Marlon James - A Brief History of Seven Killings

Busted and he knows it. Here it comes, his You mean me? face.

— Wha’appen, Daddy?

— Batman. He’s really lonely here on this seat. Where did Superman go?

— Maybe he fell.

— Hand it over, little man. Or I’ll walk you to your classroom myself. And I’ll hold your hand the entire way.

That did it, the fate worse than death. He looks at his younger brother, who, God bless him, still thinks his pop holding his hand is the greatest idea in the world. Timmy throws Superman in the car.

— Babylon business this.

— Hey!

— I’m sorry, Dad.

— Your mom’s in the car too.

— Sorry, Mom, can I go now?

I wave him off.

— Have a great Christmas party, honey!

The scowl on his face is worth the whole trip. She harrumphs ’round the back. Mrs. Diflorio. I thought she would have said something by now, but she was transfixed by some article in Vogue Patterns , some shit that she’ll bring to her crocheting circle so she can add a new collar to the red dress she loves wearing so much. I’m being cruel. It’s a book club, not a crocheting circle. Except I never see her with a book. She doesn’t bother to come up to the front seat. Instead she says,

— Maybe they’ll have a Santa with red cartridge paper on his head and a pillowcase full of cheap candy, and he’ll just say no problem mon, instead of ho ho ho.

— Well, take a look at Daddy’s little bigot.

— Don’t give me that shit, Barry, I have more black friends than you.

— Don’t know if Nelly Matar would like to know you call her black behind her back.

— You’re missing the point. Last Christmas was supposed to be the last Christmas I spend, we spend, in a foreign country.

— Good Lord, here I thought I had stashed away this broken record.

— I promised Mom we would be in Vermont for Christmas.

— No you didn’t, come off it, Claire. And you forget that your mom likes me a whole lot more than she likes you.

— You bastard, why would you say something like that?

— What is it with you women? You just never know, do you? Ever occur to you that nagging on and on about a point might not be the best way to make it?

— Oh I’m sorry, you must be mistaking me for your Stepford wife. Maybe we can swing back to the house and pick her up.

— Well, we’re headed that way.

— Screw you, Barry.

I think of at least ten ways to respond to this, including mentioning that we had sex only last night. Maybe it would defuse her, or maybe she would accuse me of patronizing, or changing the subject. Mind you, she doesn’t have a fucking subject. It’s December 3 and I have way too much to think about right now for this woman to be coming at me again and again. Every response I can think of I’ve said over a dozen times so I shut up. I already know where this will fucking lead. In silence we drive all the way down to the intersection of Lady Musgrave Road and Hope Road. At the stoplight she gets out and jumps into the front seat. I turn left.

— What’s Aiden doing?

— Nodding off between two pages of The Lorax .

— Oh.

— Well?

— Well what? I’m driving, honey.

— You know, Barry, men like you ask a lot of their wives, a whole lot. And we do it. You know why we do it? Because you’ve convinced us that it’s temporary. We even go along when temporary means every two years we have to find new friends just so we don’t die of boredom. We even go along with the poor way of raising children, uprooting them for no reason just at the point when they finally build connections—

— Connections, huh?

— Let me finish. Yes, connections you never had disrupted when you were a kid.

— What are you talking about? My dad moved us all the time.

— Well, no wonder you have no idea what a friend is. I guess I should just be happy that we’re in an English-speaking country for a change. For a while I couldn’t understand my own son.

She can go on and on about the marriage, or the kids, or the job, or Ecuador or this fucking country and I wouldn’t care. It’s stuff like this that pisses me off, makes me really fucking hate her.

— Because you promised an end, you promised us something at the end of it that would be worth it, even if it means more time for your family. But you know what you are, Barry? You’re a liar. Just a big liar to your wife and your children, all for a job that who knows what you do? You’re probably not even good at it since you never seem to get a good desk. You’re just such a fucking liar.

— Please, enough.

— Enough?

— Lay off. I’ve had enough, Claire.

— Enough what, or you’ll what, Barry? Sign us up for more years, in where, Angola this time? Maybe the Balkans, Morocco? I swear to God if we go to Morocco I’ll sunbathe topless.

— Enough, Claire.

— Enough or what?

— Enough or I’ll shove this fucking fist between your two fucking eyes so fast that it’ll burst through the back of your fucking skull and shatter this fucking glass.

She sits there like she’s not looking at me, but not staring out at the road either. It doesn’t happen often, a reminder that maybe her husband has killed for a living so all bets are off. I could leave her like this, at least it would give me some fucking peace. This is punching below the belt, tapping into the fear that every company wife has for her husband. If I were a wife beater she would be suffering in silence for the rest of her life and not even her fucking father would care. But then not only would she be afraid of me but she would teach that fear to my kids. Then I’ll become just like the others, like Louis Johnson, who I hear actually does hit his wife. I give her an in to come back out on top.

— Sunbathe topless, my ass. That just makes you a WASP chick that sucks dick. Catnip for the fucking Moroccans.

— Wonderful, now you’re whoring out your own wife.

— Well, you do have that sexy new haircut, I say, but she’s gone off.

Nothing gets her going more than the sense that she is being ignored. I can hear her volume increase. I’m tempted to say you’re welcome, instead I turn around and see it, just popping out of nowhere. His house. I drive past this house all the time and yet I don’t think I have ever looked at it. It’s one of those houses that must tell you that it’s had a long past. I heard that Lady Musgrave Road happened because she was so horrified that a black man had built a mansion on her route that she had her own road built. Racism here is sour and sticky, but it goes down so smooth that you’re tempted to be racist with a Jamaican just to see if they would even get it. But the Singer’s house is just standing there.

— You giving him a lift somewhere?

— What? Who?

— We’ve been idling at his house for over a minute now. What are you waiting for, Barry?

— I don’t know what you’re talking about. And how do you know whose house this is?

— Every now and then I climb out from under that rock where you put me.

— Didn’t think you’d care for someone so, so wild, so unkempt.

— Christ, you really are my mother. I quite like wild and unkempt. He’s like Byron. Byron’s a—

— Stop treating me like I’m a goddamn idiot, Claire.

— Wild and unkempt. He’s like a black lion. Wish I had some wildness. Instead I got Yale. Nelly thinks he wears leather pants really well. Really well.

— Trying to make me jealous, sweetheart? It’s been a while.

— Honey, I’ve not tried to make you anything in four years. Come to think of it, Nelly did say there was a reception for the peace concert tonight and she—

— Don’t fucking go over there tonight!