Here is what me was thinking. With him controlling the east and me carrying the swing in the west and maybe Tony Pavarotti keep him gun aiming at the north and the sea to the south, then we well protected. But with every man scatter to points like a map, right hand start to not know what left hand done do. Me thinking this is my fault. It have to be my fault. If the body sick, the head should did know first. No so the story go? Me and Josey stop talk. No is not that. A man, no, certain men come between all of we, man who use we then throw we out like rubbish. Me getting tired of the wicked game, and Shotta Sherrif getting tired of it too. What a funny thing that me sure of the mind of Shotta Sherrif more than me sure of the mind of Josey Wales. Me is ninety yard from Josey house.
The world now feeling like the seven seals breaking one after the other. Hataclaps or ill feeling, something in the air. Two sevens clash in less than thirty days. I walking to Josey house and I forget what my woman looks like. Is only a minute it take me to remember but it scare me that I forget her face. But then I remember a little girl, that look like she, but we don’t have no pickney yet, even though plenty woman out there saying they boy and girl answer to my surname. I walking up the road and passing yard after yard. One tenement then the next tenement then the next, all four floors high, fence high enough to hide the ground floor, one building pink then the next green then the next the colour of bone I can’t even remember who make we go with them colours, maybe the woman them. Me is seventy yard from Josey house.
When a father turn away from him son, he can’t act shock when the son don’t know him no more. Not that Josey is me son, he would shoot me if me even call him boy. But is my fault, me turn away from him because me carrying things that I used to think he can’t carry. That some people do nothing but dream and some people do nothing but act and that both good and bad. People like Josey have no vision, people like me have no drive. I’ve been thinking and I’ve been talking and I’ve been showing people a new reasoning that is just about we and only we. No politician and no government. A different kinda system better than the shitstem, where gun too heavy to carry so nobody carry any and where my woman and him woman and everybody woman don’t work no more just to get they boss richer. You wake up wanting new because old is so old that it don’t even stink anymore, it just blowing away like dry rot. Fifty yard from Josey house.
I want to leave him house with me and him of the same mind. Nice and decent people, the Rastafarian show me the way. The first way Babylon fool we is to get we to think we have future in the Babylon shitstem. And me tired of that and Shotta Sherrif tired of that and the Singer tired of that. Every time me go to the Singer house and me see that man from Copenhagen City and man from the Eight Lanes can par and reason, I just start to think that a triangle have three side, but everybody always only look at two. Forty yard from Josey house.
I know what Josey planning. Plenty people going dead before it happen for real. Josey and Doctor Love. Josey and the American. Josey and Peter Nasser. There is no way the PNP can get ’way with this election. A PNP win is hataclaps for the island. The American say that we is all that stand between peace and chaos, plenty and starvation. But Jamaicans can be fool, they can be really fool. Poor people already know suffering. If PNP win, then PNP-bad become PNP-worse. But still. Still I have to wonder ’bout the level of bangarang a man going to perpetrate when he won’t even tell me about it. When too many people in the mix don’t look like and don’t sound like we. Twenty yard from Josey house.
Ten yard from Josey house a line of bullet blast across the dirt one two three four five six seven eight and cut me off. Three jeep jump out of the lanes and drive around me and kick up dirt like white people tornado. The dust rise and rise and thicken and tighten. The trucks still driving ’round and ’round but me can only hear them, the dust making me blind. Is not before it clear when me see that all of them already jump out of the truck, policeman and army man, all with machine gun draw, some pointing at me, some aiming at the street, searching up and down for one idiot to scratch the itch to fire. I searching too. This never happen, even the baddest of Babylon know that the only way to get into Copenhagen City is to sneak through a loose gap or a uncork hole, like the sewage. Police know better than to set foot in here. Especially after what them get the last time. Soldier prefer to go back at a vantage where they can pick we off one by one like fly. I searching too, because my men supposed to be out with firepower ready long before any jeep reach Copenhagen City. But every house door shut. Josey not coming out. Josey not there. Tony Pavarotti not guarding the north. The place look like them town in Clint Eastwood movie that bandits empty out.
