Marlon James - A Brief History of Seven Killings

— Haha, nothing make a white man sound more white than when he try to sound like a black girl.

— Ah… “just wicked smart. And then that mofo just come out of nowhere and ruins her life. I don’t even blame the drug dealer for killing her. I blame him.” Whether or not she picked up the crack habit from sharing a needle with her old boyfriend or not, by 1984 Monifah was totally hooked on crack and an addict before the drug exploded in popularity by the mid to late eighties. A drug whose light-speed rise in New York City can be traced to a few men. Including the gang that killed her.

It’s not uncommon for addicts to have one last score before they go clean. In fact Moni—

— Enough about that sorry bitch. Move down.

— Okay. To where exactly?

— The part where you start to talk about the crack house. You know, like in part two. That was killing number two, right? Part two did more real for true. At least you didn’t spend so much time trying to show off how you know pretty word. Move to where she turn into killing number three.

— Ah… well… ah… one second.

— You don’t know you own story?

He squeezes my neck.

— Okay, okay. From where?

— The crack house.

— Thanks. There is a Bushwick seen at street level, crack level that all but vanishes as soon as you look up. For all the drug deals, connections, amateur prostitutes, scammers, junkies, hustlers and rap music, Bushwick was still one of those rare places in New York where the Gilded Age stared down on you. Ruined Boss Tweed — style houses of processed-meat millionaires with gaudy pillars and huge front facades ripped from European mansions with imported brick and masonry. The remnants of galley windows and fire escapes outside, dumbwaiters and secret passages inside. It was as if the robber barons had built Bushwick for crack barons.

The crack house on the corner of Gates and Central still had most of its regal, brick-red color. Two stairways led to two doorway arches and a third arch in between, with wide windows to reveal from outside what was once a drawing room. Both doorways still popped with green paint. But the rest of the house was from haunted house central casting, hollow gaps where French windows used to be, holes patched with wood, or stuffed with newspaper, other windows shuttered down with weather-rotten wood, graffiti all over the first floor and stray dogs running in and out of garbage heaps as high as snowdrifts. By 1984, the top floor was so unsafe that an addict fell through the wood and got his neck stuck on a nail. He bled to death and hung there for seven days before somebody called the police. The—

— Jesus Christ, white boy, get to the killing, no man. You no see Ren-Dog almost sleeping?

Ren-Dog yawns big and dramatic. — True that, he says.

I read,

— It’s not uncommon for a crack addict or any addict for that matter to score one last time before they get clean, so nobody was surprised when Monifah headed to the crack house. Even with this knowledge her friends still believe she would have gotten herself straight starting the next day. If you scored crack in Brooklyn, the crack house at Gates and Central was your mecca—

The entire kitchen groaned.

— Jesus Christ, white boy, you really write that? he says.

— I wrote what?

— That. You just compare one of the holiest place in the world to a crack house. You want we staple the passage to your chest and dump you off at Nation of Islam.

— I didn’t mean to—

— You didn’t think. I should make one of them shoot you just for that. Fucking idiot. Fucking irresponsible.

— Didn’t think some drug dealer was going to preach to me all of a sudd—

He kicks the stool and I go down.

— Get up.

I get up, but the pain hits me in the stomach again and I fall over. I can’t even breathe. He just looks at me, waiting and annoyed. I get up again, just to my knees, fix the stool and sit. Part of me hopes it’s spit on my cheek, not tears, and part of me is starting to not care.

— Read the rest. Read.

— Just two blocks down from the dealers, but still on Central Avenue. Nobody can confirm her relationship with G-Money, a former dealer from the area who got kicked out of the ring because he consumed too much of his own stash, but they did share a crack habit. G-Money, half Mexican with thick curly hair and wide smile, had ambitions pre-crack as well. That night his brothers saw him leave at around eight p.m. with someone he assumed was a man, but was Monifah dressed in a hoodie and oversized jeans more to hide her pregnancy than to pass as a man — a pregnant woman would have given even a seasoned crack dealer pause.

An old mansion such as the one on Gates Street had many rooms, corners, passages, and hallways, which is why scoring crack, selling it, smoking it, shooting it, even prostituting for it could all transpire under the same roof. G-Money secured the second-floor bedroom near the staircase, the only one that still had a bed, and Monifah, pulling her hoodie back over her head, scored the crack up the street. Though she preferred to shoot up on her own, she always smoked with G-Money. One floor up in a room all to themselves, they had no idea all hell had broken loose below them. A gang of assailants, men connected with the drug gang that ran most of the streets in Bushwick, had burst into the crack house and started killing everyone in their midst. Preacher Bob, cooking in what was left of the kitchen, and Mr. Cee were both already dead. Addicts on the first floor were in a panic, caught between trying to run for their lives and not wanting to lose their pipes, needles or vials in the dark. On the second floor, a woman jumped through a window at the end of the corridor, breaking both legs when she fell. Right outside their door another man fell from two shots to the chest, from both a Glock and another semiautomatic. The gang kicked down the door, shot Monifah straight in the head, the force knocking her down on the bed, her pregnant belly a dead mound on the mattress. G-Money, before he even knew what was going on, grabbed her pipe and took the hit.

The gang continued. There were more to kill. They called themselves the Storm Posse and police records show they operated the same crack house. The killing might have been a warning. A witness claimed it was not a gang doing the shooting but one member, perhaps the leader. Regardless, this was typical M.O. for the gang: the Storm Posse, a loose alliance of Jamaican thugs bred on Third World violence and Colombian drug money that had become in just a few years the most feared crime syndicate on the East Coast.

Eubie takes The New Yorker from me.

— Part four: T-Ray Benitez and the Jamdown Connection. You send this piece in yet?

— Yes.

— Too bad. Because you going to call them right now and make a whole heap o’ changes.

J osey. Seriously, hombre. Josey.

I can’t even see him. The mattress has been blocking my view ever since he grabbed it with both hands and threw it at me. I jumped back before he pulled up the metal bed frame until it was standing and toppled it over to crash against the cell bars. The mattress took the blow but the bed head struck the bars and sparks were flying everywhere. I jumped backward and fell, even though there was no way he was going to break through those bars. Off in the dark he was grunting and growling and some other beasty shit and trying to pull the damn sink out of the wall when he couldn’t knock it over.

— Josey.

Josey.

Josef.

— What the bombocloth you want?

— You’re not the first guy in lockdown to try to break the sink or the toilet.

— FUCK.

I’m at the gate. Trying to push away the mattress and the bed with my left hand. Neither would budge. I try to push with my right hand and he grabs it.