Marlon James - A Brief History of Seven Killings

— We’re supposed to bring you in alive, but that don’t mean we gotta bring you all in one piece, Pink Hibiscus said.

— Is this about last night?

— Uh-huh.

— This shit is on my buddy Paco, you know.

— Don’t know no Paco. Baxter said he gave you the heads-up.

— So why don’t you take this shit up with Baxter?

— Already spoke to him. Spoke to him real good.

— Oh. Your boss, is he going to…

— Who knows what that loca ’s gonna do?

I said she like a loud question mark, but since nobody in the car responded, I guess nobody heard it. I just looked out the window at Florida getting more one color by the second.

— We still in Coral Gables?

— Nope.

— If she’s going to kill me, why not have you guys just do that shit now and feed me to some gator or something.

— She’s got too much respect for gators, that’s why. Now just shut the fuck up. Fucking Noo Yawk accent driving me up the fucking wall.

— Chicago.

— Whatever. We’re here.

Here still looked pretty much like Coral Gables. They parked up in the driveway, just as two shirtless boys ran outside, one chasing the other with a water gun. The street was sleepy and empty. Across the road, a blue Chevy was waiting behind a Mustang. I’m from New York and Chi-Town, I could never get with the suburbs and all this shit spread so fucking wide, one house, two cars, three trees all the way down to the end of the road to pick up the exact same shit on the other side. The house was so much like the one before and the one after it that it seemed deliberate, like maybe chico or chica was trying too hard to be all apple pie. Except these houses were bland and motherfucking big. All one floor up, like going upstairs would mean losing air. They all had Spanish tile roofs and they all had different shades of pastel, this house in blue. You notice this pretty early on in Coral Gables, the difference between a mansion, which just winked a kinda class, and a really big house which popped up extra rooms like a nerd popped up zits. Tacky-ass shit that never stopped screaming yeah muthafuckas, I got me some money, I’ma buy this house right now.

This was one long driveway. Both sides flanked by palm trees like the house was some coconut plantation. Not that this house was so crass. With its stone archway instead of just a front door and wide glass panels all around so you could see the living room from outside, it was downright classy. Brown suit guy pointed to the front door which relieved me a little. Maybe they only wanted to talk, or at least talk first. Civil, refined, maybe there was some kind of class that Colombians got from being on a continent that fucking graceless Cubans never got. Only brown suit guy followed me.

Home cooking. I was hungry. I can’t remember when I stopped walking, but Brown Suit pushed me so hard I nearly stumbled.

— Fucking hell.

Brown Suit cut me off with the threat of a gun butt.

— Mistress don’t like no swearin’ in the house, he said. On the left was another stone archway that led to a living room and little boy with a huge head of black hair, watching we all live in a capital I on Sesame Street . Bacon and pancakes. We were following the smell of bacon and pancakes.

B ad man don’t make note in a book. I tell you something as sure as I know that the sun outside only about to get hotter and heavier. You write it down in your head and you train your head to remember. Forgive and forget not in my book. Not because I don’t forgive, if I didn’t forgive a river would run red from National Heroes Park all the way down Kingston Harbour. But remember, wait, and move is how I operate. That batty-boy Boy George on the radio just ask do you deal in black money? I deal in black everything.

Weeper is in New York telling me he too old to break-dance. He just wasn’t the type of brother for Miami, even I know that from when he was in Jamaica. Weeper like to think he’s a thinking man, but the man don’t think, he just read a few books. Just like how some of these boys think they mature and experienced when they’ve only been through some fuckery. I give Weeper one thing to do. Maintain the link between Jamdown and Griselda Blanco. She need to get shit quick time to Miami so it can get to New York. We take shit from Kingston to Miami through either North Coast or Cuba.

But Weeper have this thing where he just can’t get along with any woman, or rather this thing where no woman can tell him what to do. Then again Griselda is not a woman. She a vampire who cock drop off a hundred years ago. She lose her patience with him and when a madwoman like her lose her patience with you she would make even a hardcore Jamaican rudie go, Bombocloth bitch yuh wicked no fuck. Was just a matter of months before she kill Weeper herself.

But in church they talk about the gift of discernment. Is not just preachers or the spirit filled that have it, it’s anybody who think they can jump in these pants and lead for long. The second I meet Blanco I know this was a brute, who don’t really have that much sense, but have enough determination to knock down a bull. Like me she realise that right and wrong is just two word some fool invent and what really matter is what I have over you and what you have under me. But she don’t figure out what to do with it yet and sometimes an ignorant naigger is an ugly woman from Colombia too blank to know that me deal with both Medellín and Cali and at least boys from Cali been known how to think.

Discernment. I could always look at a man and read him. Like Weeper. Is years now I know the man not only fucking man but is really the one getting fuck, and no matter what he say, he still sorry to leave prison. Is years now I supposed to kill him for that, but why? It move my brain better to watch him fuck pussy after pussy as if battyman behaviour is something pool up in him sperm and if only he shoot out enough he will finally shoot out the need to put a cock in him battyhole. I don’t know much ’bout them things and I don’t read Bible. But if there is one thing I do know is when a man fooling himself. Is something to watch though. Who knows what him up to in New York. I can’t set a man on him tail because that man would find out. And there are some things that only Weeper can do.

Yesterday me woman ask how me get visa to go to America and laugh. She right to laugh. But this year I have things to do. I couldn’t tell the last time I care about what happen in a Kingston street. JLP want the country so bad and now they have it. Both of them can choke. Other street want me attention now, and all I have to do is look. Bad man don’t take note. Bad man write it down in him head.

Eubie in the Bronx. People can’t understand why I check for that brethren, people in this case meaning Weeper who can’t stand him. Hard to like a man who cut him hair every two week, talk like he stay in a posh high school for the full seven years and always wear a silk suit no matter the weather. But here is the reasoning nobody catch: If people busy thinking that you is a pimp nobody going think you is a drug dealer. Eubie is a school boy, and that make him think he have class. And him do, a little. Boy all set for Columbia law school but leave because he wise up about the law. Eubie perfectly fine in Queens and the Bronx and I let him take over Miami from Weeper. Didn’t tell Weeper, so he call me that week.

— Brethren, what the bombocloth this?

— You look like you need a change. Miami too country for you, you need New York. Plenty book in New York. Plenty nighttime park too.

— What the r’asscloth that mean?

— It mean what it mean, pussyhole. Me stationing you in Manhattan, maybe Brooklyn.