Marlon James - A Brief History of Seven Killings

He’s off in the dark again. I wait for him to come back, listening if his feet are shuffling now. Not Josey. He comes out of the shadow standing tall, almost too tall, like he’s bracing his chest for something.

— You want crackhead go to Dumfries Road in New Kingston and get anyone you like. Who to r’ass miss a bombocloth crackhead?

— Nobody. The pregnant girlfriend of a crackhead? Kinda different. There’s a whole story about her in The New Yorker . Some pattern of yours, Josef? Offing pregnant chicks?

— Fuck off.

— Real classy, don man. Your whole crew of Jamaicans and their whyshoot-one- hombre -when-you-can-liquidate-the-whole-block way of thinking. Storm of bullets, eh? Storm Posse. Real classy.

— You are the man who make them, boss, not me. Don’t make monster then bawl how them monstrous.

— Dude, when I was running with you some of these boys were still getting breastfed. Not me they’re taking after, Pops.

— You know how long it take for me to check my food?

— What? What are you—

— Twenty minutes, three times a day. Ask the rats. Every day me throw piece of the food down and see if they eat it. Every day me expect a rat to drop dead. Every day I have to take each banana and cut it up little, each clump of rice I squash it, each box of juice I suck it through my teeth just to stop any broken glass, or rusty nail or maybe even something with AIDS. You know how long it take before I swallow just a spoonful of food? And me already buy off everybody in the kitchen.

— But nobody would dare, Josey.

— Maybe not, but since everybody outside fucking scared of what they think my mouth going do is only a matter of time, brethren. Only a matter of time before they find a guard or inmate more scared of them than me.

— You’ve been behind bars too long.

— Maybe I should redecorate, put up a few curtains.

— Never pictured you for gallows humour, mijo .

— Not dead yet, Doctor Love.

He sits down on the bed and looks away as if he’s done talking for now. It’s the first time I’m looking away since I got here, and the first time I notice that the cell, and the entire corridor, is red brick, several of them already fallen out. Figures that Jamaica is where you’d find the exact prison you think of when somebody says prison. At least the floor is now concrete. Seriously it’s the kind of prison where you think that all you need is a spoon and some of what these Americans call gumption, and you could dig your way to freedom in a few years.

— Peter Nasser, poor bitch, stumble in here and try to threaten me.

— Oh yeah? How did that go?

— Something like when an impotent man threaten to rape you. He suddenly worrying if the canary going sing. Exact words him say. I would never say such dumb shit.

— I know. But he’s not the only one, Josey.

— Which for the two hundredth time leads to why you come here.

— Maybe I’m paying a visit.

— You can visit me in America. Going be there in two days.

— It’s a shame they didn’t let you out to bury your boy.

— You is a fucking pussyhole, de las Casas. A fucking pussyhole.

— You know what I always found fascinating about you, Josey? Most people I know, man, they can turn it off and turn it back on, but you can keep both going the same time. You can barely bring yourself to talk about your dead son, but can talk about offing two pregnant chicks just like that. You’re like what they call a psychopath. What? What’s so funny?

He laughed. He laughed so long he started to hiccup, and even then he wouldn’t stop laughing. Long enough that I started to hate him a little, I really did, and I’ve never felt that way about him before.

— That whole sentence, you practice it before you come here?

— Fuck you, Josef.

— No, seriously. What them call the man, you know the man I’m talking about, him even have a show on TV one time. You know the man with the puppet in his lap, the puppet mouth moving but somebody else talking.

— Ventriloquist. You calling me a ventriloquist? For who, the CIA?

— No, I calling you the dummy. So who send you, brethren? Mr. Clarkjust-ditch-the-E? Serious now, them man still around?

— Haven’t thought about him in years either. I hear he’s in Kuwait.

— Your memory too spotty. On the other hand man like me remember everything. Like names. You know how most people forget names? Like Louis Johnson. Mr. Clark-just-ditch-the-E, Peter Nasser, Luis Hernán Rodrigo de las Casas. Sal Resnick? I don’t forget names. Certain things like Operation Werewolf? I don’t forget things. Even certain dates like October 16, 1968. June 15, 1976. December 6, 1976. May 20, 1980. October 14, 1980? I don’t forget dates. What you think? Sound like you run out of talk, muchacho .

— I think people are more concerned by what you might say these days.

— Going to say, Luis. Going to say. People dig me this hole. I didn’t tell them to make it so big it swallow all of them. I don’t know what your boss worried about. All he need to do is make a call to the DEA — the Feds, right? Make a call and part of the story squash.

— DEA aren’t Feds. And they don’t control either.

— They? So somebody did send you.

— I liked our conversations more when we were on the same side.

— There is the gate and there is the lock. Come over.

— You’ve gotten all witty in your old age, man.

— Still younger than you. What you want, Doctor Love? You have some stash of money lock ’way to give me when me come out of prison if me keep quiet?

— I didn’t say that.

— Well let me say it for you and answer. What make you think I coming out of prison?

— The deal you’ll probably sign with the DEA.

— Still don’t know what you worried about. Doctor Love is blur, no you tell me that? Most people don’t even know him exist. Maybe you die in Bay of Pigs, maybe you blow your own self up on the plane in Barbados, maybe you working for them Sandinistas now.

— Contras.

— Same difference. Or maybe you is just something people make up from scratch when they need a duppy.

— Maybe I’m a ghost talking to you now.

— You might as well be. Man like you the world don’t need no more. You know from when I see that? From 1976. Politics don’t mean shit. Power don’t mean shit. Money mean something. Give people what they want. Peter Nasser think he can send man to talk to me about the error of my ways, but which man in Kingston I don’t own?

— You sure about that, Josef? Every man?

— Yes.

— Every single one?

— What, me need microphone in this place or you deaf?

— Every single one?

— Yes, to fuck.

— Even in New York?

— Especially in New York. Must be why them hungry for me over there.

— Who do you think off’d your boy Weeper?

— You mean other than he himself? This argument getting tired, Doctor Love. You don’t have to look hard to find out what happen to Weeper.

— Hmm. Before she flew the fuck off the grid I had a nice chat with Mrs. Griselda Blanco.

— Didn’t Medellín already sort out that mad cunt business?

— Before, Josey. Listen to me, will you? This was back when she saw the writing on the wall and was looking for friends. She’s telling me about this gang, er… posse named Ranking Dons, ever heard of them? Most of them are Jamaicans.

— Yes, Luis, I know about the Ranking Dons.

— Oh. Didn’t know if you knew them or not. Anyway, so she was telling me how they almost took over the Miami racket at one point. Yet within like a month they all vanished.

— So?

— So, while Griselda certainly had the desire to get rid of them she sure as fuck didn’t have the smarts to pull it off. Or the manpower to deal with you Jamaicans. To deal with Jamaicans she needed a guy from the rock. Preferably one already in the States who could mobilize quick and who had a vested interest. And that motherfucker ain’t you, Josef. Not like you to underestimate a guy, mijo . He gave her back South Miami. She gave him Weeper. And then he just decided to wait out the mighty Josey Wales. Just waiting on you to fuck up. Enter the crack house. Why didn’t you just let it go, man?