Me, I was just happy that she didn’t show up with Ras Trent, bass player in African Herbsman, otherwise known as the son of the Minister of Tourism. My mother called them an item even though he called Kimmy the Babylon princess to her face. Even though as the Minister’s son he would reach thirty before visiting all the rooms in his father’s four houses. But Kimmy needed that somebody who could knock her off whatever platform Daddy placed her, so that she could make a new daddy out of him, and as I said, Che Guevara was dead. Mummy, who never takes a side in the discussion, much less talk, said that she was thinking that we needed a home guard. The Prime Minister himself had been talking about it, what with the crime rate skyrocketing and the people having to take it on themselves to shoulder the burden of safety. The three of us never agree on anything but we all looked at her like she was mad, in fact that’s just what she said, Don’t you all look at me like me mad. My father said there is no way he hiring no Ton-Ton Macoute in him own country.
He asked me what I thought. Kimmy looked at me as if our relationship would hinge on anything that came out of my mouth. When I said that I don’t think anything, they were both disappointed. I prefer to remember than to think. If I think, sooner or later I’m going to have to ask myself questions, like why did I sleep with him, and why did I run when it was over, and why am I out here now and why did I stay out here all day. And what does it say that I can pass the entire day doing nothing. If it means I’m one of those girls that serve no damn purpose. The thing about staying out here all day, the really scary part of this, is just how easy it is. My mother sings One day at a time sweet Jesus, and even Daddy likes to say that, one day at a time, as if it’s some strategy for living. And yet the quickest way to not live at all is to take life one day at a time. It’s the way I’ve discovered to not do a damn thing. If you can break a day down into quarters, then hours, then half hours, then minutes, you can chew down any stretch of time to bite size. It’s like dealing with losing a man. If you can bear it for one minute, then you can swallow two, then five, then another five and on and on. If I don’t want to think about my life, I don’t have to think about life at all, just hold for one minute, then two, then five, then another five, before you know it, a month can pass and you don’t even notice because you’ve only been counting minutes.
I’m outside his house counting minutes, not even realizing that an entire day just ran away from me. Just like that. The light in the room, top left, just went back on.
The thing I should have said, the thing I wanted to say, is that it’s not the crime that bothers me. I mean, it bothers me like it bothers anybody. Like how inflation bothers me, I don’t really experience it but I know it’s affecting me. It’s not the actual crime that makes me want to leave, it’s the possibility that it can happen any time, any second now, even in the next minute. That it might never happen at all, but I’ll think it will happen any second now for the next ten years. Even if it never comes, the point is I’ll be waiting for it and the wait is just as bad because you can’t do anything else in Jamaica but wait for something to happen to you. This applies to good stuff too. It never happens. All you have is the waiting for it.
Waiting. The son of a bitch didn’t even come out to his verandah. But should he come out right now, what? I don’t know if I could move. I don’t know if I could run across the street and shout from his gate. My dirty feet are telling me that I’ve been waiting for so long that wait is all there is. The one time I didn’t wait was when I saw him on the back balcony. I didn’t wait afterwards either. I thought about telling Kimmy. She wouldn’t have expected it of me. Which is why I wanted to tell her that I got closer to Che Guevara than she ever would, the Babylon princess.
Across the road, but a good fifty feet or so from the gate, a car just pulled up. A white sportscar that I didn’t even see coming. I didn’t see the man either, jumping off the wall on my side of the road and walking over to the car. I clutched my bag even though he was already in the car. I don’t know how long was he there, standing by the wall in the dark, only a few feet away from me, watching. I didn’t even see him or hear him, he could have been there for hours too watching me all this time. The white car turned into his driveway and stopped at the gate. I’m pretty sure it’s a Datsun. The driver got out and I can’t tell if he’s light or dark but he’s wearing a white merino. He walks to the side of the gate, to talk to security, I guess. When he turned to get back in the car his eyes flashed. Glasses. I watch the car drive off.
