Marlon James - A Brief History of Seven Killings

— Okay, ma’am.

— You know what? Fine. How much is it?

— The entire prescription is fourteen dollars, ma’am.

You know, most of this feminism business was nothing more than white American women telling non-white women what to do and how to do it, with this patronizing if-you-become-just-like-me-you’ll-be-free bullshit, but if there’s one thing I agree with is damn, I hate when a man feels I’m obligated to disclose my marital status to somebody I don’t even know. Even this bullshit about status itself as if married and spinster are the only two choices for defining myself. Or because I’m a woman I’m supposed to have a status at all. Hey big boy, here’s my status. Hi, before I tell you my name here’s my status. Maybe I should just say I’m a lesbian and throw the problem back in their faces for them to define it.

Xanax for anxiety. Valium for sleep. Prozac for depression. Phenergan for nausea. Tylenol for headaches. Mylanta for bloating. Midol for cramps. I mean, Jesus Christ, menopause come already. Isn’t there some fast-track for a hot flash? It’s not like I’m ever going to breed, so why keep the damn store door open? I’m at the Rite Aid on Eastchester in the Bronx, just a block from my place on Corsa Avenue. August means I’ll be living there two years. Of course despite working at Beth Israel which, it goes without saying, has a pharmacy, I fulfill prescriptions on Eastchester because who wants to see a nurse buying so many pills? Yeah things are confidential but I’ve never come across anybody who if given the chance wouldn’t talk your business. This just make things less complicated and in the past few years I’ve just gotten allergic to complicated things. Even men. You can’t stand a man who’s the same yesterday, today and forever? Give him my number. It’s always when they start to talk about their feelings and — I love this one — where is this going? that I get so sick I have to reach for the Phenergan.

So I cross the street to the bus stop and pop one. Zantac. I’m going to need a Zantac after wolfing down a muffin for breakfast. I wish Dunkin’ Donuts wasn’t all the way on Gun Hill Road, I could use some coffee. But I can’t stand Gun Hill Road. Especially on these wet days when winter can’t decide to leave and spring can’t decide to show up. And I’m not ruining one more shoe while they figure it out. Outside the station is always the same old men with nowhere to go and I can’t tell if they’re looking at me as men, or as Jamaicans. To make it from street to door to turnstile to train would be hard enough if I didn’t have to stand there in pigeon shit waiting on the 5. And it never fails, nobody waiting on the train looking like they have anywhere to go. No shopping bag, no knapsack, no briefcase, nobody carrying anything. Me looking like Miss Virgin Mary because I’m going to the hospital. Not a nurse, training to be one.

The school director looked at me and said we don’t always get women at your point in life, usually they’re just starting out. Who’s to say I’m not just beginning life right now? I said to the man who was clearly not buying it, but for some reason didn’t feel like telling a woman she was too old. Every day I go to work, I try to figure that one out. But then Lord knows I know everything about knowing people only in the context of them needing something from me. Millicent, it’s too early in the morning to be so bitter. You actually like the white stockings and no-sex-here shoes, remember? Meanwhile at Beth Israel you’re in triage and find that you like it very much.

But two weeks ago, for like seven days Jamaicans kept coming in with all sorts of gunshot wounds. All of them men, four of them by the time they got here, there was nothing to do. Girlfriends and baby mothers screaming out woi! Wha me a go do with the pickney dem? As if I knew the answer. Me, I’m putting on an extra-thick American accent and saying shit like wah-der instead of water because I don’t want anybody to figure I’m Jamaican, which is just fuckery because so far I did like that the hospital thought I was their own Madge Sinclair from Trapper John, M.D . One of the doctors even called me Ernie once and even though I said my name is Millicent, Doctor, I couldn’t stop grinning. But it was just weird, these Jamaicans with gunshot wounds coming from the Bronx, which is not exactly near this hospital. I didn’t ask what was going on this week but a doctor did, and one of the men with three bullets in his backside says, Them kill young Benjy. Is armagideon now, Kingston, Miami, New York, London. Them kill young Benjy . Who is this Benjy and how did he die? the doctor asks. I’m there squeezing the IV bag in my hand so hard it almost bursts.

— Nurse? the doctor says. I hook it up to the man’s arms without looking at him. I didn’t want him to give me the eye of recognition. I’m not no kindred spirit. Who’s this Benjy? the doctor asks again and I want to say shut the fuck up, but all I can do is start an IV. Thank God, when I finally look at the man he was giving the doctor this stare, eyebrow raised and indignant like he’s thinking, What you mean who’s Benjy? I certainly didn’t want to know.

— Benjy Wales, the son of the don of dons, the man says.

The doctor’s face didn’t change much, but I had to look away. I just stopped. I don’t know — something just went black and I walked away. I could even hear the doctor saying, Nurse? Nurse? But it was like some transistor radio from far off. I just kept walking and walking until I was in the elevator. Spent the next hour in the cafeteria on the ground floor. Told them I was suddenly dizzy and had to tolerate at least three asking me if I was pregnant. I was this close to saying how about me chopping off my pussy and putting it on my forehead. I had to tell them I had a crippling migraine and was botching finding a vein for the IV.

I have this system. It’s really only three words: NO MORE DRAMA. Got it from black American women who were sick and tired of men and all their shit. I don’t want any fuss, kass-kass, conflict, disagreement or entanglement. I don’t even want drama on TV. Ever since the Jamaicans brought their party to the hospital I had to add Tylenol to my list and up the Xanax just so I could go to work. Wales, it’s just a name. It’s just a goddamn name. Like Millicent Segree.

Waiting on the M10 Express. Ever since then I’ve had this headache right above my right temple. It never gets better or worse, but just won’t go away. Maybe it’s a lump. Maybe I need to stop training myself to become a hypochondriac. Honestly only two days ago I got so anxious I couldn’t breathe and remembered that people have been known to die from anxiety attacks. Of course this only made me more anxious. The last time it happened I had to start singing “Just Got Paid” out loud for it to pass. At a bus stop in Manhattan. I think a little girl started singing with me. A little black girl is running around the bench at this bus stop. Another is sitting in her father’s lap. He’s on the bench waiting on the bus. The little girl running is singing something that sounds like “I Know What Boys Like” but there was no way she would have heard that song. The father is trying to balance the daughter, a baby really, and his newspaper. The little girl runs headfirst into his rib cage, and he grunts and laughs. She pushes her bagel to his mouth and he takes a bite like a bear. She squeals. I try to look away but can’t, not until they look at me first.

Girls who love their daddies always come at them sideways. I see it all the time in the hospital. Daddies carrying sick baby girls with poor breathing or insect bites. Women supporting sick fathers for just one more MRI or dose of chemo. Maybe fathers are just more narrow on the side. Yesterday, a teenage girl in the ER, after screaming at her father for ten minutes, just came at him sideways, wrapped her hands all around him until her fingers met, and rested her head right in his armpit for him to drape her. It’s not like I miss my father. I don’t even know if he’s dead. But I’m starting to miss not taking Xanax.