop fable, or a riddle and rhyme. He can shape and mold it and make it Greek, his word, not mine, I don’t know what the fuck he’s talking about with that Greek shit. But that don’t mean he want anybody to say it back to him. Something happen when somebody tell you something about yourself even if you already know.

  —Man, fuck a battyman, he says. I kick my own foot.

  —That man watching us.

  —That’s what the C telling you. Of course he watching us. If I was him in the bar I wouldn’t be able to take my eye off me neither. This is what him really dealing. He, like everybody here, recognize me, then he recognize you. He right there thinking, Who in here did they come to cancel and how long before they kill him? And should I just chill out to the max, or should I run like a pussyhole? I don’t even have to look, one hand on him drinks, other tapping the bar. Watch him look away quick as I swing around, one, two, three . . . now.

  —Haha, man knock over him own drinks. Brethren, maybe is a police.

  —Maybe you should stop feeling up you bloodcloth gun. You have twenty-two days of Christmas leave to add couple more notch.

  Weeper stare at me hard then laugh. Nothing like a Weeper laugh, it start like a wheeze, then somewhere, and you never know where, it explode into the biggest thing in the room. Who teach this little black man that he can laugh so? It spin off in the whole room and other people start laughing, not knowing why.

  —More paranoid than usual these few days.

  —That’s because you think tomorrow special. No different from any other day. You know why I pick you, Weeper, you know why? Because if it’s one thing I can’t stand it’s a man who can only tell me what he about to do. That’s why I don’t fucking trust no politician. All he can tell me is what he going to do.

  —Never make a politician do you a favour he will want . . . I ever tell you how me run ’pon the Singer?

  Ten thousand time but I don’t tell him that. There are things Weeper need to say a dozen, a hundred, a thousand time till he no longer have the need to say it.

  —No, you never tell me.

  —Three year into the service . . .

  He always call the years in prison, the service.

  —Three years. Them take us out Port Henderson beach.

  —They make prisoner swim? I would escape so fast.

  —NO, no, no. Them have we out there ’pon a work, have big man chopping down wood. You right, I should have just swing the cutlass and chop off a guard head. Anyway, brethren, we out there a work and the Singer and him friend come out there. The man look ’pon me and say, We everybody out here a fight for you, seen? And me look at the man and hear him a reason with me, right? And him say him fighting for my rights! Me. Then him laugh and walk off. Hate the pussyhole like poison after that.

  He hate the Singer for real. But the real story don’t have nothing to do with Weeper. He think they talking to him and his heart leap up, Weeper was even about to walk over, despite guards watching. Then he realize the Singer were talking to the man beside him, not him. For some reason, even after cat o’ nine, gun butt and piss in the rice when he get too testy with a guard, this is the thing that hurt him the most. The thing that make him blood boil. And it never even happen, but something in Weeper need it to happen, need it to end this way. I don’t care, this is what drawing him to pull the gun when I need him to.

  —Them waiting by the shack right now, time to go, I say. —Everybody but Bam-Bam. Take my car and pick him up. He watching the house all day.

  —For real, brethren, for real.

  Bam-Bam

  Is a hell of a thing when a gun come home to live with you. The people who live with you notice it first. The woman I live with talk to me different. Everybody talk to you different when them see a new bulge in you pants. No, is not that at all. When a gun come to live in the house it’s the gun, not even the person who keep it, that have the last word. It come between man and woman talk, not just serious reasoning but even a little thing.

  —Dinner ready, she say.

  —Me no hungry.

  —Okay.

  —I going need it warm when me finally hungry.

  —Yes sah.

  When a gun come to live in the house the woman you live with treat you different, not cold, but now she weigh word, measure it before talking to you. But a gun talk to the owner too, telling him first that you can never own this, that outside is plenty people who don’t have a gun but know you do, and one night they going come like Nicodemus and take it. Nobody ever own a gun. You don’t know that until you own one. If somebody give it to you, that somebody can take it back. Another man can think is for him even when he seeing that is you control it. And he don’t sleep until he get it ’cause he can’t sleep. Gun hunger worse than woman hunger for at least maybe a woman might hungry for you back. At night me don’t sleep. Me stay up in the dark shadow, looking at it, rubbing it, seeing and waiting.

  Two days after he leave, we hear that Papa-Lo was in England watching the Singer on tour. Rumour was that Funnyboy was in England the same time, but nobody could say if that was true or untrue since they crucify the last informer right in the Garbagelands. The man who bring guns to the ghetto tell we of more waiting in the night in a container marked Peace Concert. When we three get to the wharf it empty like Clint Eastwood just ride off. No crane working, no floodlight on, no people, only water slapping the dock. The crate was open and ready. Weeper drive right up in Josey Wales’ Datsun. Me, him and Heckle load the trunk and backseat with so much ammo that neither me nor Heckle could fit in the car when Weeper drive back. He give we money for taxi, but no taxi going to ghetto, worse during curfew, so we take the money and buy Kentucky Fried Chicken, watching the cashier waiting
on we to leave so they can lock up but too ’fraid to tell we to leave.

  That night the same white man who joke with Frouser teach we how to shoot. Plenty man come from the ghetto and when he see one of them he smile and say, What’s shaking, Tony? But Tony don’t answer. He say to nobody that Tony and him go way back to our little school in Fort Benning, but nobody know about this Tony going to no school. He set up target and ask me to shoot. Then the man who bring guns to the ghetto look at me and smile. Weeper telling the white man that Papa-Lo get soft but the white man don’t understand much of what Weeper saying. He just nod and laugh and say I gotcha! then look at Josey Wales to repeat everything slower but he still laugh too loud at what wasn’t no joke. This make Josey Wales’ face even more cross because everybody know that he proud that he can speak good. The white man say we’re fighting for freedom from totalitarianism, terrorism and tyranny, but nobody know what he mean.

  I look at the other boys, two younger than me, five older including Demus and Weeper. We all dark, we all hate to comb our hair. We all wearing khaki or gabardine or jeans pants with the right leg rolled up right under the knee and a rag sticking out of the left back pocket because this look carrying the swing. Some of we wearing tam but some of we don’t because tam is for Rastas and Rastas look like they turning socialist. So cialism is another ism and even the Singer so sick of ism that he write a song about it. Then the white man talk about how some people trying to use smooth talk to win people over and how totalitarianism always happens with consent and we nod like we understand. He say chaos nine time. He say how the country will thanks us one day and we nod like we understand.

  But Josey Wales want something more than this party business. I think of how he always smell kinda off even though him woman dress him. A smell like garlic and sulphur. And after they show us how to shoot again, Josey Wales say we going to Rema because naiggers ’roun’ dere acting a way. You got yourself some uppity niggers, the white man say and laugh as he leave in a jeep. There was Rema again, between JLP and PNP, between capitalist and socialist. Josey Wales tell the white man that he not an ist for anybody, he just smarter than all of them and he will do what they want if they leave him alone in Miami. The white man say he doesn’t know what Josey Wales was yapping about but then smile like he and the devil have a secret. Word was that Rema people were grumbling that JLP put money and corned beef and sewage system in Copenhagen City but don’t do nothing for them and maybe it’s time they join with the PNP for real, and turn the Eight Lanes into Nine Lanes. All this Weeper tell we when we go back to shack by the train line. He still telling we while he mix white C with ether and heat it with a lighter. Then he suck up the coke through him nose and give some to me first.