Marlon James - A Brief History of Seven Killings

I look at the other boys, two younger than me, five older including Demus and Weeper. We all dark, we all hate to comb our hair. We all wearing khaki or gabardine or jeans pants with the right leg rolled up right under the knee and a rag sticking out of the left back pocket because this look carrying the swing. Some of we wearing tam but some of we don’t because tam is for Rastas and Rastas look like they turning socialist. So cialism is another ism and even the Singer so sick of ism that he write a song about it. Then the white man talk about how some people trying to use smooth talk to win people over and how totalitarianism always happens with consent and we nod like we understand. He say chaos nine time. He say how the country will thanks us one day and we nod like we understand.

But Josey Wales want something more than this party business. I think of how he always smell kinda off even though him woman dress him. A smell like garlic and sulphur. And after they show us how to shoot again, Josey Wales say we going to Rema because naiggers ’roun’ dere acting a way. You got yourself some uppity niggers, the white man say and laugh as he leave in a jeep. There was Rema again, between JLP and PNP, between capitalist and socialist. Josey Wales tell the white man that he not an ist for anybody, he just smarter than all of them and he will do what they want if they leave him alone in Miami. The white man say he doesn’t know what Josey Wales was yapping about but then smile like he and the devil have a secret. Word was that Rema people were grumbling that JLP put money and corned beef and sewage system in Copenhagen City but don’t do nothing for them and maybe it’s time they join with the PNP for real, and turn the Eight Lanes into Nine Lanes. All this Weeper tell we when we go back to shack by the train line. He still telling we while he mix white C with ether and heat it with a lighter. Then he suck up the coke through him nose and give some to me first.

We coming up to Rema in the Datsun. I grab the door but it feel soft the air peeling through me hair like two hundred woman fingers brushing past my nipples and this must be how woman feel when you suck them titties my head feel lumpy clear gone like I’m walking around without a head and then my head is back but now it’s a balloon and the dark street getting darker the yellow streetlight yellower and that girl in the house across the street make me so horny but the seam won’t pop pop pop in my pants and fuck fuck fuck I have to fuck fuck fuck every woman in the world and I will fuck the shit out of Miss Jamaica and when the baby come out of her pussy I will fuck her too and I going pull this trigger and kill the world. But I want to fuck and it not hard. It not hard! It not hard! Is the freebase. It must be the C. Or maybe H. Me no know. Me don’t bombocloth know and this car need to reach where it going and stop being a snail and I want to swing the car door open and jump out and run all the way and run back and run again and run so fast that I fly and I want to fuck fuck fuck but it’s not hard! It’s not hard! And the radio in my head playing a killer tune that it never play on the radio right now rhythm hold I, rhythm wild! and the other boys in the car feel it and know it too and I look at Weeper who look at me and know and I could kiss him with tongue and shoot him for being a batty boy and laugh and laugh again and the truck hit a hill and we feel like we going up to heaven no, yes heaven, the Datsun flying and my head turn into a balloon and then I think of Rema and how man who live there must learn a lesson and I want them to learn it so hard that I grab and clutch the M16, but I really want to grab a little boy on the street and wring his neck around and around and around until it pop off and then I’ll scoop up some blood and rub it on my face and say who under heavy manners now pussyhole and I want to fuck fuck fuck but it not getting hard! It not getting hard! and the Datsun screech. And before Weeper say anything we jump out and run down a street and the street is wet and the street is a sea and no, the street is air and I’m flying through it and I can hear my footstep as if it’s somebody’s footstep that clap the pavement like gunshots and then I’m at state theatre with Josey Wales because Harry Callahan is back with Enforcer , and the other bad man because boy with gun is man not boy, and every time Clint Eastwood shoot up a boy Josey Wales sing people are you ready? we sing Bow! Oh Lord, and shoot up the screen till all we see is hole and smoke. And everybody would have run out of the theatre but they know they better keep rolling the film or we’ll come up into the screen room and enforce. And before I fire again at the screen I remember me in Rema fields not the movie theatre and we firing up a house and a shop still open and people running and screaming, Yes, pusssyhole, run run ’cause gunman ah come chil-li-li-boom-boom-eh! but we not to shoot anybody well not to kill them and this make me really really mad and I still want to fuck fuck fuck and I don’t know why I want to fuck so bad but can’t get no cock-stand so I run down one of the girls and shout I goin’ kill you and a grab her and I want to but Weeper grab me and butt me in the face with him gun and say what the fuck take you? This is warning nothing else and I want to kill him too, but he already signaling that we leave because though Rema man can’t afford anything, one or two of them have guns too, but who care ’bout Rema pussyhole? Bullet bounce off me like Superman. Me take the S off of Superman chest and the B off Batman belly. We see a boy and chase after him, but he disappear like a mouse in a hole that spring up only for mouse and I shout out for the battyman to come out and die like real man, I want to kill him so bad, I want to kill kill kill then a dog come out and I run after the dog because I want to kill this dog, I need to kill the dog, I going to kill this dog, I kill this dog! Josey Wales and the others running to the truck and they catch a boy and kick him in the back and in the shin and in the batty and say that this be for all Rema pussyhole who think they can switch to PNP just so, you better remember say we have the gun and know where you stand, and they kick the boy again and he run off and I go to shoot him and Weeper look at me and I want to shoot him, I want to shoot him bad and I want to shoot him now now now but Weeper say get you pussycloth backside in the fucking car or every man here going full you up of so much bullet that you goin’ whistle in the breeze and I don’t know because when I want to fuck, I want to fuck fuck fuck and when I want to kill, I want to kill kill kill and now that I don’t want to die, I ’fraid ’fraid ’fraid and I never ’fraid like that ever and my heart beating real real bad. But I jump in the backseat and I think of the shooting and how it feel better than good and how I feel better than good but also how just as I started to think I feel better than good I started to not feel so good. Leaving that fish town without killing somebody make me feel like how some people feel when a person dead and I don’t know why. It’s not something to feel anything about and yet still. And the darkness was never so dark and the drive was never so long even though it wasn’t far and I knew that Weeper was mad at me but I thought he was going to kill me and kill everybody and the entire Copenhagen City grey and rusty and dirty and I hate it and don’t know why since it was all I know and all I can think is that when I smoke that thing everything look good and every road was pretty and every woman I wanted to fuck now and when I fired that gun I could kill anybody and it would be the greatest killing ever and now I didn’t have that greatest killing ever and now red wasn’t the reddest red and blue wasn’t the bluest blue and the rhythm wasn’t the sweetest rhythm and all these things made me sad but also something that I can’t describe and I want one thing. To feel good again and right now. Right now.