Marlon James - A Brief History of Seven Killings

What I’m trying to say is this street, especially at this time of day, is usually pretty empty. So why are there four black guys, all dressed like they just walked out of a rap video, sitting on my stoop? I couldn’t turn back, because they had already seen me. If I played it like a scared white guy they would call me out in a second, or smell the fear and chase that shit. Fuck me. One of them, with dreadlocks in fucking pig tails, stands up and looks me over. I’m just twenty feet from my own house and four black guys are on the steps. Two of them just shared a loud joke. I make one little step back and feel like an idiot. They are just black guys sitting on my steps. It could have been anybody’s steps and look, fucker, they could be your neighbors and it’s your fault you don’t know any of them. I tap my ass as if I’m reaching for a wallet that isn’t there, and try to fake an oh-shit-I-forgot-my-wallet look, but Pig Tails is still staring at me, glaring even, but that might be me imagining things. I can’t just stand there. Maybe I can walk right past and go to the café around the corner. Wait them out for a few minutes, though they look like they’ve got nowhere to go. Fuck. I can’t just stand here. I mean, this is New York City and black boys know better than to jump unsuspecting white guys post Bernie Goetz, right? Except that was a good while ago.

When I get to the steps my door is wide open. Pig Tails shifts to the side and points my way in, as if it’s his house. I pause, hoping the police car that circles when it feels like it, creeps up soon. Pig Tails beckons me again, this time with a flourish like he’s Jeeves, and I make one step. The other men stare at me. One in a gray hoodie hiding his face, one wearing what looks like stockings on his head, and one with his hair plaited like Jamaicans do before they pull it out into an Afro. Pants so low the crotches are all at the knee and all of them in tan Timberlands. If they’re packing, they clearly don’t think I’m worth showing it. I don’t want Pig Tails to direct me to my own house for a third time, so I step up. I could barely move. Jesus Christ. Only last week a friend of mine, who used to sell coke to Fleetwood Mac, said he got out of the business because the fucking Jamaicans were taking over and they didn’t give a shit who and how many they killed. Bredrin me say ah no so it go , somebody says outside in a Jamaican accent. This feels like the point where I make a joke about Jamaican mothers teaching them to keep a place clean, but there’s nobody to share it with.

I walk down my hallway like it’s somebody else’s and the floorboards creak and give me away. Pass my own staircase to the second floor and listen for people upstairs. Somebody or bodies are making a fuss in the kitchen. A tall black man in a wife beater and khaki overalls with one strap hanging off is blending yellow juice in what’s supposed to be my blender. The other guy walks into my view like somebody yelled action over the noise. He starts talking to me as he sits on the stool by the sink. Black man as well, hair cut low and slightly chubby, but taller than wife beater dude, wearing a royal blue silk suit with a white pocket square like a dying flower popping out of his heart. I don’t know this guy. I don’t know any of them. I don’t think I’ve ever seen shoes so shiny. Dark red too, almost black in parts. I look up and can tell he’s noticed me admiring them.

— Giorgio Brutini.

I want to ask if that’s the B-movie version of Giorgio Armani, but then I remembered irony is not always the wisest card to play with a Jamaican.

— Oh, I say.

— So hear this, this man you see here, Ren-Dog? He think me contract him because he good ’pon the trigger. But me really have him ’round because nobody can make a juice like this man right here, Jah know.

— Cho man, boss. Mind me have go to cooking school now.

— You better take a night class, haha.

Silk suit guy holds one finger up to cut off what I was going to say, but I wasn’t going to say a thing. He picks up a glass and drinks the whole thing down in five loud gulps.

— Mango, he say.

— What kind? Wife Beater says.

— Julie and… hold on… me know it… East Indian.

— Jah know, boss, you mussi psychic or something.

— Or me is just a country youth who know him mango. Pour out some for the white boy.

— I’m really not thirsty.

— Me ask you if you thirsty?

The smile up and vanishes, just like that. I swear this is something I’ve only seen Jamaicans do, and they can all do it. A sudden change of face that just runs cold. Eyebrow in a frown, but eyes dead steady. It can make a ten-year-old kid frightening.

— I guess I could drink something.

— Good to hear, my youth. And you’re welcome for all the milk, and yogurt, and fresh fruit in your fridge. To r’asscloth, Ren-Dog open the bredda fridge and little most me think you is a serial killer with a body up in there.

— True thing, boss, is a wonder rat don’t bore a hole into the fridge bottom yet, Wife Beater says.

— You know you did have milk in there from January?

— Was trying to make my own yogurt.

— The man is a comedian, boss.

— Haha, it sound so. Or maybe he just a joke. Anyway, brethren, come over here so me can take one good look ’pon you.

I take the stool. I can’t tell if looking him in the eye would impress or annoy him. Then he starts walking around me like I’m some sort of exhibit. I almost say this museum’s closed, I almost do. I don’t know why I think joking would bring any sort of levity to a situation because it never fucking does, ever.

— Ren-Dog, me ever tell you ’bout a man named Tony Pavarotti?

— You never tell me but me know ’bout him. Which youth didn’t know ’bout Tony Pavarotti when him ah grow up?

— Yow, is near fifteen years, me ah look for you, you know that?

It takes me a good three seconds to realize he was talking to me.

— But Eubie, why you bring up Pavarotti, him nuh dead from seventyseven? Seventy-eight?

— Seventy-nine. Nineteen seventy-nine. Ren, meet the man who kill him.

W hat happen to you hair?

— It went white. Prematurely grey then white. The ladies call me a silver fox.

— Premature me r’ass. You greying right on time.

— Funny one, Josey.

— And you living in America too long now, you sounding like one of them.

— Like I living in America?

— No, like you living with Cubans.

— Haha. Nobody ever believes me when I say Josey Wales has a sense of humor.

— Yeah? And who you talking to about me?

— Man, Josey, look at us. You ever think about the past, muchacho ?

— No. You know I never think about the fucking past. That shit will fuck you up and you can’t fuck it back.

— Got yourself a dirty tongue in prison, mijo .

— Dirty mouth. When in Rome do as the Romans do.

— Haha. Good one, Josey, good—

— Stop with the bloodcloth patronizing, Luis. How you like that, eh? A big, big word just for you. I don’t see the man in seven years and where we end up? Prison. See what I mean about the present too r’ass weird? Especially when the past keep showing up this week. From baby mother I even forget, to relative who worried about money — not me, to Peter Nasser, that one made me wish the cell have hidden camera. That man alone make me start wonder if you really get wiser as you get older.

— Peter Nasser?

— Don’t act like you don’t know him.

— Haven’t spoken to the man since 1980. You forget I was only going through him to get to you.

— Well now that he wanting to become a Sir, he hoping the past don’t pull a jim-screechy.