Marlon James - A Brief History of Seven Killings

Soldier in brown-green uniform with plenty pockets and shiny black boots. Soldier don’t act like we is crime and them is order, soldier act like we is enemy and this is war. They go through every one of the tenements and yards and even the community center and the reason is this: ’round the same time they find we hospital in Copenhagen, they find two cell in Rema that they use as prison. Rema gunman who supposed to answer to me, kidnap two man from the Eight Lanes and hold them for nine hours and beat them. That is what they tell the police who raid Rema and find the cell. Then they raid we and drag we out of we house, some of we still in brief, some of we cover up in nothing but towel. Me no mind Rema having cell to deal with a PNP youth who think him bad. And understand me again, me no want no ism or schism named communism in this yah country. Me no want no socialism, or communism or tribalism where PNP boy move in and take we space. But me have big problem with not knowing shit ’bout it.

The police take we to jail and lock we up for three days, long enough for we to overrun the cell with we own shit and manstink. One window in the cell and me sit by it but never say nothing. Not to Josey, not to Weeper, not to anybody. Me just see and wait. While me in jail two bombs explode in Elysium Gardens.

Doctor Love.

S o this source, right? Tells me that the Singer might have been involved in a horse-racing scam at Caymanas Park some months ago. In Jamaica people have a way of saying that if shit didn’t go down a certain way, then the truth is probably not far from it. If it no go so it go near so . I don’t believe for a second that the Singer could be involved in any kind of scam, that’s just fucking crazy. But I’m pretty sure someone is taking a shit and stinking up his own house. My source even told me that one afternoon, maybe couple weeks ago, the Singer came back from Fort Clarence Beach, which already made no sense since even I, a white man and the embodiment of Babylon, knows that he goes to Buff Bay every morning, like clockwork. Few people seemed to know why he went to Fort Clarence, which is curious. He went with some people who came for him, and only one of them did his own people recognize. Then he comes back home three hours later, so furious that his face was red the rest of the day.

Aisha left almost four hours ago, I think. I’m in the hotel room still on the bed and still looking at my belly. This whole fucking trip is a bust. I don’t know what I’m doing here. I mean, I know what I’m doing here. I’m the equivalent of the National Enquirer scandal hunter for the rag that scooped the Daniel Ellsberg interview. But I’m worse than that, I’m the little lowlife that captions the photo of what some fuck with only one hit song was wearing in the studio. This whole job is just plain bogus. But maybe I should stop looking at my belly and focus. Besides, feeling sorry for oneself is so 1975. Something is coming, I can feel it. Maybe it’s something in music, I don’t know. I’m on my bed, smelling Aisha’s perfume in the sheets and looking at the sun hitting the window when the phone rings.

— In the middle of something… or somebody? he says.

— Nice. Been working on that delivery all morning, huh?

— Haha. Fuck you too, Pierce.

Mark Lansing. At some point I need to find out how this cunt knew how to reach me.

— Nice day, isn’t it? Isn’t it a nice day?

— Looks like any other from this hotel window if you ask me.

— Hold the fucking mayo. You’re still in bed? Working girl must have been one hot bitch. You, my man, need to have a better outlook on life.

For the life of me, I don’t know if it’s because I’m the only American here he knows or if he’s under the seriously mistaken idea that we’re buddies.

— What’s shaking, Lansing?

— I was thinking about you this morning.

— To what do I owe that act of charity?

— Well, lots of things. I mean, you’re pathetic, but I’m your friend, so I get to tell you that.

I want to tell him he’s not my friend, that I wouldn’t befriend him if he was all that could stop me from being buttfucked raw by Satan and his ten big-dicked demons, but he’s in that one mode where he’s actually interesting. When he needs you for something but is way too arrogant to ever come out and say it.

— So yesterday evening I’m in this room with the Singer—

— What room? What the fuck are you talking about, Lansing?

— I’d be much better able to talk about it without you fucking interrupting me, Pierce. What, your mom didn’t have any Emily Post books when you were growing up?

— Raised by wolves, Lansing. Raised by wolves.

I’m tempted now to go way off topic, far into fucking space, because I know how much it annoys him when I don’t pay attention to what he says.

— In fact I was only just now reflecting on how my mother did it, catching and killing her own meat. Seriously, speaking of Emily Post, I had an ex-girlfr—

— What the fuck, Pierce. I don’t give a fuck about your fucking mother. Or your ex-girlfriend.

— You should. She was fine. Not your type, though.

Seriously, I could do this all day. I wish I was right in front of him to see his face get red.

— Pierce, seriously what the fuck, hombre ?

Hombre? That’s new. I should use it so that he’ll think he just started some new slang or something, because “hold the mayo” is going fucking nowhere.

— You were saying about this morning. Your thoughts ran on me for some reason?

— What? Oh. Yeah. Yeah, this morning. Here I was, with some guy from Newsweek , yeah? And some chick from Billboard , and some other chick, yeah? I think she introduced herself as Melody Maker , yeah. They’re all asking the Singer some questions about this peace concert, though his manager did most of the talking. Yeah, it was a conference at his house.

He’s fucking lying. There’s no way he could have had a press conference this morning without me knowing about it. And why is Lansing speaking cockney all of a sudden?

— Yeah, it was pretty quick so they probably didn’t have time to contact you. But don’t worry, my man. Some guy from Rolling Stone was there, or at least he said he was from Rolling Stone , which was odd. I mean, don’t you work for those guys?

— This guy from Rolling Stone , did he say who he was?

— Fuck if I remember. The second I heard Rolling Stone , I immediately thought of my good buddy Alex Pierce.

— How nice of you. Buddy.

I’m trying to think of a polite way to get this asswipe off the phone so I can call my fucking boss to see if it’s true. I could say that it’s just like this turd Lansing to pull some shit like this. Like somebody with no friends, he never could gauge when a joke went too far or just wasn’t fucking funny. But if this is true, it would be a new low for this fucking magazine, I swear to God. Shit. Fucking shit. So they leave the real journalism to… who the fuck knows? Robert Palmer? DeCurtis? Meanwhile they send me off to write about fucking Bianca Jagger filing her nails, while her husband records some reggae shit. I mean, if that’s all they want from me, why not just send the fucking photographer, who by the way, I’ve yet to meet. Fuck this. Seriously, fuck this.

— And here I was thinking, this must blow for my buddy Alex, he just can’t seem to get a break.

— What do you want, Lansing?

— To be called Mark, for one.

— Lansing, what do you want?

— I was thinking more about what you want, Pierce.

Thirty minutes later I’m under an umbrella by the poolside of the Jamaica Pegasus. White men in bikinis by the pool are fatter, and their wives are tanner, both of which means richer, especially given how many of these women are younger. I don’t know who they are since Kingston is not really a touristy kinda place and everybody here is here on business. Lansing was so convinced he had something I wanted that I was sorta convinced too. Now I’m here wavering between what the fuck, Alex, and maybe he actually has something I want . Either way I’m curious.