Marlon James - A Brief History of Seven Killings

— With him.

— Ay.

— So what is your claim to fame then?

— You heard of this Carlos the Jackal, no?

— No.

— Funny, he’s heard about you. He’s been hiding out here for a good while, ever since shit went down in a major, how do you say… fiasco with OPEC. Even fucking a few of your women, I am sure of this. I taught him a few things because truth be told, he’s shitty excuse of a terrorist. Catholic school boys all wanting to be fucking revolutionaries, I tell you the whole thing makes me sick.

— You a real doctor?

— You sick, hombre ?

— No. You don’t sound Cuban.

— I did my schooling in Oslo, muchacho .

— You see any boy here?

— Ha. My mistake. Pero todo es un error en este país de mierda .

— Not half a mistake as the stupid country you’re coming from.

— ¿Por Dios, hablas español?

I nod yes.

— CIA hombre , he knows you think?

I nod no.

— Want to hear something? Act as if you are deaf, you understand this, as if you are deaf.

— ¿Louis, por qué me has sacado de mi propio jodido país para hablar mierda con ese hijo de puta?

— Luis, Luis, nada más enséñale al negrito de mierda alguna bobería como una carta bomba. O préstale el libro de cocina del anarquista, qué sé yo. Él y sus muchachos son unos comemierdas, pero son útiles. Por lo menos por ahora . He’s saying he likes you, Josey.

— Me no know. He don’t sound too friendly.

Doctor Love laugh. He look at me and smile. Always good to know who your friends are, isn’t that so? he say. Anyway, I think you wanna know my claim to fame, no? Meet me at Kingston Harbour tomorrow and I will show you, my friend.

— Me done learn enough tricks from the CIA.

— But CIA didn’t send me, amigo . I bring greetings from Medellín.

This was right before Christmas season, after a whole year of PNP boys chucking badness all over Kingston. The next day I meet him at Kingston Harbour, downtown out by the dock. The morning was lazy, not too much people out yet but car line the road right around the harbour. People working early, must be, I can’t imagine anybody leaving their car down here overnight — even though funny enough that would be the safest place in Kingston to leave it. And even more funny, some people still live down here and live good too. I didn’t see him for a while and think this was joke. Bad enough that I was downtown with no back-up in territory where Buntin-Banton gang still move. Down by the harbour almost all the building look like from a TV show set in New York. Bank of Jamaica, Bank of Nova Scotia, two hotels that must did think a different kind of Kingston was going to happen before Manley take over with his socialism-communism bullshit. Anyway, I didn’t see him since he was coming up behind me. He tap my shoulder then put his finger on his lip to tell me to stay quiet even though he was smiling the whole time.

He take off his knapsack and jog down almost to the end of the road. He go from car to car, pausing at some, frowning at others. Some of them he even stoop down but I couldn’t tell if he was checking tire, fender, whatever the fuck he was looking for. I wonder why I come out in the first place. He hop from a red Volkswagen, to a white Cortina, to a white Escort and a black Camaro. He keep stooping down but he was on the other side of the car. I couldn’t tell what he was doing. If he did think me wake up early to come down in war territory just to see how Norway-educated Cuban rob car or slash tire he was about to deal with one very mad Jamaican. He jump up from the last one and trot over to me like some school girl. He tie his hair back into a ponytail and have on dark glasses and t-shirt saying Welcome Back Kotter.

— Amigo , I have a word for you.

— What? What word? What the fuck you talking—

— Duck.

— What?

— Duck, he said and push me down.

The red Volkswagen roof blow off right up into the sky before the rest of the car explode sideways. The road start shaking like an earthquake — waves in the road like wind fucking up sea — then the Cortina explode. The Escort explode with two booms which lift it up straight into the sky, where it flip back on what did leave of the Cortina. The Camaro had to sit there while its face blow off, tire in the sky like flying saucer.

Doctor Love laugh at each explosion, yelling like a little boy with each boom. I couldn’t tell if people get kill, but I don’t think so. Glass all around shatter and people screaming. The whole time I’m flat in the road with this laughing Cuban on top of me.

— You impressed yet, amigo ?

— If anybody see me, them going think is me behind this, fool.

— Then let them think it. You want to impress Medellín or not? You John the Baptist? Let me know quick so I can go search for Jesus.

Luis Hernán Rodrigo de las Casas. Doctor Love. Two month ago in Barbados a Cubana plane take off from Sewell Airport heading for Jamaica. Twelve minutes and eighteen thousand feet later two bomb explode. Plane crash killing everybody including the entire Cuban fencing team and five people from North Korea. There are things that Doctor Love learn from the CIA ever since he join Coordination of United Revolutionary Organizations, another one of those group that seem to form every month to get rid of Castro. Give the Doctor this, he was the first man not to arch an eyebrow when he realize that I know all this shit. Louis Johnson still don’t really believe I can read, which might be why he keep showing me grocery list upside down and saying it’s a classified document. Anyway, Doctor Love learn a lot of things from The School of the Americas, one was to blow things to kingdom come. And then he start teaching it. He said he wasn’t even in Barbados when the Cubana blow up, but here. And now he back again, probably because somebody in Colombia need an extra set of eye in Jamaica today.

I leave Weeper on the couch, him sleeping in his red brief. I leave him now sleeping on his back, hand resting on balls, which just make sense. I want to pick up his glasses and put them on, maybe see the world how he see it, but something stop me and no, I’m not even going to think that it was fear. I pick up his pants because my woman not tolerating such facetiness on her floor and feel a bulge in the back pocket. A book with no cover and no back pages. I wonder if they was plain like in most book and Weeper was writing letters on them to the man in prison. I turn a few pages and there the title be: Bertrand Russell, The Problems of Philosophy . I ask Doctor Love if he ever read Bertrand Russell. He say yes, but after Heidegger, Russell is just a pansy with a Nobel prize. I don’t know what the fuck he’s talking about, but I know I’m waiting for the moment to spring that on Weeper. Anyway, he was fast asleep when I leave him, good too because I didn’t want him to follow.

When you come into the real truth about yourself, you realize that the only person equipped to handle it is you. Some men can’t even handle that, which is why Bellevue always full. Some men can’t handle knowing what they are capable of. I thought I know it until Doctor Love teach me, not even a year ago. Orange Street, the tenement yard full of nothing but PNP pussyhole.

— You want to impress bigger… how you say this, shark?

— Bigger fish.

— Yes, this is so. Bigger fish than Peter Nasser?

— You mean the head, I already—

— Bigger than that. Bigger than this country, chico . We’ve been using the Puerto Ricans and the Bahamians, but both are full of shitters.

— Don’t know what you talking about, Luis.

— Yes, you do. But let us say it is as you say, you don’t know. That gift that you don’t know about that America needs so much, that gift from Bogotá needs a new how do you say it? Santa Claus. Because the Santa in Puerto Rico got too fat the fuck, and the ones in Bahamas too stupid. Besides, our efforts to liberate Cuba from that impotent Catholic school boy, hijo de puta , stand best to succeed if it comes from here, because Jamaica and Cuba kissing cousins, no?