Marlon James - A Brief History of Seven Killings

— Brethren, me pretty sure my beer was more than half.

— Good to know.

— Pussyhole, you drink off me beer?

— Didn’t look like you was using it. What Granny used to say? What stay too long serve two master.

— Granny know, say you drink man backwash?

— For serious, is where you did gone?

Weeper even more chatty than usual. Might be because of this bar where liquor loosen every tongue but mine. He know I hate him getting high when we in the middle of business. He going to say that the C take the edge off, but that’s just some fuckery he hear from a white man in lockup on narcotics charge until the embassy come for him, or from some movie, he don’t know what the fuck it mean. In this state he will pick a fight when there is no fight to pick. And he more paranoid than Judas hiding after he betray Jesus.

— Hey Josey, your Datsun outside? Man over there. Three o’clock.

— What, what the bloodcloth you talking ’bout now? And what it have to do with my Datsun?

— That man, three o’clock.

— How much time I must tell you not to use that American movie bullshit with me?

— Fine then, pussyhole. Man behind you to the right — don’t look. Tall, dark not handsome, lip like fish hanging off, at the bar but talking to nobody. Three times now he look over here.

— Maybe him like you.

Weeper look at me hard. For a second I think he going to say something stupid and make me cuss him out. Weeper earn the right to do what he want to do, even if it is some sodomite business. He’ll talk about it all the time but sideways like an Aesop fable, or a riddle and rhyme. He can shape and mold it and make it Greek, his word, not mine, I don’t know what the fuck he’s talking about with that Greek shit. But that don’t mean he want anybody to say it back to him. Something happen when somebody tell you something about yourself even if you already know.

— Man, fuck a battyman, he says. I kick my own foot.

— That man watching us.

— That’s what the C telling you. Of course he watching us. If I was him in the bar I wouldn’t be able to take my eye off me neither. This is what him really dealing. He, like everybody here, recognize me, then he recognize you. He right there thinking, Who in here did they come to cancel and how long before they kill him? And should I just chill out to the max, or should I run like a pussyhole? I don’t even have to look, one hand on him drinks, other tapping the bar. Watch him look away quick as I swing around, one, two, three… now.

— Haha, man knock over him own drinks. Brethren, maybe is a police.

— Maybe you should stop feeling up you bloodcloth gun. You have twenty-two days of Christmas leave to add couple more notch.

Weeper stare at me hard then laugh. Nothing like a Weeper laugh, it start like a wheeze, then somewhere, and you never know where, it explode into the biggest thing in the room. Who teach this little black man that he can laugh so? It spin off in the whole room and other people start laughing, not knowing why.

— More paranoid than usual these few days.

— That’s because you think tomorrow special. No different from any other day. You know why I pick you, Weeper, you know why? Because if it’s one thing I can’t stand it’s a man who can only tell me what he about to do. That’s why I don’t fucking trust no politician. All he can tell me is what he going to do.

— Never make a politician do you a favour he will want… I ever tell you how me run ’pon the Singer?

Ten thousand time but I don’t tell him that. There are things Weeper need to say a dozen, a hundred, a thousand time till he no longer have the need to say it.

— No, you never tell me.

— Three year into the service…

He always call the years in prison, the service.

— Three years. Them take us out Port Henderson beach.

— They make prisoner swim? I would escape so fast.

— NO, no, no. Them have we out there ’pon a work, have big man chopping down wood. You right, I should have just swing the cutlass and chop off a guard head. Anyway, brethren, we out there a work and the Singer and him friend come out there. The man look ’pon me and say, We everybody out here a fight for you, seen? And me look at the man and hear him a reason with me, right? And him say him fighting for my rights! Me. Then him laugh and walk off. Hate the pussyhole like poison after that.

He hate the Singer for real. But the real story don’t have nothing to do with Weeper. He think they talking to him and his heart leap up, Weeper was even about to walk over, despite guards watching. Then he realize the Singer were talking to the man beside him, not him. For some reason, even after cat o’ nine, gun butt and piss in the rice when he get too testy with a guard, this is the thing that hurt him the most. The thing that make him blood boil. And it never even happen, but something in Weeper need it to happen, need it to end this way. I don’t care, this is what drawing him to pull the gun when I need him to.

— Them waiting by the shack right now, time to go, I say. — Everybody but Bam-Bam. Take my car and pick him up. He watching the house all day.

— For real, brethren, for real.

I s a hell of a thing when a gun come home to live with you. The people who live with you notice it first. The woman I live with talk to me different. Everybody talk to you different when them see a new bulge in you pants. No, is not that at all. When a gun come to live in the house it’s the gun, not even the person who keep it, that have the last word. It come between man and woman talk, not just serious reasoning but even a little thing.

— Dinner ready, she say.

— Me no hungry.

— Okay.

— I going need it warm when me finally hungry.

— Yes sah.

When a gun come to live in the house the woman you live with treat you different, not cold, but now she weigh word, measure it before talking to you. But a gun talk to the owner too, telling him first that you can never own this, that outside is plenty people who don’t have a gun but know you do, and one night they going come like Nicodemus and take it. Nobody ever own a gun. You don’t know that until you own one. If somebody give it to you, that somebody can take it back. Another man can think is for him even when he seeing that is you control it. And he don’t sleep until he get it ’cause he can’t sleep. Gun hunger worse than woman hunger for at least maybe a woman might hungry for you back. At night me don’t sleep. Me stay up in the dark shadow, looking at it, rubbing it, seeing and waiting.

Two days after he leave, we hear that Papa-Lo was in England watching the Singer on tour. Rumour was that Funnyboy was in England the same time, but nobody could say if that was true or untrue since they crucify the last informer right in the Garbagelands. The man who bring guns to the ghetto tell we of more waiting in the night in a container marked Peace Concert. When we three get to the wharf it empty like Clint Eastwood just ride off. No crane working, no floodlight on, no people, only water slapping the dock. The crate was open and ready. Weeper drive right up in Josey Wales’ Datsun. Me, him and Heckle load the trunk and backseat with so much ammo that neither me nor Heckle could fit in the car when Weeper drive back. He give we money for taxi, but no taxi going to ghetto, worse during curfew, so we take the money and buy Kentucky Fried Chicken, watching the cashier waiting on we to leave so they can lock up but too ’fraid to tell we to leave.

That night the same white man who joke with Frouser teach we how to shoot. Plenty man come from the ghetto and when he see one of them he smile and say, What’s shaking, Tony? But Tony don’t answer. He say to nobody that Tony and him go way back to our little school in Fort Benning, but nobody know about this Tony going to no school. He set up target and ask me to shoot. Then the man who bring guns to the ghetto look at me and smile. Weeper telling the white man that Papa-Lo get soft but the white man don’t understand much of what Weeper saying. He just nod and laugh and say I gotcha! then look at Josey Wales to repeat everything slower but he still laugh too loud at what wasn’t no joke. This make Josey Wales’ face even more cross because everybody know that he proud that he can speak good. The white man say we’re fighting for freedom from totalitarianism, terrorism and tyranny, but nobody know what he mean.