Marlon James - A Brief History of Seven Killings

— How you to call your boss motherfucker?

— Josey, it don’t mean the same thing over here. Man all call them bonafied brethren, them main motherfucker.

— What kinda fuckery that, Eubie? I don’t like that shit.

— Okay, my man, no more motherfucker. Jeez, the boy say.

— You seem to know what you doing out here. How long now Weeper have you as the runner for this spot?

— Gotta watch?

— Yeah?

— What time is it, yo?

— Eleven.

— Five hours now. I’s always good at math.

— What? What you just say? Five hours? Him have new man as runner so quick?

— Me could never trust a new boy to be a runner, Eubie say.

— Not new, Pops. Just the new runner. I was a spotter for like two weeks.

— Me see say you control the spot, I say. But how come you get promote so quick?

— Cuz I’m fucking good, that’s why. Things’re working out fine tonight. Good cuz it was all for shit a week ago.

— Tell we more, Eubie say.

— Mister, I ain’t telling your pimp here shit, he says, pointing at Eubie but looking straight at me.

— Pimp? Pimp? Ah who the pussycloth you ah call pimp? You want see me just—

— Eubie, ’low the youth, I say.

I wasn’t going to laugh, but I make sure Eubie see me smile. I like this boy. I step to him and put my hand on his shoulder.

— That’s good. Good thing, you have sense and you don’t take no fuckery from nobody. Good. But understand something. Weeper is paying you because I pay Weeper. Weeper keep you alive because I keep Weeper alive, you understand me?

— Sure thing, Pops. You’re the Don Dada.

— But wait, ah where him learn them things deh, Josey?

— Motherfucking Jamaicans be all over the place, yo. Like all them hos your pimp here got working Flatbush.

— Brethren, me say me not no pimp.

— You mean you dress like that on the real? Damn, bro.

I could watch this man get under Eubie skin all night.

— How bad was last week? I say.

— Man, okay. Just know long as I ain’t no fucking snitch. But had motherfucker let this shit gone on one more day, this would be Ranking Dons’ corner now.

— What?

— Do I look like I’m tripping? Yo, you got spotters sending customers to runners and runners trying to get some shit from the dealers but then you got two dealers and both of them too busy getting high on their own supply, I mean, watchu think’s gonna happen?

— See it deh? Same thing me tell you, Josey.

— What did Weeper do?

— Gotta hand it to your boy, he dealt with that shit like a motherfucker. One of them dealers gave him shit right there in the crack house and he popped him just like that, man. Like dude wasn’t nothing. Sheeeeet. You Jamaicans don’t play and that’s a fact. Then he brought me over, promoted me and asked if I got any buddies who looking to make some bucks. I said fuck yeah I got me some buddies. We all working this shit now, Pops. We got this street locked down.

— Who’s supplying the dealer?

— Your man Weeper, I guess.

— Where him gone?

— Left him at the crack house hours ago. Figured he got some other spots to check out. Anyway, man, the more I’m here chit-chatting the less money I can make for your ass.

— Good, good. What you name?

— The girls call me Romeo.

— Alright, Romeo.

I watch him swagger back off.

— Everybody on the scene him hire today? Man, him don’t even know controlling crucial territory? No, for real, two new boy in the cut right now guarding the stash? We need to check that spot, Josey. It right there in—

— No. Make we just check out this crack house, I say. — Where you boys?

— Them deh ’bout.

— Radio them to hold back, I want to see how this house work without any heavy manners.

We walk two block then turn right. The place look like any other house here with three floor and boarded-up windows missing half of the boards. Like certain house in downtown Kingston where, if you look hard, you can see it used to be posh. Three floor but the steps take you up to the second floor. All sort of shit and garbage and what look like a dog scratching himself at the bottom. That and a fucking fence, as if some family live here and was about to water the lawn. Can’t tell from the dark but it’s probably brick like every other house on this street. Streetlight like a spotlight on the steps. The rest of the block is rubble. A man sitting at the bottom of the steps like he looking at how the streetlight shape him shadow. Two kind of light inside, the small white one sweeping all over the place like a flashlight, and the flickering light of flame, candle and crack pipe. Only last year I finally make it to Valle del Cauca. Now I’m outside this house.

