Marlon James - A Brief History of Seven Killings

Learn this, all nice and decent people. An election year commence as soon as the first gunshot buss. A ghetto always on guard but Jonestown sleeping, like they don’t know that this is 1976 and everybody have to sleep with one eye open. I almost feel to shoot them up just for their carelessness. We in five car, all the better since nobody in Jonestown have a good enough car to follow we. We don’t have time to think, just dash through, shower the place with plenty bullet and dash out. But in the back of the truck is our man with the bazooka. He fire at a bar, but the truck hit a pothole and he slip just as it bust, and little zinc house explode. The road shake. I shout for them to stop the truck to fire, but they taking too long to reload. Jonestown coming out and firing with them simple six-shooter gun and what sound like an AK. But we have new gun, gun that can seek and destroy, gun for people like Tony Pavarotti who take him time, aim, fire and never waste a bullet. Me driving the car with my M1 in me lap. I slam the brakes and burst out fire at a bunch of darkness running away from me. The bunch of darkness all fall down, but more bullet ratatat from the east and hit one or two of we, me not sure. Me shout at them to pull out, but not before the bazooka fire again. The fool miss again, but he hit the bus stop. Steel and zinc explode, flying everywhere and smashing into everything like when a tornado spit on TV. We pull out.

Josey Wales set out for Trench Town with just one man and Doctor Love. I shout out that he mad to go with so few but things now at the place where even when I shout Josey Wales don’t hear me. They set off in Josey’s white Datsun. One day later, is Josey that make the news. Two tenement yard in Trench Town blow up with explosive, seven house, a bar and a shop burn to the ground from fire. Peter Nasser call me and read a story about it from the New York Times on the phone then cuss because me wasn’t laughing as loud as him. He hang up and I know where him phone ring next. I still can’t remember when Josey Wales get phone.

January 6, police buss in on the Wang Gang because they live on Wang Sang Lands, a ghetto that is JLP but not controlled by we. Them boys have plans, and diagram and chart. And explosive. Two of them know the Cuban by him other name, Doctor Love, and the rest even talk about how they get gun from America. Me cuss ’bout all them little upstarts that nobody controlling will turn out to be a bigger problem than Shotta Sherrif. Still me picture Shotta Sherrif over in the Eight Lanes with him eye trying hard to stay open, just like me.

January 7, six boy from here buss ’pon a construction site on Marcus Garvey Drive and kill two policeman. I only know because I hear them laughing when they drive past me on the way back. Me lose me cool right away.

— Who the bloodcloth send you out to go shoot up construction site? me say, but the first boy start laugh at me. My bullet bust through him right eye and leave through the back of him head before he finish laugh.

— Who send you out, I say again and point me gun at another boy. Then something happen that me didn’t have a pen to mark with so me mark it by scratching me gun with a stone later. The rest of the boy pull them gun at me. Me couldn’t believe it. Me stand there watching them watching me and don’t say nothing. Then one of the boys looking at me burst blood from the top of him head and all down flat. The rest of them drop them guns and start to bawl and cry like they just remember that none of them reach seventeen yet. I turn ’round and there is Tony Pavarotti, holding him rifle and looking into the viewer and beside him Josey Wales. Both then turn and walk away. The same day, the Wang Gang attack a construction site on Marcus Garvey Drive and kill two policeman. The day after, this idiot government make a new law: anybody them find with a gun get send to prison for life.

Peter Nasser tell we to put more pressure ’pon PNP communities so we put more pressure. More than Shotta Sherrif can handle with no Buntin-Banton and Dishrag to back him up. The Prime Minister then come up with idea that the people hire Home Guard to guard they house and street. People like Peter Nasser come on TV and say, Jamaica, I only have three words for that kind of measure: Ton Ton Macoutes. He call me to read some article from a newspaper in America name the Wall Street Journal .

—“Jamaica is not going communist. It is merely going bananas,” ha ha ha, you nah laugh, busha? It funny, man, it funny nuh bombocloth.

Then January 24. Seventeen people dead from counter flour.

February 10. Josey and Doctor Love and Tony Pavarotti leave out. In Jonestown and Trench Town, plenty bomb go off. Same month Wang Gang bust in on a youth club dance in Duhaney Park and kill five. Eight wounded.

March. Can’t remember which day. Police see Josey’s white Datsun and follow him all the way into Copenhagen City. The police demand that he get out of the car ’cause they plan to impound it. Copenhagen people come down on them like judgment with bottle, stone, stick, whatever and the police almost die like whore in the Bible. I remember two thing. The party leader himself have to come down to save the policemen. And two, Josey is a man of the people now.

All nice and decent people, me tell you a lie still. You think me stop like how blood taste when me kill that high school boy, but that was just part of it. And just because me stop like use gun don’t mean me did have a problem with how Josey did want to use him own, or even Tony Pavarotti, who never waste a bullet. But that Cuban man, that damn Cuban Doctor Love.

May 19. No, me don’t forget the date. He and Josey Wales go to the Orange Lane tenement, sneaking around like rat. But this time they take me. Maybe they did think there was something for me to see and it wasn’t just the boom. All the Cuban had with him was some white putty and some wire. But he find the one gas cylinder in the yard and stick the white putty on it. Or white bubble gum, and the second I think it’s bubble gum me wonder what is this little pickney shit and why Josey Wales like it so bad that he almost jump up and down like school girl and, as the Cuban say, blow we cover. Then he stick two wire in the putty, two wire that is part of a coil that reel it out far over the fence.

When the place explode, one whole wall blow apart, and what don’t blow apart catch fire from all the gas that spray. Josey had him gun ready for anybody who try to run out and for any fireman who try to run in. Me run from me hear the boom. I wonder if certain man look at me as a coward after that.

May, June and July, plenty tribulation did ’pon the city, brethren and sistren. War in Babylon spread to Spanish Town. The police learn a secret that did shut so tight that is the first time me telling all of you. We in Copenhagen City have we own hospital. We have it for years. The PNP didn’t know. Shotta Sherrif didn’t know, he did just think that Copenhagen City man hard to dead, that we invincible. Truth be that fi we hospital better than the rich people hospital up in Mona. Me no know who bust it, but the police find it in June. Them never know say we could treat gunshot better than any doctor in Jamaica. Me still don’t find out yet who bust the secret, but he better hope me find him before Josey Wales. At least me will give him six hours to run. But here is something me didn’t know until the damn newspaper tell me.

June was the first time in a long time police come right ’round to where me be and drag all of we out of jail. Me woman go to the door, but they kick it open and strike her in the face with a baton. Me about to say whoever do that dead tomorrow, but that would just give them reason to kill and they hungry for that reason for years now. Me only hear the door bust off the hinge and me woman scream. I run out of the bathroom to see fifteen machine gun already pointing at me. Every single gun here hungry for a gunman, so give we a reason, pussyhole, one of them say. This wasn’t no police, this was soldier.