Marlon James - A Brief History of Seven Killings

— Oh well. Ma’am, as you know, your husband had surgery for gunshot wounds causing serious head trauma and unstable spinal fracture. Sometimes, especially if the patient comes in still conscious, we can tell how it’s gonna go. But your husband did not. Also, gunshot wounds have a nasty way of causing more damage where they leave your body than where they entered it. Being that he’s not awake and it’s too risky to wake him, we’re still not sure if either spinal function, or if his mental state is altered in any way. We need to run tests because his status might be changing, maybe even for the better. But there’s no way to know for sure without regular testing. We may need to step up a dose, decrease a dose. He might even need more surgery in ways that are just not obvious. That’s why we need to test regularly. I hope this makes sense. Ma’am?

— You’re fine, doctor, I say, knowing that the remark would irritate the shit out of him. He nods at her first, then me, then leaves. I can hear the patronizing talk he’ll give me at the water cooler even now. At least I’m too old now for him to place his hand on mine when he’s doing so — a trick which supposedly makes nurses’ panties wet. I swear if doctors would get out the way nurses could get on with actually healing people.

— So is where in Jamaica you come from?

— Excuse me?

— Excuse yourself. Is where in Jamaica you come from?

— I don’t see how that’s your—

— Listen, lady. Me hear you when you tell the doctor how you was just passing by, all of thirteen floor up from the same emergency room me carry him. What him woulda say if me did tell him say is every day you come in me man room like is your man, for no reason? So stop with the damn fuckery because you can’t come from no place but Jamaica with a name like Millicent. Millicent Segree? You no just come from Jamaica, you come from Country. So you can go on stoosh with them white people all you want, but you not fooling nobody.

I tell myself I don’t have to take this and if I leave right now, this hospital is so huge that she would never see me again. All I had to do was leave. All I need to do is put one foot in front of the other and march out of here before this woman get all ignorant.

—’Cause me sure you never leave Jamaica talking so.

— What if me come from uptown?

— Maybe. You sound flat and dull like them uptown woman for true. But at least you don’t look like you live in you battyhole. No, you—

The monitor beeped and she jumped again.

— You want to hear that sound, I say. — Is when you hear one long beep that don’t stop that’s bad.

— Oh? Oh. Me never know. Nobody never tell me. Why you keep coming up here to look ’pon me husband?

— Me no have nothing to do with your husband.

— Trust me, me love, me never worried ’bout that.

I want to tell her both to fuck off and that I admire her quickness.

— You don’t get a lot of Jamaicans in this hospital. Only one old woman who died last year from a stroke. Then suddenly we have whole rash of them, all of them from gunshot wounds. And he is the last one still here. Of course I would be curious.

— Curious me r’ass. If you curious you come in and read the pad by him bed that all the other nurse read. But you come in and look. And if me late you always here, and if me early you quick to leave as soon as me come.

— People shoot people in Jamaica all the time, but me come to New York to see it up close.

— See it up close? You no see nothing. Wait till you see a boy get shot in the club.

— But why they bring it here? Why bring it to America? You’d think if you come here you could brush off all of this crap and start over.

— Is so you do it?

— I didn’t say that.

— But is true. You and you stoosh talk.

She gets up for a few seconds then and sits back down. I’m still near the door, wondering if I should back out slow or fast.

— For some man, for plenty man, is that same crap the send them here. Otherwise them wouldn’t have no way to come to America.

— I suppose.

— Fact, that. And you not in here just because you never see no Jamaican. You in here for something else. Lady, me is woman too, you know. Me know when a woman want something.

— I really should head back to the ER.

— Then go on. And the next time me can tell the doctor that like you how you just come in here all sort of time when you feel like.

— What you want to know?

— Me husband. Me ever going hear him talk again?

— You really should ask the doctor—

— Talk.

— You don’t want to hear it from me, I’m not a doctor.

— Talk, me say.

— Like a four-year-old, maybe. And that’s if he recovers. He going have to learn everything over and he still going sound like he’s retarded.

— Oh. Him going walk again?

— The way things look, he might not be able to hold a cup again. I hope you know I can be fired for what I just tell you.

— Fired because you is the first one tell the truth?

— Is not my job to tell you the truth. Is my job to tell you what we think you can handle. And nobody here can really predict what might happen to a patient, so nobody want to say something and it don’t go so. He could recover or he could—

— Dead.

— That too.

She looking at me as if she’s waiting for me to ask that question. Or maybe I’m just reading what I want into her face. The monitor beep but she doesn’t jump this time.

— Josey Wales shoot him?

And there I said it. All these years I never said his name once. Could never bring myself to even use it. I know that later I’ll start beating myself up over how I let my own mind run wild with me for years over my thinking this man hounding me, when me sure if I walk right past him he wouldn’t know me from anybody, even if he stopped to chat me up.

— Josey Wales?

— I don’t mean personally. I mean, his gang.

— You don’t know no Jamaicans in the Bronx?

— What this have to do with anything?

— Them don’t call gang, them call a posse. And Josey not going nowhere since him in prison now for long past two year.

— What?

— So you don’t even read one issue of Gleaner or watch no Jamaican news? Them going ship him to America for American court this month, me love. Is Josey Wales’ posse that shoot up the club. Everybody know Tatters is Ranking Dons’ night club. Them don’t own it or nothing, but them always in there. You know what funny? Me still remember what song was playing, ’cause me just ask somebody how come “Night Nurse” still sound so sweet. Don’t ask me why me didn’t see it coming. Josey Wales’ son get kill in Jamaica and whoever do it must be connected to Ranking Dons in some way or ’nother. You lucky you manage to run far away from Jamdown, but for the rest of we Jamdown follow right back o’ we.

— So your husband was just a bystander?

— No, lady, him was a Ranking Don.

S o Jesus Christ kill Tony Pavarotti?

— Jesus is right. Look ’pon the man hair. You woman make you leave the house like that? And here me did understand that all white man shave except the ones who in some cult a breed him sister.

— And is bell-bottom jeans that? To rahtid.

— Brethren, what me want know is, where me can send telegram to tell you that is 1991? You look like you ’bout to sing “Disco Duck.”

— Nah, man, Eubie, is “In the Navy.”

— The whole a unu can stay. Caw you no know say is this look a carry it now, you no watch the MTV? No, man, my boy just stick to him gun and wait it out till the look come back inna fashion.

— That is one hell of a wait. Then is what you waiting on for the near fourteen years? For one of we to come find you?