Marlon James - A Brief History of Seven Killings

— How much security you usually need ’round here?

— Not too much, Ranking Dons know better than to try move in on Boston or Gun Hill Road. Last time they try a thing they drop two of me dealers. Now you know this nigger wasn’t going take that shit lying down, right? We hear that a party going on in Haffen Park with plenty of Ranking Dons. We just drive down in three car, jump out and shower that whole park with bullet. We didn’t even shoot to kill even though one or two man did suck salt that day. All me care ’bout was that at least one of them was going shit in a colostomy bag for the rest of him life. That was the last time them fucking batty boys mess with the Bronx. Pushing smack in Philly is the best move they ever make. Still, them getting bolder in Brooklyn. Too bold, if you ask me.

— Tell me.

— What?

— Tell me how bold.

— Well, your man Weeper can best tell you—

— I didn’t ask Weeper, I ask you.

— Okay. Okay. Real talk then. You boy fucking around in more ways than one, while Ranking Dons, driving up and down in a triangle on Broadway, Gates and Myrtle, watching your boy fuck up. Spotters can’t find runners, dealers shooting up, meanwhile them boys and they Chevrolets patrolling all over because they know they can’t set foot in the Bronx or in Queens. My man report all this to me.

— Your man? How he know so much?

— Don’t take this no way, but I have one of Weeper’s runners on the lookout for me.

— What the bombocloth, Eubie, you a spy ’pon the man, ’pon me?

— Oh for fuck’s sake, Josey, like you don’t have man spying on me. Or Bricks run to phone booth every night to make collect call to him woman. Me no care. I actually don’t mind at all. It keep me on my toes and remind me not to fuck up. My man report to me twice a week. I mean, I can’t imagine he finding out anything you don’t already know.

— Like what? Test me.

— Like how your boy Weeper is a user.

— Weeper sniffing coke from as early as ’75, that not nothing new.

— But new it is, Josey. Now him smoking crack and you and me know that crack is not coke. Can a man do good business even when him deh ’pon coke? Of course. Every man me know in the music biz a lick coke. Hookers and blow them call it, my youth. Back then the biz did even have a sort of class. But crack is different business. Every single dealer who switch from coke to crack mash up. You can’t hold a single thought on crack. You can’t do no fucking business. Crack is you business. You can’t add number when you on crack. You can’t separate what to sell and what to buy. Shit gone to hell and you don’t even care. When you see Weeper ask when last he go to Bushwick. Ah smoke up crack and… well… them other things is fi him business, but the man is a r’asscloth crackhead, and this is a r’asscloth business.

— How you know him smoking crack?

— My man see him do it.

— Fucking lie that, Eubie.

— Brethren, what make you think him hiding it? You no understand. When a man ’pon crack him don’t fucking care. Is damn slackness, man. The man a shoot up crack like some crack bitch, and messing up him spots, and when him not doing that, going on with all sorts of nastiness that him must did catch from Miami ’cause there’s no way he could be doing that shit in Jamdown—

— Enough.

— And Ranking Dons is nothing but john-crows, before a body even dead they start to hover close.

— Me say enough, Eubie, to r’asscloth.

— Alright, brethren, alright.

— Enough of this bombocloth fuckery, make we go.

— Brethren, the food don’t even come yet.

— Me look like me bombocloth hungry? What me want to do is go to Bushwick. Right now, Eubie.

S o there was this time in Miami way down on Collins in South Beach. I was smoking Parliaments in a Mustang that already smelled like ass, bitching over being given bad info on a pot pickup that was just not going to fucking happen (yeah, the aim was to jack the stash and then sell it), when like moths sniffing out the new chintz, some boys started to come over. A blond one, hair long and curly like he spent most days posing as Farrah Fawcett, glided his way, jeans split at the side and cut like hot pants, so high that white pockets poked out. He was singing too, voice deep enough to kill the Farrah vibe, more, more, more, how do you like it, how do you like it . I wanted to say, Faggot, it’s nineteen eighty fucking three.

