Marlon James - A Brief History of Seven Killings

— Oh sweet Jesus, please tell me he’s with you.

— Yes, the mister is here. I just want you to know that he was the one who insisted on leaving the house. I mean, he’s a grown man who can do what he wants but I couldn’t leave him alone and—

— Where are you now? Is he alright?

— In the Bronx and yes. What is—

— I need your address now, right now, you hear me?

— Of course.

I gave him my address and he hung up just like that. No sense beating around the bush as Americans say. I knock on the bathroom door.

— Ken? Ken? Look I, I called your son. He says he’s coming to pick you up. Sorry but it was getting late and you can’t stay here. Ken? Ken? Mr. Colthirst?

— Who are you?

I press my head to the door because I was sure I didn’t hear right.

— Who the fuck are you? Get the fuck away from the door. Get the fuck away I said.

— Mr. Colthirst?

I reach down to grab the doorknob, but he had locked it from the inside.

— Get the fuck away.

T ell me now for real. You really think that Josey Wales fly all the way to New York, six years too late, to deal with you himself? You look like you suffering from a too big view of yourself, my brethren, just a word to the wise. But then again, me pretty sure the reason Josey leave me alone was that what he really wanted to kill was the peace movement. And with that dead he didn’t need to kill anything else. Plus, me make a big point to stay out of him way and he stay out of mine, since to take me on would mean directly taking on the Ranking Dons. No, we nowhere as big as Storm Posse, but still he would be wasting a lot of time trying to neutralize we. As for Weeper, he and I know why he’d never make a move on me.

But your case is sorta different though, sorta special. Josey order some vanishing cream for you and you take out him best man. Maybe him respect you, he can be weird ’bout them things. Maybe him all forget you… then again no, Josey Wales don’t forget nothing. He must think it make no difference whether you living or dead, well the difference being time and money to cancel you. Or maybe him priorities shift.

Still, I don’t think he come here for you. People in here only know so much, but Josey not the man you say you didn’t meet six years ago. Him and this man named Eubie, who be here since 1979 selling weed and coke, almost turn they dealing into a legit business. Almost. I told you, the one thing about Storm Posse why they will always be bigger than Ranking Dons, is that them boys have ambition. They got plans. Man in here tell me that Storm Posse running things in New York, D.C., Philly and Baltimore. I mean, since I in prison them push all the Cubans back down to Miami. Thanks to them the Medellín cartel don’t even think about chatting to Ranking Dons. You know things bad when in all this crack explosion you the one who get stuck with having to move heroin. But that Josey Wales, man, him is a thinker and Eubie even smarter. For one, both of them too smart to trust each other.

You don’t seem convinced that he not after you. Listen, brethren, Josey Wales not coming for you unless you give him new reason to. None of them boys in no rush to kill no white people either, because then the Feds would come sniffing. No brother, you gone clear. Unless you going write some article about all this.

A book?

Well some people just asking for it, eh? Brethren, you can’t write no book ’bout this. Make me get this straight. You writing book ’bout the Singer, the gangs, the peace treaty. A book on the posses? You know, each one of those is a whole book. What you going write about anyway? You have no proof of anything. Who talk to you other than me?

Listen, you already enjoying God’s grace right now. You write anything ’bout this, nobody can protect you. Right now you no longer somebody he need to be concerned about. You have family? No? Why not? Either way, that’s good because these boys not ’fraid to lick out ’gainst your family. And by no family you mean no brother, sister or mother? Shit, Pierce, then you have loads of family. Only this year, them boys find two dealers from Spanglers working the Bronx. For once Storm Posse didn’t storm the place with bullet. No sah, instead they behead the two boy then switch the heads each on the other body. Why you don’t do yourself a favour and wait till everybody dead? Brethren, is gang we talking ’bout, you probably won’t have to wait too long. Look ’pon me. Me supposed to be the one who know better. You know me even come ’pon TV? Twice to talk about the warring and the peace. Everybody look ’pon me and think now there is the one man who going graduate out of the ghetto. But… yeah, a whole life of fuckery follow that but… But even me who know better and can talk better, where you find me? See it deh.

What ’bout Josey?

No, my youth, man like that don’t go jail. In fact, I don’t think he see a jail since 1975. Which police force, which army bad enough to try take him? Me don’t see Copenhagen City since ’79 but me hear ’bout it. Brethren, is like them communist country you see ’pon the news. Poster and mural and painting of Papa-Lo and Josey all over the community. Woman naming them pickney Josey One and Josey Two, even though he not fucking nobody but him wife, no, they not married for real. In him own way, you could call him a classy brother. But still, you want to get Josey you have to mow down the entire Copenhagen City first, and even then. You also have to tear down this government too. What you mean, government? Come, man, Alex Pierce, who you think give this party the 1980 election?

You know what I picking up ’bout you? You is definitely a reporter. No doubt ’bout that. You can go somewhere and just pick up information, especially information that people weren’t planning on giving you. I mean, look what you get from me just today. You ask the right question or at least the kind of wrong question that make people want to talk. But you know what wrong with you, or maybe it not wrong at all, it just prove you is a reporter. You don’t have no sense of how to put everything together. Or maybe you do but you just don’t know how to. Funny, eh? Josey Wales after you for something that you couldn’t even do. Oh, you can do it now? That why you writing a book? Because you can figure it out or you still writing to figure it out?

I have a question for you.

I want to know when exactly Jamaica hook you. No, I don’t want to know why, you just going give me the same fool-fool bullshit white man always say when they talk about Jamaica, like she’s some whore with the sweet pussy you can’t give up, or some dumb shit like that. Some one-inch-dick cracker say that one time, but since you have Jamaican woman I going assume you have more than a one-inch dick. So lay it on me, as the Americans say, what is it about Jamaica? The beautiful beaches? Because you know, Pierce, we’re more than a beach, we’re a country.

Oh.

Thank you for not giving me the same shit. It is a shit hole. It’s hot like hell, traffic is always slow, and the people not all smiling and shit, and nobody waiting to tell you no problem, man. It is shitty, and sexy and dangerous and also really, really, really boring. Tell the truth I don’t like it either. And yet look at the two of we. Change the circumstances and we couldn’t wait to go back. It hard though, don’t it? Hard for you not to compare her to a woman. Congratulations, that is very non-white of you.

What a non-climax this is! Anti-climax, is that what they call it? You have to admit that if Josey Wales was waiting right outside this prison gate for you it would have been a more interesting story. At least you get to leave, all I get to do is wait.