Marlon James - A Brief History of Seven Killings

The pussyhole don’t say a thing. He start to cry and the other man start to cry too. Then again is not cry them was crying. Them two was weeping. Of course whoever don’t kill I today, will kill I tomorrow so I put the gun to him temple to take him out. The other man bawl out and start beg for him. I mean, him really start beg and plead, all drop to him knees which was too much but still. Me still can’t get over how much the man cry and beg, like Weeper was him pickney or something. Before me pull off the gun Weeper glance ’pon the man quick. Me never see a man so furious. We gun-butt the two of them and leave.

You very at ease with all I just say, Alex Pierce. You pissing yourself underneath the desk? Then again, something tell me that you don’t frighten too easy.

’Fraid of what? Reprisal? Trust me, Weeper is the last person in the world that would come after me. But in the meantime police kill Copper. Then Papa-Lo. You have to understand something. This peace was between JLP ghetto and PNP ghetto. The police never sign no treaty nor the JLP or PNP. Except police in Jamaica not known for any kind of thinking. You too young to know ’bout old-time movie. You ever see a movie with Keystone Kops? Yes? Well Jamaican police constabulary is a bunch of Keystone Kops. Both Copper and Papa-Lo smart enough to know police have way too much vendetta on the street to be a part of no fucking treaty. But them way too stupid to track down a man like Copper who evade them for ten years. You have some sense, Alex Pierce, surely you must know where I going with this. Anyway, then Jacob Miller crash. Shotta Sherrif soon realize what a gwaan and take one of the five flights to Miami. But then him thief cocaine stash from the brother of a man in the Wang Gang and skip to Brooklyn. But what you know, there in the Starlight ballroom man from Wang Gang New York brethren, track him down and kill him. Shoot him dead right there in the club. Before you know it, everybody involved in the peace council dead but this woman, and me. Whether accident or deliberate, I don’t bother wait to find out. Me fly back to Jamaica to bury Copper, then fly out again. And no, me didn’t go back.

S o I’ve been sitting down and watching this man sitting down and watching me for an hour now. I know I’m waiting on instructions from the Mrs. or the Miz or whatever this Colthirst woman choose to call herself, but he’s just sitting like he’s waiting on instructions too. Back firm, hands in his lap, head straight ahead like C-3PO. I’d say that makes him look like a pet dog, but then being the female would make me the pet bitch. It must be a thing, a whole new level of license to know you can keep people waiting for as long as you feel like it. I always wonder if this was some power tactic bullshit, something to let people know their place. I’m paying the cheque, come kiss my ass. Here’s the cheque, now stop the cab and wait four hours. This damn country. Then again, it’s her money. If she wants to pay me for doing nothing, I get paid by the hour and it’s her tab. Honestly this man really looks like Lyle Waggoner. And I watch Carol Burnett reruns every week. Tall, black hair white at the temples and a chin straight out of a cartoon of a handsome man’s chin. Every other minute he looks over at me, but turns quick when he sees my eyes waiting on him.

Maybe I should just say I need to piss so I can get out of this room. Or rather I need to pee. Lord Jesus I can’t stand that word pee. No male over ten should use that word. Every time I hear a man use it all I can think is only small cocks pee. He looks at me sudden, probably because I chuckled. God, I hope I didn’t say all that out loud. Nothing left to do now but pretend it was a cough all along. The Mrs./Miz just raised her voice from her office, probably with the husband or whatever. Lyle Waggoner looks at her door and laughs, nodding the whole time. What kind of man wears pink pants? Brave? Homo? Well if he was homo there would be no daughters and granddaughters, I guess. White polo shirt with his chest and biceps stretching it in a nice way. Honestly Lyle Waggoner wouldn’t get kicked out of the free love orgy if he showed up. I’d bet my next pay that he wear briefs, and a bikini to the pool. You could even say he was a hot silver daddy or fox as American girls call men they have no business fucking. I wish the Mrs./Miz would finish up her r’asscloth call or sooner or later I’m going to start thinking aloud and I won’t know until Lyle Waggoner here starts to point at me in shock.

Might as well check out the house. I would get up but something tells me that Lyle Waggoner would blurt out, don’t touch that, as soon as I left a foot to move. This just looks like the kind of house where you know there is no penny or lost button in that empty vase on the table. Glass of course, but not a dining table. Both me and him sitting on wooden chairs with a circular back and puffy cushion. Fabric pattern looks like cream and brown paisley. The usual paintings on the wall, three old white women clothed right up to the neck, two white men, all with that sour look white people always have in paintings. Two more chairs on the right and left of the room just like the one we’re sitting on. Carpet just like the chairs. Coffee table with Town & Country magazines all over it, the one part of the room that looks slightly untidy. Purple love seat with the same animal claw legs as my bathtub back home. One of the living rooms you always see in those ads at the back of the New York Times Magazine . On the left wall the paintings just gone mad.

— The one in the middle is a Pollock, he says to me.

— Actually it’s a de Kooning, I say.

He glares at me and nods.

— Well, I don’t know what the hell my family buys, although that one’s been here for a while. Looks like a kid ate all his Crayolas and vomited up the whole thing, if you ask me.

— Okay.

— You don’t agree.

— I don’t really care what other people think about art, sir. Either you get it or you don’t, and it seems pretty stupid waiting on people to get it when you could just as easily enjoy having more museum space to yourself, thanks to one less idiot telling me how his four-year-old daughter could do that.

— Where in blue blazes did they find you?

— Sir?

— Ken.

— Mr. Ken.

— No, just… never mind. You think Miz Busy Bee will ever remember to respect people’s time and GET THE FUCK OFF THE PHONE?

— I don’t think she heard you, sir.

— I told you my name is… whatever. You probably have no way of knowing this anyway, but do you know if my daughter-in-law specifically asked for a black maid?

— I’m not privy to that kind of information, sir.

— Ken.

— Mr. Ken.

— I was just wondering, since Consuela, at least I think her name was Consuela, damn near stole everything she could carry out of the house.

— Okay.

I’m pretty sure there was no Jamaican maid named Consuela.

— I thought she was ingenious. Everything she stole, she put underneath the furniture, right? Say today she’ll steal bed linen. She stashes it under the bed. The next day it may be soap under the chair near the bedroom door, the next thing by the table right outside, then the armchair in the living room, then the next armchair, and on she goes till she has one item at the console table by the door. That way, every day by just moving each thing over by one space, she always had something right at the door to take away. I said to her, That wetback built a fucking underground railroad right in our home! You know what she says? She says, That kind of talk is unacceptable in the North, Papa, like I wasn’t born in fucking Connecticut. So I figured she had had her full of Puerto Ricans.