I need to leave. Not just Jamaica, but this place, right now. I need to run, so I do. The house doesn’t look at me but shadows do, up the road and down, shadows moving like people. Men maybe. Men change at eleven when there’s some defenceless woman around. Part of me is thinking that is bullshit and maybe I just need something to get frightened over. My high school teacher used to warn us not to dress like sluts and fear rape all the time. We wrote a note in left-hand writing with crayon one day and slipped it in her desk drawer. It was months before she found it and read, As if even a blind man would rape—before she realized she was reading out loud.
Running is relative. In high heels you can only skip real fast, barely bending your knee. I don’t know how long I’ve been skipping, but I can hear my feet tap tap tapping and my head decides to laugh at how stupid I must look and Wee Willie Winkle runs through the town, Upstairs, downstairs, in his nightgown jumps into my head and stays there. Tapping at the window, crying through the lock, Are the children in their beds? It’s now eight o’clock! Wee willie—cho r’asscloth.
Broke a heel. And the damn shoes was not cheap. Shit r’ass—
—Then hi, a wah dis deh ’pon we? Coolie duppy?
—It h’are the pretty-hest coolie duppy h’eye h’ever see.
—H’is where you coming from little girl, did you just perpetrate a crime?
—Maybe she about to bring her gun into play?
Police. Fucking police, in their fucking police voice. I made it as far down as the Waterloo Road intersection. Devon House, looking like a haunted mansion, is to the left. The traffic light just went green, but three police cars block the road. Six policemen leaning against the cars, some have a red seam down their pants, some have blue.
—Yow, lady, you know say we h’inna curfew?
—I . . . Me . . . did have to work late, officer, and lose track of time.
—Time not the only thing you lose. One of you foot longer than one or you break a heel?
—What? Oh cho r’asscloth. Sorry, officer.
—Haha.
They all laugh. Police in their fucking police voice.
—You see h’any bus or taxi running? How you was going get home?
—I . . . I . . .
—You h’is going walk?
—I don’t know.
—Miss, you better get h’in the car.
—I can reach home, I say. I want to say that neither in, any, or is, is spelt with an H, but they can probably pick up when a woman is being rude.
—Where h’is ’ome, the next block?
—Havendale.
—Ha ha ha ha.
Police and their police laugh.
—No bus coming pass ’ere for the rest of the night. You going walk?
—Yes.
—With one ’eel?
—Yes.
—H’in a curfew? You know what sort of man h’on the street with you this time of night, lady? You the only woman who don’t watch news come nighttime? Scum of the earth deh ’pon the street. Which one of them word you can’t spell?
—I was just—
—You was just being a damn idiot. Better you did stay at the work till morning when bus start run. Get in the car.
—I don’t need—
—Lady, go inna the bloodcloth car. You breaking the law. Either you going ’ome or you going to lockup.
I get in the car. Two policemen get in the front, leaving the two cars and four policemen behind. At the stoplight a right turn takes you to Havend
ale. They turn left.
—Shortcut, they both say.
Demus
This is the house by the sea. It only have one room and is not a house, but it used to be a home. The man who close the road to let the train pass, me no know him name but he dead in 1972 and nobody take him place. The train stop passing when West Kingston turn into the Wild West and every man turn into cowboy. I wanted to be Jim West, but him pants too tight. The TV in the chiney shop black and white but I guess that him pants is blue, a girl blue. This is the house that is one room and the man who used to live here sleep on a sponge and shit in a bucket that he wash out in the sea. Nobody remember him name. When they find him body all the water boil out of him but he wasn’t a skeleton yet. This house have two window. One look out at the sea and one look out at the tracks. When the train stop running, ghetto people try to steal the tracks, but don’t have no tool to break up something that heavy.
This is the colour of the room. The room paint in five colour that cut short. Red from floor to the bottom of the window. Green from the bottom of the window to the ceiling. Blue on the next wall reach the ceiling, but run out before it reach the corner. Pink that start the third wall and cover it. Green at the bottom of the fourth wall stopping in the middle with hard brushstroke, like he was begging and pleading and forcing the paint to stretch further. This is what it must be like for a man to grow old without a woman. Do he forget him parts and sad every time he have to piss for that remind him, or do he play with himself like some pervert? This is the one chair in the room, a red chair with dainty legs. Dainty is a word from a poem we learn in school. Love dainty Spanish needle with your yellow flower and white. Dew bedecked and softly sleeping, do you think of me tonight?
