Marlon James - A Brief History of Seven Killings

— Police Woman? When’s the last time you watched TV?

— We can’t walk just in the Bronx.

— Don’t worry, Dorcas, at worst they’ll just think you’re helping me to score heroin.

— Did you just say heroin?

This was going to be fabulous, me the questionably documented immigrant walking through a Bronx neighbourhood in the evening with a strange white man clearly out of his element because he’s drinking that I’m-a-whiteman-I’m-invincible juice.

— Then you not going even call your family?

— Fuck ’em. The wrinkle my daughter will get from frowning over this, especially after her face-lift, will be worth it.

O h, so you can go back to Jamaica whenever you want to? Ah so? You sound like man who say they can give up smack whenever they want to. Mind you know, Alex Pierce, Jamaica can shoot through your veins and it become like every dark sweet thing that not good for you. But me done with talking in riddle. The thing is, unless you did know where to look for me, there is no way you could have find me. Yeah, yeah, you’re concerned about the fall of the peace process, so tell me something, how you plan to learn anything about it if you not been in the country since 1978? Me surprised you even hear about it, since you never was on the rock when it happen. So you going talk to Lucy? Brethren, you no serious. Lucy is the key. Me and she is the only people from the peace council still alive. You going have to track her down in Jamaica, my youth. You ever wonder how come we two still alive while everybody else dead? Of course not, until right now, you did think it was only one. Remember, you know, on paper me supposed to dead too. Everybody get killed and depending who you talk to, that include the Singer. Tell me something, you ever hear somebody get infected with cancer?

The thing I still can’t understand is why this topic sweat you so much. You making it out like The Day Jamaica Gone to Hataclaps, like the place did have somewhere else to go. So what was your favourite spot in Jamaica? Trench Town? What kind of man pick Trench Town as him favourite spot? You lucky you white, eh? Make me ask you something, you think Trench Town is a favourite spot for anybody living in Trench Town? You think any of them sitting on a stoop saying, Now this is the life? Tourist funny, boy.

Oh, you not a tourist. Don’t tell me: you know the real Jamaica. You did have a little missus down there? Aisha. Nice name, sound like something you say when you cum. So she a nice girl or she suck your dick? Haha, me no mind, white boy, me is a man of the world. Third World, but still. How much more time we have today? Unlimited? In Rikers? Brethren, is what kinda string you just pull? Still better we get back on topic, no true?

Until the Singer tell me ’bout Josey Wales me never think twice ’bout the boy. But then things and more things happen, and you start to see signs even though you never did like church. I mean, if he did really care about killing the Singer he would have finished the job the very next night. Man must was out to make a different point. I mean, shit, to come straight into the Singer yard two year later like nothing never happen? A man with balls that big? Stay out of him way. Now it easy to say that peace did doom to fail because war is the ghetto man character. Yeah, that sound like something wise, but you have to understand — you know when hope so new and fresh it even have a colour? Like the thing that you save in the back of you head because it never going happen and then all of a sudden it look like it might happen for real? Is like you find out that you can fly for true. We never born behind cow, or naïve as you would put it. None of we was idiot. All of we did know that this peace was a ninety percent chance of fail but, man, ten percent never look so sweet in all we life. You could just grab it. And when Shotta Sherrif say to me that me must chair it this peace council, is like somebody look at me and for the first time see something different from what me even see in meself. I…

I…

I lost meself again.

And then in a blink: Copper shot, Papa-Lo shot, first me did think that it was just the police settling score now that we guard down. Or worse: political parties which never did want the peace anyway getting rid of it in time for the next election. But we already talk about the intelligence of the police. And even politician wouldn’t want it come out that is them kill peace. You have to look deeper. Police kill bad man because them have vendetta. But other than to have a dead body to parade around downtown they don’t really get no benefit out of killing nobody. You have think. Who in a better place right now than he was before these killings? Only one man.

Josey Bombocloth Wales.

Papa-Lo dead and now he the ranking don of Copenhagen City. Shotta Sherrif dead and PNP’s New York posses scattered ever since, including my owner posse. Every man in New York sniffing, smoking and shooting up the white wife and the Colombian need a man with skill that can get that shit further into the States. And even England now, me hear. Take the peace treaty out of the way, and he just give certain politician a favour so big that they going spend the rest of the life to repay. Kill any movement of Jah people and Americans don’t have no reason to be ’fraid anymore that we going turn into Cuba. Me don’t know nothing for true, but I’d bet that even some people higher up, maybe people who control coast guard, or immigration or customs or some shit, now all turn a blind eye to certain boat and plane and ship because one man give them Jamaica on a plate in 1980.

Brethren, if me did know why people like me end up in prison, people like me wouldn’t end up in prison. Feel free to start your first paragraph that way, call it ghetto wisdom or something, whatever you white people write whenever you get all caught up in shady black people. Yeah, me read too, Alex Pierce, more than you. Man, people like me just excite you, eh? Put a white journalist beside him own “Stagger Lee” and your brain go bananas. Is ’cause you have no story of your own? Right, it’s not about you, you’re here to tell the story, not be the story. And yet still some part of me tell me that this is your story, not mine. You interested in any year after 1978? How ’bout 1981? Plenty things happen, the Singer get to know this place named Heaven and me get to know this place named Attica. What, you think man get to Rikers because them see a brochure? You graduate to Rikers, brethren.

So anyway, even though me know that batty boy Weeper wasn’t going come after me again, that didn’t mean Josey Wales wasn’t going to. By the way, you ever meet that brother? No? You talking about the peace process and you never meet… never mind. I really couldn’t know what that man was planning to do, so me start run with the Ranking Dons. It simple: Storm Posse, which is Josey Wales, is Copenhagen City, and Ranking Dons is the Eight Lanes. And since me was a part of Eight Lanes from the day they bulldoze Balaclava, where else me fi go? No star, political warfare don’t end just because you switch battlefield. I needed the safety in numbers, they needed the brains since the stupid little fuckers couldn’t even keep track of who selling on what street, or which street you was going get shoot up by Eubie Brown and him Storm Posse.

No problem brother, change you cassette.

Anyway, say this about the Storm Posse and Eubie, even Josey Wales. Them might wipe out an entire line of people at the theater just to get one man, but at least them have some sort of class. Or at least Eubie have some class. Or maybe he just know how to wear silk and not look like a pimp. But my crew? Nothing but dutty, nasty naigger. Like this one time, the bossman hear a man from Jamdown based in Philly just get a huge stash of weed, but though he be part of Copenhagen City he didn’t have Storm Posse protection because the fool didn’t think he need it. So the bossman send we to Philadelphia.