Two soldier in green and two policeman, one in blue and the other in khaki and sunglasses, walk towards me.
—What the bombocloth this is, eh? me say to the khaki police.
—H’is your name Papa-Lo? him say. He tall and his belly plumb out front like a pregnant lady.
—Who the r’asscloth?
—Oi, me look like hi love fi repeat when me h’address known criminal element? Hi’s say h’if you be the man them call Papa-Lo.
—You sound like you don’t know.
—Yow, me look like hi ’ave no time for no stinking ghetto boy?
He look right past me and nod two time. I catch it too late to duck before the soldier behind me ram the rifle butt in me head back. Him must did hit me again, because I hear two clap and me head get woozy, I can’t hold on to even the next word that was about to come out of me mouth. My knees drop me. I didn’t want them to, me fight for them to stand back up but they wouldn’t stand me back up. The police and soldiers move in ’pon me. Them kick up so much dust that me never see the boots coming before they an inch from me face. Them kick up me face and work down to me belly and batty and balls before somebody yell that they need him alive.
Two time me wake up, two time them knock me back out. Third time me wake up, me rise from a cot and see the three stone wall of a jail cell.
Alex Pierce
For some reason it just gives me the willies, riding shotgun down Hope Road with Mark Lansing. Motherfucker can’t drive to save his life, at least not in Jamaica. So we made it all the way to Hope Road from New Kingston driving in the center of the street because he just couldn’t hang left. Still, he’s got balls of a brass monkey telling all these Jamaicans to go fuck themselves when they honked at him. Me, I just sunk in the seat, half not wanting anybody to see me in a car with Mark Lansing—not that anybody would recognize me—and half hoping that if anybody shoots the slug will hit him first. It’s seven p.m. Work is over for most of Kingston, and the road is packed bumper to bumper, horns screaming like they’re continuing the cussing match everybody was having before they got into their cars.
A siren suddenly goes off and everybody but Mark swerves out of the way.
—Get out of the way, Mark.
—Fuck that shit, let them swerve.
—Mark, without going into the history lesson why some Jamaicans would only be too happy to kick a white man’s ass.
—They can try—
—Move the fuck over, Lansing.
—Fine, fine, sheesh, you really need to chillax, brother.
I’m in the car with Greg fucking Brady. The sad thing is Mark probably learned this lame shit from Greg Brady. Every single thing this guy does just screams little penis.
The ambulance dashes past and in a move that is shocking one second then absolutely inevitable less than a second later, Mark swings out and dashes after it. I like to keep track of the moments when I’m genuinely speechless and not when I just say that for dramatic effect. He’s grinning like an idiot too, stunned that he hit on a brilliant idea. Four cars are behind us with the same idea. I see us coming to the Singer’s huge double gate. I mean, I don’t see it, but I know it’s just a block away. Lansing grabs the wheel and swerves into the driveway, making such a sharp right that the tires screech and the car behind him shouts Suck yuh mother.
—Up yours, brother.
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We’re outside the Singer’s gate. It’s too dusky but I can see a tree out front, almost blocking the front door. The top floor looks like it’s standing on top of the tree from here. Lansing honks twice and goes to honk a third time when I put my hand over the damn horn. He scowls, gets out of the car and walks over to the side of the gate to get the guard’s attention. The guard doesn’t even bother to get up. I’m not sure he’s even talking until I hear Lansing say that he’s supposed to fucking park inside, what the fuck do you mean do you know who you’re talking to I’m shooting the big man right now today and fuck you if you think I’m not coming in. The guard isn’t nearly as loud, in fact it still looks like he’s not saying anything.
—Assholes. They’re not letting any cars in unless you’re family or band. Motherfuckers.
Lansing drives over to the apartment building facing the Singer’s house and parks in somebody’s clearly marked parking space. I get out of the car with him, not even bothering to point it out. He’s not taking his camera. This is funny, watching him stomp and fume like he’s about to give somebody a good talking-to. Jamaicans are so unflappable, they might as well be Minnesotans. They’re probably laughing all the way till he gets to the gate.