— You want we go in? Eubie say.

I don’t answer. I don’t want him to read it like I am afraid to, but I don’t want to go in yet. I feel him standing behind me waiting for something to do. Weeper might be inside.

— Well me ah go pee-pee ’round the back. Soon come.

I listen to his footsteps getting farther and farther. If Weeper was inside this long, I don’t know. If Weeper inside this long then he… If Weeper inside maybe he’ll have one of his Weeper-type excuse. If Weeper inside this long, maybe he shouldn’t come out. If—

— Motherfucker, you better gimme all o’ dat shit! All o’ dat shit!

I turn around and smell him first, sweat, shit and vomit. Newspaper chunk popping all over his hair. Black man in a coat and scratching him left leg. The other hand holding a gun at my face. He squint like he in pain, look right and left quick then back at me. Still scratching his leg. I can’t tell for sure but it look like he barefoot. He leaning from one foot to the other and squeezing his thigh together like he stopping himself from pissing.

— You think I’m playing, motherfucker? I look like I’m playing? I’ma buss a cap in yo motherfucking ass just like dat! Let go o’ all of dat shit!

He wave the gun again. Leggo dat shit, he say. I pull some bill out of my front pocket. I was about to reach for my wallet when he snatch the money out my hand. I look at him as he point the gun at my face. I watch him pull the trigger and before I even brace myself it hit me in the forehead and trickle down my face.

Water.

No.

Piss.

The man laugh and run off, up the stairs past the man and into the crack house. The man on the stairs don’t move. Me neither. I wipe the piss off my face. Eubie is coming back to me with another man running from behind him. The man pass him and get to me first.

Weeper.

— Josey! Josey, me brethren, is wah you a do here so by youself? Eubie just leave the I right yah so? Ah what… bombocloth, brethren, is what smell so?

— Piss, Weeper. Bombor’asscloth piss.

— But how?

Eubie reach. I don’t bother ask him if it was the river Nile he was pissing out. What piece you have on you? I say looking straight at him.

— Nine millimeter.

— Give me. Weeper?

— Same thing and a Glock.

— Give me the Glock.

I take the safety off both gun, the 9mm in my left hand and the Glock in my right, and head for the crack house.