This is the first mistake God make. Time. God was a fool to create time. It’s the one thing that even he run out of. But me beyond time. Me in the now, which is now which is also then. Then is also soon and soon might as well be if. Two man just come in the house, making seven nine. One from Rema, two from Trench Town, three from Jungle, three from Copenhagen City.
This is the list of the men in the room.
Josey Wales, also known as Franklin Aloysius, also known as Ba-bye, who just come in with
Bam-Bam, who love to hold the gun but don’t know where to shoot.
Weeper, the police killer who have Babylon on the run. When he talk like a Jamaican he talk all coarse and evil. When he talk like a white man, he sound like he reading a book with big word. There is one thing about Weeper that no man who want to live talk about.
Heckle, who used to move with Jeckle until a bullet from PNP turn Jeckle from is to was.
Renton from Trench Town.
Matic from Trench Town.
Funky Chicken, who have the heroin shakes before they give him cocaine.
Two man from Jungle, one fat, one skinny, that I don’t know. The skinny one not even a man, not even a boy that much, him shirt open wide but no chest hair growing.
And me.
This is how ten man turn into nine. Three night ago. Matic from Trench Town try to light the C the way the Weeper show him, but he forget how and Weeper wasn’t there. A night with no moon and we with no flashlight to show the way to and from the house. Matic thinking he know the freebase and that a spoon full of C, is a spoon full of C, is a spoon full of C. Matic think that Weeper would leave C just anywhere and so he search the floor, in the corner, inside two cupboard near the window and in the ash of the coal stove near the door. He look and look and the other boys start looking too, feeling the C itch even though C don’t leave an itch, that is H. Matic find some white and when the other try to move in for him to share it, he pull out him gun. He use him own lighter and cook powder. He remember to heat the C in water and adding the baking soda he see in the cupboard. He smile like a pro while the other men look at him like a hungry tiger. But Matic forget the rest. He forget the other liquid that Weeper use, the ether. He was also stupid enough to think that Weeper would leave a stash in the house. The C wouldn’t burn, it wouldn’t change. No smoke was coming for him to smoke it, so he lick it. Lick the fire-hot spoon so hard that we hear him tongue sizzle. Freebase hit with a quick kick and the kick takes eight. Seven. Six. Five. Four. Three. Two. One. Nothing. Fuckery this, Matic, then fall frontway him face slamming into the floor with a bam and him mouth start to froth. Nobody touch him until Weeper come and laugh and ask if we didn’t think it funny that a dirty, nasty shack like this don’t have no rat.
This is how nine man become eight. Last night Josey Wales tell we what we going do. Renton from Trench Town say him cut a hit tune and he not pulling no gun like that boy in the Heptones who in prison when white man put him song in a movie. He say that him baby mother go to the Singer record studio and they give her money for the baby and her mother and her whole family. And he know that she is just one of more than hundred people that get help from the Singer and what goin’ happen if that stop? Josey Wales say that don’t make him better that make him worse because all him doing is giving poor people fish to eat because now that he reach he don’t want nobody else learn how to catch fish for himself. Some of we receive that reasoning but not Renton from Trench Town. Weeper take out him gun to shoot the bitch right deh so. Josey Wales say no, man, listen to the man and understand him reasoning. Then Josey Wales say that one has to know the factors. We don’t know what he mean, so he say kinetic energy: KE = mv2/2 (where m is mass and v is velocity). Yaw. Deformation. Fragmentation. Bleeding. Hypovolemic shock. Exsanguination. Hypoxia. Pneumothorax, heart failure and brain damage. Bang. Him skull stopped the bullet but blood still splash on Weeper chest. Not me Starsky and Hutch t-shirt! Weeper say as the man body fall and he wipe brains off him chest. Josey Wales put the gun back in him holster.
This is how the white man teach we how to load an M16A1, an M16A2 and an M16A4.
Point the rifle muzzle in a safe direction.
Cock the rifle and open the bolt.
Return the charging handle to the forward position.
Place the selector lever on SAFE.
Check the chamber to ensure it is clear.
Insert the magazine, pushing it upward until the magazine catch engages and holds the magazine.
Tap upward on the bottom of the magazine to ensure it is seated.