—Happy now? he says to the guard. I’d say I don’t recognize him, but honestly I can’t tell these guards apart. The guard gives him a look from toe to head and opens the gate.
—Not you, only one, he says to me and I step back.
—Just wait there, Pierce. I’ll get clearance from the big guy.
—Yeah. It’s been real, Mark.
—Just wait there.
He heads for the front door then turns left and disappears. I can’t see where he went. The guard looks at me and I look at him. I light a Rothmans and hand him the pack. He takes one and hands it back to me. Neither of us is taking this as some sort of connection. But at least he doesn’t mind me leaning against the gate. I can hear the band stopping and starting, guitar most of all. Damn me for stereotypes, but I thought I would have heard bass and drums first. I heard that the new guys in the band were pushing the Singer towards rock. I’d say away from his roots but then I’d become just another white man who has the presumption to think he can school black people on their roots.
Not much to see from the gate. The Singer’s beat-up truck under a shed. Trees, wild grass, part of the west side of the house and guards, at least I’m assuming they’re guards, about ten or so scoping the grounds. For the first time I’m noticing all the buildings around me. The apartment complex in front where Lansing parked, the set of townhouses one gate over, cars now cruising up and down Hope Road. I haven’t even thought about what question I’d ask him first. What do you think about the predictions of when the two sevens clash? Bunny Wailer’s new album? Does this concert mean he’s endorsing the PNP? If Rasta don’t work for the CIA, does he know who?
I take a pad out of my knapsack and look at the empty page. You’d think I would have written down a million questions to ask him when Lansing told me he had an in. Now I’m at his gate and I’m all out of things to say. I know there’s a story and I know I want to know it, but now I’m wondering if this is what I want. I can’t figure out if I just got a sudden case of the chickenshits or if I am slowly realizing that even though the Singer is the center of the story, it really isn’t his story. Like there’s a version of this story that’s not really about him, but about the people around him, the ones who come and go that might actually provide a bigger picture than me asking him why he smokes ganja. Damn if I’m not fooling myself I’m Gay Talese again.
Cars are speeding up. I’m watching them for so long that I don’t know for how long the guard had left his post. But I do know my watch is saying that Lansing has been in there fifteen minutes. I walk right up to the gate and push my head against the bars.
—Hello? Hello? Anybody there?
I don’t know where the guard went. It’s just a little latch on the fucking gate. I only need to lift and I’m inside. Can we say unauthorized access? Fuck Hunter S. Thompson, I’m Kitty Kelley. I almost touch it when another guard shows up. He’s not the guy who was here before. Lighter skinned, with a scar on his right cheek like a telephone. I beat myself up inside for drawing conclusions. No I don’t, not really. It’s pretty obvious that these guys aren’t police, or even a decent class of security guard either, even if they are all carrying machine guns. Maybe the Singer just hired some boys from the ghetto. I really should have known better than to trust Lansing. He’s probably looking out from some window inside, getting off on leaving his good buddy Alexander Pierce to wait in the heat. I’d almost think he has the Singer by the window laughing too, but I can’t imagine somebody so cool wasting any time with a prick like Lansing, no matter what he’s there to do. Still.
The gate opens only wide enough for his BMW to slip through. My heart jumps, I swear I’m a teenage girl. But it’s not him. Somebody else is driving it, a thin Rasta with a woman who looks like one of the back-up singers in the right seat and another guy in the back. The driver’s pissed, glancing behind him and then at her, then at me, then driving off. Only when he’s driving off do I realize he’s heading off into serious darkness. Headlights roll past on the street. I forgot that it’s past eight. They’ve turned on lights on the second floor. The gate closes. I’m kinda sure that I’ve been waiting outside this gate forty-five minutes now but honestly I’ve lost count. Do you know where my friend is? I say to empty space. The guard left his post and I think about slipping in again. It would be so easy. Well, up to the point I actually enter and ten guards throw down on me before they ask questions.
