Marlon James - A Brief History of Seven Killings

— Morris! Morris! I don’t want no damn nasty Rasta bastard pickney, you hear me? I don’t want no Rasta pickney in me house.

I look at Kimmy and wonder if this is what she wanted, if she didn’t realise it would get like this. My parents get attacked and she stays aways, not because she can’t deal with them being attacked but she can’t deal with any situation that she’s not the center of, even tragedy. Well, good for her. She wins. She knows I’m not going to say that she fucked him too. She knows I will trying to keep the sanity she’s dead set on taking away from her mother. I almost admire just how devious the bitch is. I want her to look at me and smile just to show that she knows that I know that she knows. My mother keeps shouting, Morris! Morris! Like it’s a magic spell where he supposed to appear.

The leather strap tears across my back, the tip landing at my neck like a scorpion just stung me. I scream but the strap slice across my back again and then two times on the back of my leg and I fall. My father grabs my left ankle and yanks me to him, my skirt pulls up and my panties are showing. He grabs me with his left hand and beat me with his belt. I’m screaming and Mummy’s screaming and Kimmy’s screaming. And he’s beating me like I’m ten. And I screaming for Daddy to stop and all he’s saying is damn girl need discipline I going discipline you in the bombocloth house no Daddy please Daddy discipline discipline and he beats my bottom and beat it again again and I twist and the belt cuts my right thigh and he’s swinging and don’t care where he hit my knuckle when I try to grab the big leather belt with all the rivet because he love cowboy belts and I can smell my welts and screaming Daddy Daddy Daddy and Mummy screaming Morris Morris Morris and Kimmy just screaming and the belt cutting all over me I twist and it hit me right in me pussy and I scream and Daddy saying discipline and discipline and discipline and he kicked me I know he kick me and he’s swinging and I’m struggling let go of me foot let go off me foot let go off me foot and I swing ’round and my right foot kicks him in the chest and it feel like an old man chest and he falls right back and coughs but it’s only the air not the sound and I still screaming no words just naaaaaah naaaah naaah and I grab the belt and I go over him and I swing it on his legs and I beat him beat the son of a bitch, beat him beat him beat naaaah naaaah naaah naaaaah and my mother scream again don’t kill me husband don’t kill me husband and he’s coughing and I see that I was beating him with the buckle not the strap and turn and I tighten the belt around my knuckles and I look at Kimmy.

M y secretary came back to me saying that Louis Johnson’s secretary had no idea where he went, which was her code for saying that she wasn’t telling. I had to get up from my own damn chair and walk down the corridor to this woman’s desk to ask if she enjoyed working here and plans to do so in the future. And should she plan to, then it was best to remember that she works for the Federal Government of the United States of America, not Louis Johnson. I could see her eyes widen even within the huge frames of her pink Batgirl glasses, and her forehead wrinkle even though that severe, car-grease ponytail didn’t fucking budge. Takes years in the embassy to learn to not look scared and she was almost there, almost, but you could tell she hadn’t quite yet figured out how to gauge the level of threat lying in the passive-aggressive remark from a superior. She couldn’t tell if I was fucking with her or not. Liguanea Club, Knutsford Boulevard.

I’ve been there of course. Reminded me of the Gentlemen’s Rodeo Club in Buenos Aires and certain clubs in Ecuador, Barbados and South Africa. Liguanea Club at the very least had dark-skinned people and quite a few Arabs doing the let’s-pretend-we’re-white thing which just never gets old. I leave the office and drive straight out onto Oxford Road where people are still waiting, in the sun, for visas, and head west. At the intersection of Oxford Road and Knutsford Boulevard I turn right, heading north. The guard at the gate takes a look at the white man in the car and doesn’t ask questions. The green Cortina is at the end of the parking lot. I park at the other end, even though I’m sure that Louis doesn’t know what car I drive.

Inside, the dining room was packed with white men dressed in suits on lunch break and beautiful brown women in tennis skirts drinking rum and Cokes. I heard them before I saw them, Louis throwing his head back then slapping de las Casas. Of course it was him. At first I wanted to go over there and ask Louis what the fuck was up, and do it in front of de las Casas. God, I hate that guy. He has this thing about him I only see in beauty queens and politicians. This “of all my mother’s kids I love me best” kinda thing. He thinks he’s a revolutionary, but he’s really just an opportunist. Louis and Luis, now there’s a comedy sketch waiting to happen.

I’m at the far end of the bar trying to not look like I’m looking over. Somewhere, someone is writing a spoof of a spy novel and I’m the idiot at the bar trying to be James Bond. Hell, if I’m going to do this maybe I should order a martini. They both get up and I suddenly realize that they may have to pass me to get to the parking lot. Johnson walks over to the open archway a few feet from his table and the Cuban follows. Outside in the lot his car driving out. I’m on the road in seconds, his car still only a couple hundred feet away. Thank God rush hour is rush hour everywhere in the world.

I haven’t had to follow a car since working with Adler in Ecuador. Yes I’m too old for adrenaline, but damn if it doesn’t take you over anyway. I really like this. I mean, I really, really like this. Maybe I should translate all this energy down to my cock and fuck, well, somebody.

Louis makes a left on Trafalgar Road into more traffic, then turns left again. A hundred or so yards down on a road I don’t know. Then he goes south, cuts across Half Way Tree Road, and before I know it, I’m in the ghetto. Or at least, the houses have gotten smaller and the road more narrow, and more and more roofs are just zinc sheets held down with bricks. Cement walls have turned to zinc with graffiti about the fuckery PNP, blackheart men, “Under Heavy Manners” and Rastafari. If I focus on them, on the green Cortina, I never have to think about how fucking bonkers this is, me a white man driving through what must be the blackest ghetto in Kingston. Half Way Tree is rough too, but I have never seen this. The thought comes that I might not know my way back, but I swallow it. They’ve picked up speed, I want to kick the gas but some little girl in a blue uniform might run out into the road at any minute.

Louis knows these roads. He’s come down here before. He comes down here a lot, I think. I didn’t even notice that my foot had pressed down on the gas, but I can hear my own car, see my hand twist the steering all of a sudden and the car swinging left, then first right, then over an exposed manhole. The car is hopping over bumps, jumping, tearing, screeching. The green car in sight, out of sight, vanishing around a corner only to appear when I skate around, behind three or four cars. God, I hope he’s not trying to lose me. I almost said “give me the slip.” I could feel it coming but I didn’t.

We’re on some sort of highway now, another stretch I have never seen. The houses are even smaller, zincer, poorer, and the people outside are heading where the green car is going. They look like hills rising on both sides of the road. It’s not until twenty or so feet away that I see what they are. Mountains and mountains of garbage — not mountains, dunes and dunes like the Sahara just switched out sand for junk and smoke. The smoke is sour and thick, like animals are burning as well. People are climbing all over the garbage dunes, even the burning ones, digging through the junk and stuffing whatever in black plastic bags. I almost forget the green car.