Marlon James - A Brief History of Seven Killings

Two near-deserted block over the spotter was sitting on the curb with him boombox booming the freaks come out at night . Young boy still trying to grow into too-clean sneakers. He didn’t have either the sneakers or the boombox last week. Didn’t even see me coming until I was right in front of him.

— Step the fuck off, bitches, I ain’t on the clock, he say without even looking up. So I said,

— Look up, pussyhole.

The boy jump out of him fifteen years.

— Yessir! Yessir!

— This look like the army?

— No sir!

— What a go on ’round here?

He look down on the ground, like he afraid to tell me something that I wouldn’t like.

— Brethren, your business is to give me the message. I don’t shoot the messenger. What going down with the business?

He still looking on the ground, but he mumble something.

— What?

— Nothing, man. Ain’t shit going on ’round here for days now.

— Fuckery that. Every basehead wake up and start do heroin instead? No way market just dry up.

— Well…

— Well what?

— Well a brother gets tired of sending shit that way only to have them come back and say that I must be down with some wild goose chase or sumth’n cuz ain’t nobody with no goods in that alley. I done my job, I can spot a hitter a mile away. I approach them all casual-like and say yo, Bushwick is stupid fresh, you feeling for some heat or some pop rocks or some shit like that, and they nod and before they say some dumb-ass cracker shit I just nod to the alley behind the cut.

— You know where the cut is?

— Everybody knows where to find the fucking cut. They just don’t wanna mess with you. Anyways, usually you got two or three runners there to take them to the goods and get that shit sold, but for four days now, people come back this way saying I’m nothing but bullshit because they ain’t no runners in the street. And no dealer neither. Your bodyguard got so tired of this shit he gone and got a real job in Flatbush.

— Where the runners go?

— I dunno. They ain’t got nobody to steer anymore. Your dealers ain’t dealing.

— What the fuck them doing?

— Maybe you should go check the hithouse.

I look at this boy acting like he brave and I think to either gun-butt him or promote him. Josey coming here in less than five hours, to fuck.

— And hey, since I ain’t got no buyers to spot, I spot some other shit, yo. Two days now I seen some shit Pontiac cruising and I can just bet them niggers was Ranking Dons. They already sniffing out this place because they know security weak.

— You see plenty for a little shit.

— S’what paid for these kicks, yo.

I looking at this boy and already thinking how me going need him to fix Bushwick before Josey come. I didn’t even notice that the damn woman follow me.

— First that stank-ass heifer come all the way through my own motherfucking gate lifting up her dress and no panties and telling my young son that he can hit the pussy for two bucks. Good thing I’m at my window the second I hear any fussin’ at my gate. Next thing I know three lowlife goodfernothings come over here thinking this is the fucking crack spot because of some shit going on in your building.

My own building. The cut. The worst-kept secret in New York City. Red brick like red dirt in Jamaica, two window for every room looking out. Fire escape in the middle. Three steps up to dome entryway like the place was posh but the only rich people who ever live in Bushwick used to make beer. Me and Omar outside for almost ten minutes now, and while this woman from clear across the street who live by her window know I was here, no dealer or bodyguard come outside yet. And the boy was right, no runner nowhere.

— Omar, go check inside. Find out if them two bombocloth boy in there.

— Yeah.

Omar look left and right. Habit. Then he dash past the crack ho sitting on the stoop to the front door that open with a little push. Fucking bad sign. I was about to tell him to pull out him gun, but didn’t have to. Up the road is a Dodge van resting on four blocks until somebody come with wheels. The kids fixing the bike disappear down the subway station for the L. This woman yelling that while she don’t give a hoot if any nigger want to be enterprising and that business is business and if some stupid nigger or cracker wants to blow his money on that shit that’s fine, but ain’t nobody told her that there was gonna be no crack house. And what kind of dealer sets up a crack house right near where they sell crack? I was about to tell her to go fuck herself because once a junkie get some rock him just itching to smoke that shit right away without delay, so a safe place to light up nearby, with more shit they can buy, means two times the money. Plus now they don’t have to worry about police finding any drug paraphernalia ’pon them. But my reason here is not explain things to this bitch like she is my school principal.

Omar is at the door nodding no. Is not until he nod that it hit me that the boy was right and they really abandon the cut for the crack house.

Two blocks west, corner Gates and Central. The only two buildings left on the block that somebody didn’t set fire to or that didn’t get burn down by accident. There is one on almost every block or street in Bushwick now, a house or apartment or brownstone somebody burn to the ground so that people can collect insurance, since nobody was ever going sell a fucking house in Bushwick. We at the corner Gates and Central. The crack house.

— Fucking Jamaicans acting like you all that. You ain’t all that. You can’t even control your damn shit. You ain’t shit, none of y’all. What you need to do is hire me to run yo biz ’cause you can’t run a damn thing. And—

I slap the rest of that sentence out of her mouth so hard she stagger back. She shake her head and almost scream but my punch reach her mouth before anything come out of it. I grab her fucking throat and squeeze till she sound like duck.

— Look, you fucking fat bitch, me done with you a nag-nag in me ears like is bloodcloth mosquito. Don’t you get some money every week? So you want money or you want dead, which one you fucking want? Which one? Uh-huh. That’s what me was thinking. Now get the fuck out of me face before me use you fucking fat belly for target practice.

She grab herself and run. I start walking to the crack house and Omar and the boy follow me.

Somebody using the Condemned sign as a table. I didn’t have to look far. One of my dealers on a mattress right in the front room, just left of the bombocloth doorway. He look like he just take a hit, the pipe dangling off him finger like it about to fall, but he recognize and grab it. I can’t see him eye.

— Oi, pussyhole. You a pilfer you own supply?

— Oh, wha’gwaaaaaan, brethren? You come for a hit? A no nothing. Me not selfish, brother, me will share it with you.

— Pussyhole, who a guard the cut if you in here so?

— The cut?

— The cut. The place with the stash that you supposed to watch. The place where you suppose to deal out supply to you fucking runner them. Where them be by the way?

— Runner? Runner… what… what steer… so you want the hit or… ’cause me’ll take it if you don’t want it.

Then he look at me like he know I going take it.

— You understand how you fuck this up, boy? Now me have to find new runner, new dealer, even new bodyguard, and all in just four hour, because the fucking dealer turn user.

— Dealer turn user…

He say like he trying to echo but also want to sleep.

I don’t bother look into the crack house, but the same woman who try to suck the little boy cock poke her head in the room like she know him. Or me. I wave my gun at her and she don’t even jump, just look up and down and gone back into the dark. Omar by the window. The city board it up but the junkies knock it back out. Just my dealer on the mattress with him lighter.