A Red F100 truck slams its brakes and makes a hard right up the driveway. I jump out of the way. Inside are two men, both dark and both wearing shades even though it’s night. The driver stares at me and I try with every fucking thing I’ve got to stay looking at him. The other guy is tapping the side of the truck. The engine is still running. Then the gate opens only three feet or so and seven men, in jeans, khakis, bell-bottoms and all carrying guns and rifles, head for the truck, jumping in the back. The last, a short man with dreadlocks and a red, green and gold tank top, glances at me for a second but does not stop running. The truck backs into traffic without looking and heads left. The gate opens wider and I’m jumping out of the way of a blue Escort that shoots down the driveway, packed with four or five men sticking their guns out the window. I was too busy rolling on the pavement to count. The car makes a left on Hope Road and other cars slam their brakes. I pick myself up and look over at the guard post. Nobody closes the gate. I think they’re all gone.
It’s the first time I’m on his property. Is it his home? I don’t even know. The full driveway is a roundabout with a set of trees in the center that take you to an entrance with four pillars, and a doorway with a double door that looks half open. Two floors and all the windows are rusty colored and open. The band is still playing but everybody outside is gone. I walk left, over to his beaten-up truck. My dad had one of these, not the same truck but an old beat-up one that he loved more than his kids. I think he loved the truck so much because it was the only thing that could get old but would never die. Well, that was until it did. So fucking weird, but there’s music clearly coming from inside and yet outside is quiet. It doesn’t sound quiet, not with the stop-start keyboards and drums and the traffic, but it feels quiet, which is starting to bug me. I don’t know how else to explain. I can’t believe that son of a bitch Lansing just left me out here. Maybe he’s really standing me up. Maybe it’s the dark crouching all around me. Does anybody inside know that the guards have all left with the gate wide open? Shift change? New guys running on Jamaica time?
Fuck this. And fuck him. I should have known. Maybe he was getting back at me for all the stuff I’ve said behind his back, because now I feel like a fucking fool. Except that Mark Lansing is just not somebody I would talk about ever, not even to say some shit about him. And who would I say it to? Fuck this son of a bitch and
you know what, fuck this whole place. Maybe I’m kidding myself. Again. Maybe I better get a fix on Mick Jagger’s whereabouts just so that I can keep my fucking job, or at least rendezvous with this photographer that I still haven’t met. Come to think of it, I’m not even sure he’s still in the country.
I turn and walk out the gate. Hope Road is busy. I don’t have a thing in Lansing’s car so I keep walking. Cars keep moving along and I see a white Escort that looks like a taxi. Well, the driver has his arm out the window, which usually means he’s waving folded dollar bills in between each finger from collecting the fare himself. I wave him down and he stops. I open the door to get in, look up the road and see a blue car turning into the driveway.
Nina Burgess
Evening catch me. I’ve been walking for hours. Yes buses pass me up and down and some of them even stopped, but I’ve been walking for hours. I’ve been walking from Duhaney Park where my parents live, call it northwest from His house, if you call His house the center. Kimmy thought I was coming after her so she ran. She thought I was coming at her with the belt held wrong, strap in my hand, buckle hanging waiting to whip an eye out of one of her fucking sockets. She ran like she was the bitch in Black Christmas who dies first. She even stumbled over the vacuum that Mummy forgot to pack up because she was just so distraught over how her oldest daughter turn into some stinking pum-pum, Rasta-loving slut.
But I wasn’t going after Kimmy. Just like her to want to be the screaming girl in an evil movie, it makes her the center of attention again. I’ll bet she probably thinks this thing backfired, not because my father was on the floor catching his breath and my mother was screaming for me to get out with me ignoring her, and not even because this didn’t play out anywhere near she was hoping. It was because she couldn’t find a way to make all this about her. I should have ran after her and dropped at least two solid welts on her back. But when your mother keeps screaming about how you’re a demon from the black pit of Gehenna and it must have been because she didn’t give up anything for Lent why the devil slipped inside her and replaced her sweet baby with a devil, you can either tell her that she needs to watch better movies or you just leave. And that is what I was doing. Kimmy just happened to be in the way of the door. She kept screaming all the way to her bedroom, sorry, former bedroom, and shut the door.
A Brief History of Seven Killings Page 23