Marlon James - A Brief History of Seven Killings

— Sweden’s socialist.

— You know too fucking much, dear.

— You pick the weirdest times to swear, dear .

— All ism’s lead to communism.

— Is that what they taught you in Death to Commies 101 at Yale? I’ve been married to you a long time, Barry. A long time. And I know you. When you can’t shoot straight, which is most of the time, you befuddle with bullshit.

— Excuse me?

— Some of it, some of what you’re saying makes some… some sorta sense. I guess. But this… no. No. Either there’s some stuff going on you’re not telling me, or there’s some stuff nobody’s telling you. Jesus, you’re such a desk clerk.

— What do you mean, some stuff?

— Something more than that. All of that is economic, and yes, all that adds up, but we’ve only been here ten months, Barry, and your little game takes at least three years, six if you add up all the time in South America. No, there’s something else. Something in the air. A natural mystic.

— What the fuck does that mean?

— It wouldn’t even make sense to explain it to you. We’re here.

T he sun rise up and squat down on the sky like it no have nowhere to go. This too, though is barely ten o’clock, heat already creeping into the house. First through the kitchen that nearest to outside, then the living room, east to west, chair by chair, so that when me sit down in the settee by the window me almost jump up fast. I still restless. Preacher said man like me will never know peace and I accept that. But something ’bout today feel specially off and it have something to do with Josey Wales. Election in two weeks and Josey meeting with Peter Nasser and the American and the Cuban who I don’t see since January. But the JLP need to win the country and they will do anything to make it happen.

I think I know what that mean. Josey planning something they think me don’t have the gumption to do. Gentlepeople, they is right. Plenty things happen in 1976. Yes, when that school boy run into me bullet, that was it, but truth be told me get tired of the taste of blood long time ago. Me never even like it to begin with. Don’t make no mistake, it don’t take nothing to kill a man and even less to not care that him dead. Certain parts of town you let the baby walk the street and you leave him when he play in the shit water. And when him get sick so that he is just a ballooning, bursting screaming belly that used to be a baby, you take your time to go to clinic which too packed anyway and the baby dead while you waiting in the line, or maybe you take pity and cover the baby with your pillow the night before, and either way, you see and wait, because death is the best thing you could do for him.

Is only two weeks before election and people bussing gunshot every day. Me and Shotta Sherrif both claim that we want peace, but it only take one shot, from a gang like Enforcers in Spanish Town, or the Wang Gang who say they didn’t sign no bloodcloth treaty. It only take one shot. And even if we want peace, man like Peter Nasser need him party to win and don’t care how. I usually don’t care how either. But how come a little election in a little country become such a big thing? Why America care about we so much all of a sudden? This is not ’bout territory, this is not ’bout statement. I think of Josey and I think of all these Americans and I think of Peter Nasser, and I think of Copenhagen City and the Eight Lanes and Kingston and Jamaica and the world, and wonder what kind of bad boy statement would make the whole world look? And just like so it hit me like Revelation. I know what Josey going to do. Me shake in me bones, the orange juice slip out of me hand and drop on the floor. Glass, but it hit my foot first and didn’t break. Orange juice sweep across the floor slow, like blood.

— Jesus Christ, Papa, you don’t think I have enough to do today?

She down on the floor with a rag and a pail before I even realize what going on. Go outside and put yourself to some use, she say. Outside make me glad that I wearing only a mesh shirt. Josey. If the Orange Street tenement fire wasn’t big enough a statement even Jesus would drop him orange juice over what him, them, must be planning. Something that don’t involve me. What can be so big and so dark that it too dark for Papa-Lo?

Me don’t know what to do, but me legs start walking to Josey Wales’ house. Something about the seeing this Cuban with him fuckery name, Doctor Love, make me think serious thoughts. Last time he was here in January, he and Josey Wales go downtown near PNP territory and blow up four car by the harbour, one after the other. He do it just to show off and nobody get kill but he seed something in Josey Wales that growing still. Me legs moving forwards but me mind moving backwards. Back to last December and January and every month till now. You look at certain things and they is just certain things. Look at them another way and certain things add up to one big thing, one terrible thing, all the more terrible because you never add them up before.

January was the last time Peter Nasser call me. Now him call Josey Wales. He call me to say the IMF coming for meeting. The IMF being some group of big man from rich country all over the world who deciding whether to give Jamaica money to haul itself out of the doo-doo pit. That is exactly what Peter Nasser say, since he still think he have to break serious matters down to basic school lyrics for the ghetto boy to understand it. Me was this close to tell him fuck off, me know the difference between ostentatious and loquacious and neither word describe him even when other man write him speech. This is what Peter Nasser also say, that if Michael Manley convince the IMF to give the country money, then he going use it to plunge the country into the darkness of communism.

Doctor Love was there to tell everybody about communism. How Fidel Castro take over from the great leader Batista and just move in him house and kill everybody from before. How he tear down all these capitalist things like school and shop but keep the gogo club Tropicana even though rumour be that the commandante can’t get him little sergeant up for years now. How soon they start to just round up men and lock them up, just like the PNP for this whole state of emergency. Doctor Love talk about when he was in lockup and how some man in jail for no reason, but them was doctor, or lawyer or civil servant which mean they was against communism. He lock up even woman and children. One day him best friend escape to the side wall of the prison thinking it was just ten feet drop to the road, but it was a fifty-foot drop and he jump anyway thinking he would miss the ground and land in the sea. That brother didn’t land in the sea. People, this was what Michael Manley wanted to bring to Jamaica and the IMF was going to give him money to do it. IMF stand for Is Manley Fault, Peter Nasser say.

January barely born and we set to work. The American show up with a case full of things the Cuban have to teach we how to use. Wish we had these during Bay of Pigs, muchachos , he say plenty time. Him already know Josey when me meet him but me never have time to remark ’bout that. Them guns not like guns from 1966 or 1972. Them gun you have to brace on your shoulder, put in one charge and fire. Our best gun can knock down a man even as the bullet tear through the heart. This bazooka can knock down a wall. I pick up an M1 and don’t put it down. Josey hold on to his old gun, but he don’t tell the American that is an AK-47 though me sure the Cuban recognize it. We take the Cuban to the Garbagelands out far west for him to teach the boys. January 5 me lead a mission to Jonestown while Josey go after Trench Town where the Singer used to live. Trench Town think that make them untouchable but them not.