T wo guns, one in each hand like an outlaw for real. No voice, no sound, no nothing but the stepping. Josey Wales stomp slow into the dark to the crack house, he hear the two of we following and turn ’round and stop and look. We stop, wait till he start walking but Eubie stand still and I follow. Josey walk quick and hunch him shoulders like a beast. I want to ask Eubie what happen, but keep walking. Breeze blowing the smell of piss off him shirt and into my nose. He step right past the man on the step and go through the door. Candles all along the floor over making the house look like church. Candles making slow light, not like Josey moving fast. Plenty beer can on the floor waiting to rock. Paper, board, linoleum shift off and rolling up like skin peeling back. On the wall candlelight making the graffiti jump, a big K and a big S on the right, peeling paint on the left. In the middle another doorway that Josey already step through. He lift the gun on him right and sudden a flash of fire. He kick ’way a whiskey bottle and me right behind him, following him, on the right a man lying flat and him blood creeping out. Bathroom on the right. White man or Latino man, straight hair man on the toilet with him pants down, maybe he taking a shit but he slapping his left arm for his vein to pop. Josey lift the Glock and pop off two. Second bullet lift the man off the toilet and he crash on the floor. He pass the next open door on the right. Flashlight tape to the cupboard, this must be the kitchen. Flashlight shining down on man on him knees like he praying. Cornrow hair, face looking up but eye closed, one little red light, where the crack pipe burning and papapap, gunshot never sound like a pow in the movie, always a papapapap. Still Josey moving and the house don’t wake up yet, each step a crunch through beer can and Coke can and pizza box and Chinese takeout and forty-ounce bottle and dry shit, and he still stomping and he pass another doorway with a man lean up slight in the hinge but him back still to we and around him waist two black hands pull him belt, then the button. Her baby holding on to her back, and sucking a pacifier while she sucking the cock. Josey pop him and he slump back on the door but still standing up and she still sucking the cock hard and take it out of her mouth and slap it over and over because he gone soft and if he don’t cum he not going pay her. Josey walk off and me walk off leaving her putting the cock back in her mouth. We walk into the living room, who you looking for I think to say but don’t and on the right a black woman in a white brassiere, left strap hanging off, smoking. Man behind her with no shirt on only white shorts, or maybe a black shirt since there is not enough light, but him cigarette burning at the tip and papapap and the man slump back in the couch. The black woman turn behind and look, then look at me. Then she turn behind again, and look, and scream. That do it, one scream lead to another scream and in the candle-flashlight a white woman scream but drop her syringe and she dive to the floor but land face-first and the needle stick right through her bottom lip but she flinging garbage left and right looking for it and people all around her coming out of the dark and limping and hopping and crawling and running now. And Josey lift both guns up and let all hell loose, and people running and tripping and falling and one man run straight to Josey but him forehead explode and he fall flat like a tree and a woman run and jump through the window at the back but we one floor up and me sure she scream all the way down and I hope she didn’t land headfirst and a man in a baseball cap and plaid shirt with a forty ounce in a brown paper bag come out of a room to the side and say whatdafuck and get two shot in the chest and the bottle fall and shatter and in the room be two, a light-skinned boy with curly hair and a woman with a tam on just about to suck in the first whiff of the crack pipe when the slug burst through her forehead and the pipe drop and muthafucka you dropped the muthafucking pipe you dropped the muthafucking pipe, the curly hair boy say. But Josey moving on and the house clearing out and I want to grab him and say what the fuck you doing but Josey gone dark and he take the stairs and staying on the left side like he in the dark, some of the steps break off on the right and me follow him. A man come right up to the top of the stair and he fire the two gun same time and the man fall over the railing, and a woman grab her pickney and run to a small room and slam the door just in time for Josey to buss three shot in the door. He kick off a doorknob and walk in the room, and a big black man on the mattress on the floor fucking a girl hard and papapap and the man slump down on top of the woman who have to shake her head out of the crack haze before she start to scream. A man run past the door and Josey run out and shout pussyhole! He run out the door and fire at the man with right gun then left and left catch him in the neck near the ear then right in the shoulder left in the back of the head and right in the back and left in the neck and he drop to him knee, and left gun blast a chunk off the top of him head, and right go through a dark area but blood burst through him mouth and him fall and bits of newspaper fly out of him head. Josey walk up to the man and he still firing and firing until both gun click empty. He still pulling the trigger to a click click click. Josey, I say, and he swing around quick, point the gun at me head and click. He stand there with the gun to my head and me stand there looking and me stiffen me back and blow out me breath and tighten me stomach. Give me you other gun, he say. He go over to the man, roll him over and take money out of the man pocket. Then he walk back into the bedroom with the girl whimpering under the man deadweight because he was a big, big man and shoot him again in the head. Then Josey go downstairs and turn into the room and fire one shot and walk out and me look in and the light-skinned boy rubbing the woman pregnant belly and crying. Josey pass the man with the bleeding eye and one-two pap-pap in the head and we pass the white woman in the living room with the syringe stuck in her lip, still on her fours scraping through shit and garbage looking for her syringe. And we pass the bedroom and the woman with the white brassiere gone but the man cigarette still smoking and Josey pump one in him head and we passing the last door and the man still leaning against it and the woman still sucking the cock and the baby still holding on to her sweater and she still pulling at the dick to say get hard baby, just get hard, and she still sucking and we pass her and we pass the man with the cornrow hair and he was still breathing short and gargling through him blood and spit and choking and the flashlight showing blood pumping through him neck Josey put the gun right up to him forehead and fire then he walk into the toilet and pop off one in the white/Latino man and we finally near the doorway and he forget the last man who was shooting up right beside the body of the man me shoot hours ago and walk through the front door and the night swallow him up and I pause for a long time then run through the door and down the steps. The man on the steps gone. I walk over to Josey and Eubie and Josey swing around and point the gun at me again. He hold the gun near me head for a long, long time, long enough for me to start count clicks until the click.