Marlon James - A Brief History of Seven Killings

— Driver, is which hotel him staying?

— Skyline, miss.

— Oh. Clean sheets then.

She’s fast asleep in bed and I’m totally naked and looking at my belly in the mirror. When did it get so soft? Mick Jagger never gets a belly. I turn on the radio and the Prime Minister just announced a general election in two weeks. Damn, that’s hard to core right there. I wonder what the Singer thinks, if the government set him up to piggyback on the good vibes from his upcoming concert. What else could it have been, Third World leaders kinda revel in a sorta obviousness, I hear. It just seems so awfully convenient.

I’m supposed to have lunch, or rather coffee, with Mark Lansing. Ran into him in the Pegasus Hotel lobby last night, after another powercut. Went downstairs looking for smokes but the gift shop was already closed, so I walked over to the Pegasus and who should I see in the lobby like he was just waiting for somebody to see him? How’d the Antonioni shoot go? I said and he snickered twice, not sure if he should answer or find it funny. Too busy with my own stuff, though there has been offers, he says. I’d ask Mark Lansing what he thinks about this sudden election announcement, but he’d be so stunned that I asked him a serious question about politics that he’ll just give me a shitty answer and ask why do I need to know since I only write for a music magazine, the same one he once said he read every week.

At some point I must have mentioned how much I’ve been trying to get thirty minutes with the Singer or he must have heard from someone, because now he felt that I needed something from him. I remember it, him saying the exact words poor guy maybe there is something I can do for you . I did not tell this asshole to go fuck himself because, funnily, in that one split second I felt sorry for him. Loser has been waiting to have something over somebody for years. Now I’m having lunch with him later, so he can tell me how fricking awesome he is for getting to film the Singer with his expensive camera, and he’ll use the word fricking. He told me it was expensive but never told me the brand, thinking I wouldn’t know anyway. Fucking idiot probably went to bed with a stupid grin on his face, saying to himself, Look at me, motherfucker, I’m finally cooler than you. I need to get me some coffee real quick before I start to totally spazz out and freak the fuck out of Aisha. She’s still asleep.

P eople like me love to talk, everybody know that. Me par with the Singer because he love to talk too, even when he pick up the guitar and making ism rhyme with schism he still talking. And even when he rhyming ism with schism he still expect you to talk back, for is conversation we having, people. The reggae is nothing more than a man talking, reasoning with another man, conversating to and fro, as I would say.

But check this. Some man don’t talk. And just as how man who love to talk par with man who also love to talk, man who keep quiet par with man who keep quiet. Man who keep secret par with man who keep secret. You go to certain party, certain meeting, and you see Josey Wales go up to certain man, or they go up to him, and together they keep quiet. But last night was a hot night with no moon and today barely born. Me sleep for one hour and wake up with restlessness in the spirit. For too long now, way too long, something trap up in my head that must come down out my mouth. If I was a writing man it would have come down on the paper. If I was a Catholic it would come out all over the confession booth.

My woman gone to the kitchen to boil tea, and cook corned pork and yam. She know what me like and laugh when me cuss her out ’bout her donkey hee-hawing in the night. You don’t complain when me make other sound in the night, she say and take her jiggly backside to the kitchen. I slap it before she gone far and she look at me and say mind me tell you singing friend that you still eating pork ’pon the quiet. For a second I think she mean it, then she laugh and walk off singing “Girl I’ve Got a Date.” Some man never get the woman who cure them from looking for other woman. But even she can’t do nothing ’bout the restlessness in the spirit. She can make the food sweeter, and rub my head down softer, and she know when to tell the man them don’t come ’round the house today, but she know there be nothing she can do or say to put the spirit at ease.

Maybe because is December. After all, only when we come to Reve lation that we take stock of Genesis, right? Going to December make me think about January. And not just because the PNP fucked up the country. Everybody know that communist done infiltrate Jamaica. More and more Cubans coming here, but nobody know that more and more Jamaicans going there. And when they come back, they can work an AK-47 like them born to control it. True thing, a school getting build over in St. Catherine and not one man on the job speak English. Then before even God can say, But wait a minute is what this? every doctor in the hospital now name Ernesto and Pablo. But January take something from me and give it to Josey Wales. And right now, everybody know.

Early in December before he give we any work or any money or any goodwill package for Christmas, Peter Nasser give me a message. He say tell your people that come this season and afterwards to boil more banana, and roast more yam, fry more potato and dig up more dasheen, but forget dumpling or fritters or cake or anything that need flour. I don’t even notice what he say too good, don’t even remember passing on the message to the community or even how it spread, unless me did tell me woman.

December 30 was the first one. January 2 end with three more. Then on January 22, God leave St. Thomas. Thirteen people, family and friend, start have headache, fits, vomiting and a few go blind. They shit and shit and couldn’t stop shit, they faint and wake up and faint and shake like God striking each of them with lightning. And even after them dead, they couldn’t stop shit and shake. All of them dead the same day from the same lunch. Rumour burst open like polio in 1964 and many man and woman lock up themself ’cause they frighten. It in the flour, it in the flour, it in the flour, they say. The flour have death write in it and death make a mark on seventeen people heart. The next day the health minister say that the counter flour that come over to Jamaica on a German ship did poison with a plant killer they call Mother-in-Law poison. But Jamaica know the poison, we ban it from before Ocean’s Eleven .

Peter Nasser show himself in January. Again, he come hug me, but ask Josey Wales how the car working with the new battery, and me wonder how that become him business. But he talk to me in way he don’t talk to Josey Wales. Telling me ’bout how IMF should really stand for Is Manley Fault, he can’t save the country, can’t protect it, can’t even control it. Funny how he talk to Josey Wales ’bout car battery and girl and invite him to shoot clay pigeon on Tuesday, but he talk to me about politics. Me tell Josey Wales, and Chinaman, and Weeper and more, that some white businessman and politician was coming down to get convince that the Prime Minister can run the country. By the time we done, them shouldn’t even believe he can run Kingston.

Me never need convincing, PNP never do nothing for anybody but the PNP. Is JLP that come to the ghetto without we having to beg first, come in the fifties when me reach as far as me going with school and turn the nasty shit run place into building like them building on Good Times TV show. Then they build Copenhagen City and for the first time in my mother life she bathe in private. Them talk they talk, but is not PNP come to the ghetto, they only come after Copenhagen City build and set up some hurry come up piece of shit place that call the Eight Lanes. They pack them little lanes with nothing but PNP people to antagonize we, but any fool can shoot.