Depress the upper portion of the bolt catch to release the bolt.
Tap the forward assist to ensure that the bolt is fully forward and locked.
You won’t need to put it back on SAFE.
This is what you get when you have man from Jungle. Them hot for the C so they freebase and freebase thanks to Weeper. Josey Wales leave we but warn that anybody leave him get shot, and we remember that they used to call him Ba-bye. As he and Weeper close the door they lock it and we hear a click. The house getting smaller and hotter and I think about the guard I going to kill, the police. The Babylon.
Seven man. Twenty-one gun. Eight hundred and forty bullet. I think of one man and one man only and is not the Singer. I think of him running into a wall and balling high voice like a little girl. I think of him saying is not me you come for who you come for downstairs because he must be a pussyhole like that. I think about man who cheat and get away and man whose luck run out. I look at him and say this is what death going to look like.
Sir Arthur George Jennings
And now we are in the time of dying. The year surrenders in three weeks. Gone, the season of wet hot summer, ninety-six degrees in the shade, May and October rains that swelled rivers, killed cows and spread sickness. Men growing fat on pork, boys’ bellies swelling with poison. Fourteen men lost in the bush while bodies explode, three, four, five. Many more will have to suffer. Many more will have to die. I stole those words from a living man who already has death walking with him, killing him from the toe up.
I look down on my hands and see my story. A hotel on the south coast, a future my country could taste. Sleepwalking, they said when they found me, and so they build a picture from hearsay of my two hand
s held out in front and stiff like Frankenstein, my eyes closed, my legs stomping in a communist march, over the banister, three, two, one. They found me naked, my eyes alert but washed of their brown, my neck floppy and the back of my skull smashed, my penis at attention, something the hotel workers saw first. Hidden in my blood was dirt from a man’s push.
There are things about death that the dead cannot tell you. The vulgarity of it. Death changes where you die into a room where the body shames itself. Death makes you cough, piss, death makes you shit, death makes you stink from inside vapors. My body rots but my nails still grow into claws as I see and wait.
I heard that a rich man in America, a man with money and power written in his name, died inside a woman that was not his wife. An enormous boat of a man crushing the woman with his deadweight, a man who was burned eighteen hours later by his wife because she couldn’t bear to smell another woman on his body.
I was inside a woman whose name I cannot remember but she stopped me complaining of thirst. But there’s wine right here. Can you get some ice? Who puts ice in wine? I do, and there are other things I’ll do too if only you’ll get some ice. I run out naked, and giggling, it’s five in the morning. Tiptoe down the corridor like Wee Willie Winkle. The dead have a smell but so does the killer. My death took two, one to demand it and the other to make it so. Before I flew over the banister there was lemongrass and wet dirt, the crunch of a footstep on floors clean as mirrors.
I am in the house of the man that killed me. I have never smelled myself on his hands, just the linger of old death, not a stench but the memory of it, the iron tinge in the blood of stale kill, the sweet stinking lure of a body dead five days. In the world of the living he is a mature man now, not caring that he smells like he stumbled upon somebody else’s money, like expensive suits that used to belong to somebody else. Except he is not wearing a suit. I was naked when they found me and he is naked as I find him. His belly is rounder, his back ripples fat as he thrusts up and down and he’ll have to dye the back of his head again. His body hits hers in a sweaty slap, slap, slap. He grunts on top of her, the first runner-up he married. The white bed is a whirlpool. She notices that he is not stopping and taps him on the shoulder. His head is in the pillow but he’s holding her down, she’s in jail and knows it so she taps him again. He grunts and she pushes him You know I don’t want to get pregnant you son of a bitch. He plops his weight on her until he comes and blows his breath all out in the room. Jamaicans need to know that them leaders can work it, he says. It’s the first time in years that I’m hearing his voice, except it’s not years. I’m stunned that it hasn’t changed, still sounding improper even when he speaks correctly. I am in the wrong place and so is she. She is the first runner-up he married when he failed to get the Miss Jamaica. Her father wanted her to marry full white. Dry shit come of me batty before me make some Syrian with a Lebanese haberdashery marry my bloodcloth daughter, he said.
A Brief History of Seven Killings Page 12