Marlon James - A Brief History of Seven Killings

Between the walk and the stopping that’s when evening crept up on me.

— Excuse me, sir, what time you have?

— What time you want?

I look at this fat son of a bitch, clearly walking home even though he’s wearing a tie and say nothing. I just look.

— Eight-thirty, he says.

— Thank you.

— That would be p.m., he says and grins. I put every single bad word and ugly thought I can think of into the stare I give him back. He walks off. I stand there watching, yes, for the first and second time he turns around. You know something? All man is fuckery. Yes every woman know this, but we forget it every day. But leave it to providence, sooner or later in the stretch of a day some man will remind you. My heart is pumping again. Pumping hard. That might be because I can finally see Hope Road. Cars and buses cut across my view, east to west, west to east. I’m running again. Hope Road can’t hit and run me fast enough. I don’t know why, but I just have to run, I have to run now. Maybe his car is driving out, maybe he’s set to go to Buff Bay, maybe somebody coming to see him and will take up his time, maybe he just finished rehearsing “Midnight Ravers” and is finally, finally remembering what I look like. I just have to get there now. That one year running track did not come back and it’s my lungs that feel like it’s going to burst, not my heart. But I can’t stop, I almost run into Hope Road, making a sharp right and going still. Your mother and father won’t want it, another me is saying and it’s slowing me down. Fuck her. She can kiss me r’ass.

One block away from his gate and the streetlights are all on and traffic is moving smooth, not too fast, not too slow. Two white cars shot it past the intersecting and race down. The first turns into his gate so fast that I can hear the screech. The second swerve in as well. My feet stop running and start to walk. I hope these aren’t people taking him away from the only chance I’ve got. There’s just this, I’m doing this because that is all I can do now and there is nothing else — this will work, it don’t have to make no sense. Not even Christmas yet, barely December, and somebody is already bursting firecrackers. I run and run and run again, then hop, then walk right up to just ten or so feet from the gate.

T his is how bad man wake up. Shaking first, hungry second, scratching and itching third, with you cocky burning to explode. This is what you do: shake off the shake with a head nod, scratch the itch till your black skin turn red and go off into the darkest corner of the shack and pull down you zipper. Others say to you, What the bombocloth you ah do boy? but you don’t listen because right now, to let go that piss is the sweetest thing. But the shaking continue and won’t leave until Weeper come back. In the morning the shack seem bigger, even with six man in it trying to sleep the bad man sleep.

This is how bad man wake up: never go to sleep. I wasn’t sleeping when Funky Chicken with the heroin shakes start to walk in him sleep saying Leviticus, Leviticus, Leviticus, over and over. Me never did sleep neither when Heckle run over to the window and try to push himself out. Bam-Bam sleeping but he sitting on the floor and leaning against the wall and the whole night he didn’t move. Me dream awake, about the brethren who leave me poor on Caymanas racetrack. Me make the heat rise up in me like a fever then take it back down and make it rise again. You can do that the whole night. Last night Josey take me aside for a second and say the pussyhole come back from Ethiopia two night ago. This is how you can make a thing you lust for keep you awake.

This is how you know most man in the room too young. Not an hour after they fall asleep they start moaning and mumbling and if you is the fat man from Jungle, you call out a woman name three time. Dorcas or Dora, me can’t remember. Only young man get wet dream. Heckle in the corner sinning with him hand down him pants. Only young man can sleep even with all the burden crushing down on two shoulder like God just get tired of carrying burden and throw it on you.

I didn’t sleep. I not even sleepy. Flies in the room even at night. Nobody have no watch for me to tell the time, but in what feel like deep night, the skinny man from Jungle try to push him way out the door. Nobody wake up, but me wasn’t asleep. I hear him saying what kind of fuckery this for them to lock up big man like him in pigsty and I want to say you better relax yourself because Josey Wales is man who love to discipline a boy, but I stay in my corner, lying flat on my back, closing my eyes every time somebody look over this way at me.

But that was hours ago, me think. Now everybody in room going mad and ting. Bam-Bam scream out over and over. Me sight the two man from Jungle pace and pace and every time they run into each other they break out into a fight. Heckle searching every corner, every crevice, every empty juice box and soft drink bottle, the top of the house and the bottom for some cocaine. I know that be what he looking for, even though the last time a man do that, he take industrial-strength rat poison. Funky Chicken can’t take it no more so he go off into the corner where we piss and sit down in it and scratch him chest through the shirt with a tch tch tch . Bullshit this, you hear me, Heckle say. Yow who going help me push down this bloodcloth door? Josey Wales would come after we, another one say, but he say it quiet, like Josey is horseman from the Book of Revelations.

When me take a stop Bam-Bam screaming like a fucking girl. I say shut up, pussyhole, but he keep screaming like he sleeping with night terror. I kick him like thunder and he jump like lightning. A punch at least would make him feel like a man, but a slap make him feel like a girl. Outside the window gone from grey to yellow and sunlight cut through and land on the floor. There be nothing to do but watch it retreat, from the wall, down to floor, backways across the floor, and then gone like it reverse out the window. No sunray coming in but the room hot like fire. Must be noon.

Now five man roaming about the room and working up a stinking sweat. Now Funky Chicken screaming. Bam-Bam staring into the wall and Heckle staring at the window like he thinking he can fit through it. I know he thinking that if he back far enough and run with him hand stretch out like Superman, he can fly right through just like that. Or maybe that is what me thinking, because the heat wet and sticky and ting, and me can smell man all around me. Only the two man from Jungle look like they still have sense. They stop walking into each other and start walking together. But one walk past Heckle and brush him foot and Heckle say, Weh di bloodcloth you ah kick me for, star? and jump up and push. The two man from Jungle take set ’pon him double. One grab him right hand, the other grab him left and slam him into the wall making the shack shake. They about to double punch him when Funky Chicken say, You hear a car?

A car coming but it drive past, vrrrroooOOOOOOMmmm and gone. Funky Chicken start to sing that when the right time come some ah go bawl fi murder . Bam-Bam up and skipping on the spot, saying must be like a soldier, must be like a soldier, which is not what I expect from him at all. The four walls squeezing in and me is the only one that see it. I can smell five man and all of them stink, and all of them hot, and all of them have that fear smell which is to say all of them sour. Me smell piss too. And sulphur. And camphor ball and wet rat and old wood that termite eat out. The room squeezing in and Josey Wales and Weeper take all of the guns so that me can’t shoot no hole in the wall.

The room getting cooler and first me think it was the sea breeze reach we finally but it was the sun going away. Them going lock we up from night to night. There must be a stick, a column, a pipe, a hammer, a mop, a post, a lamp, a knife, a Coca-Cola bottle, a wrench, a stone, a rock, something to hit them two with when they come back. Something to hit them quick and kill them. Kill anybody. There must be something in this shack to kill whoever walk through that door, because me no care no more, me just want to get out. Heckle in the corner with him hand down him pants. He look ’round the room to see if we looking and take it out and rub it till he make a girl sound and kick the wall. Bam-Bam in him sleep dreaming about Funnyboy and saying over and over, Don’t touch me Clarks.