Motherfucker’s roller skates stopped somewhere in that girly middle between pink and purple. Lilac maybe, something that fags would know. Rollerbitch never saw him coming, the dirty one, black hair so ashy that it seemed grey, sliding up through the blindside of the car like he’s following shadow. I didn’t even see him until the rollerbitch glided straight into a kung fu kick to the side from kid’s combat boots. Rollerbitch went rolling, teetering, tottering like a drunk dancing queen, trying to regain footing but unable to stop the skates without wiping out on the asphalt. Bitch screamed and cussed and tried to stay up but barreled backways on one foot then the other until he went butt first into a pile a trashbins by the wire fence. Take your clap and your stanky ass to Hialeah, the boy said. Spic of course, but a cute spic, maybe not long from Cuba, not long enough for the dirty pinguero to know that The Wild One was one fucking old movie and leather wasn’t the coolest bet for what was still the tropics.

Spic bent down into the car window smelling like he was smoking only thirty minutes ago. His left canine was missing, but his eyes were black and hungry, his chin strong like Vinnie Barbarino’s on Welcome Back, Kotter . Kid stuck his hand in the car and I grabbed him — hunter’s instinct. Smokes, the kid said, and I let him go. The kid said nothing else, just went around to the right side and got in the car. I would have let him blow me there, but shit I had to jet, these run-down art deco — style hotels were becoming a major downer. Kid said, What the fuck, Papi, I don’t travel. I said, Well get the fuck out of my car then. Kid changed his mind and said drive me someplace nice. He took another cig out of the pack and stuck it behind his ear. I’m thinking that hopefully the rifle wasn’t on the bed or this kid would get scared. Kid was just staring at my cowboy boots.

— You some ranchero, Papi?

— Take off my fucking hat.

And the fucked-up thing is all I could think about was Rocky. Even with my hand in this kid’s dirty hair, as his head bobbed up and down, I thought about Rocky’s rules. We had certain rules. Or maybe we thought we did. If you’re gonna make it with somebody, fuck guys on the sofa because on the bed is cheating. And only if the guy is really, really cute, because the memory gem said we only pass this way but once and then you just have to make it with him, because we’re queers and bullshit rules don’t apply. Well, straight rules.

But fucking hell, man, stuff I had put to bed years ago has been staging a fucking reunion in my head these past few days. Fuck if I know why, I’ve never been to New York. Here, it’s like this, see, suck my finger and suck and suck until you’re a vacuum, see, like when you suck on a plastic bag till all the air’s gone out? suck so hard. Suck so hard that I can’t pull my finger out — I know how to do it. Nobody told me NYC was a place overrun by ghosts. You’re a fucking freak, John-John. I never meant to push the boy. Yeah I did. I never meant for the boy to get hurt. Yeah I fucking did. I never meant to kill him. What does meant mean? When he landed facedown on the train track and I pulled him up, just to position his head over the beam so that his loose mouth bit into it and then kicked him hard at the back of his head again and again until I heard the crunch, all I could think about was summer camp. Is it in? Oh yeah. All the way in? Uh-huh . Fourteen, back from summer camp and my pop punched me in the stomach once and told me I was a fucking wimp who needed to get hard. Summer camp was all about bad food, calamine lotion and counselors walking around with rulers to stick between dancing couples to make space for Jesus . Me and Tommy Mateo, all red-haired whiteboy Afro, sitting on the sidelines hissing that this was bullshit. Hey, you wanna smoke? Uh, yeah . Two weeks after camp all I could think of was seeing Tommy again. On the phone he seemed different, busy, like he was talking to somebody else. You know the old train tunnel over by Lincoln? I get there and he’s staying far back, like he wasn’t the boy whose butt I was stuffing every night in the fucking woods. Tommy blew smoke in my face when I got too close.