Marlon James - A Brief History of Seven Killings

Josey Wales pop in my head and I remember running from him and I remember that I was telling myself don’t cry, don’t cry, don’t cry, you little battyman, but I cry anyway because I didn’t understand and I don’t understand why he was shooting at me when he send we out and then for the first time my mind run on the others and I wonder where they be. Or if Josey Wales shoot all of them already and is only me left. And I don’t know if this make sense to big people, but it don’t make sense to me. I didn’t stop running even after I couldn’t hear Josey Wales no more. I take foot from the Garbagelands and run and run and run all the way downtown, on Tower Street going east to west past haberdashery and Syrian shop and Lebanese supermarket all closed until the general election pass. Tower Street cut ’cross Princess Street and them beggarman, Orange Street and them higglerwoman, King Street and them tradesman and Duke Street and them lawyer lawyer. I turn up Duke Street and run into darkness. And I realize it’s not Josey Wales coming after me, or Papa-Lo or Shotta Sherrif, it’s him. He beat death and he coming after me. He not even coming, but sitting back maybe on some hill somewhere and setting a trap knowing that people like me born fool, and going fly straight into it. National Heroes Park. Is him park today and he own every single man who will set foot in it. All of Kingston. All of Jamaica.

Thick juice like saliva on my face, in my eye and in my nose. Me wake up choking on bench in the park with bird shit on my shoulder. Me don’t know if me drop asleep again and wake up, or if the last time me wake up was a dream. People are already in the park to wait and see. I see and wait. For them, for the police, for JLP gunman, for PNP gunman, for you. By four o’clock there must be thousand more, all of them waiting but something different. These people are not JLP or PNP or any other P, they’re just man and woman and brother and sister and cousin and mother and bredren and sistren and sufferah and I don’t know these people. I get up and walk and move past them, in between them, around them like a duppy. Nobody touch me, they don’t step out of my way, they just don’t see me at all. I don’t know people who don’t pick side. I don’t know what they look like, what run in their head before they say something, people who never wear Jamaica Labour Party green or People’s National Party orange. And these people getting bigger and bigger and the crowd bigger and the belt around the park about to burst and spill but they waiting on him and they sing him songs until you come.

The crowd is one. Them going know me no one of them, sooner, later, sooner. Sooner or later one of them lambs going say see him deh! See the wolf. Me no know how them going know but them going know. But them don’t care about me. Me is a bug, a fly, a flea, less than that. Third World Band playing, surrounded by every policeman in Jamaica and the prettiest woman on the stage talk like she is John the Baptist and the Singer is Jesus, and she make the crowd ooh and ahh and yay and her dress red and orange and flow down to the ground like she is Moses burning bush, but she not talking to them, she talking to me, saying hey, little idiot, who are you to think you can take down the Tuff Gong.

The crowd rush forward and roll back. East swing to west and west swing back and I trying not to look and I trying to not make anybody look at me, and two boy pass by, one of them looking at me too long, but the other drop a newspaper. It’s dark but the streetlight hit the people and sometimes hit the ground. Jamaica Daily News . The Singer Shot. Gunmen’s night raid leaves Wailers Manager Don Taylor — I-Thr — somebody step on it, then another, then another, the crowd suck it up and the paper is gone.

I look up and he—

Not he. You.

You look right at me.

You’re onstage fifty, a hundred yards aways, not even feet but yards and you look at me. You see me long before I see you. But you not looking at me. The only light now is on the stage and I lost in the darkness.

You wrap tight in a black shirt like you coming out of hell and I can’t see your pants, I don’t know if it’s jeans or the leather one that make the woman who I live with breathe heavy. You spin and the light flash through you whipping up your locks. Blue jeans. So many people on the stage that you can’t even dance like you used to. The pretty woman, your John the Baptist, have her arms folded but she feeling the music. Then on the left me see a duppy and try to run. Me run into a chest. I say sorry but the man don’t even feel me, he only feeling the positive vibration. Me look back and the duppy not a duppy, but your woman dressed in white. The horn blow and you stand still. I not hearing you, I hearing the people and they hearing you and I can see you but you lock me out like I must be deaf and I wonder how this night would play for deaf people and if you really starting a revolution if they can’t join.

You.

You say that you always knew, always knew that you were confident in the ultimate victory of good over evil. You not talking about me. Me know you nah drop prophecy ’bout me. You ah idiot. You forget that you is the lion and me be the hunter. You flash your dread again. Then I forget that though you be the lion and me is the hunter, me inna fi you jungle. Concrete Jungle. Me turn fi vanish but there nobody move, nobody get hurt. The crowd stand still then push forward. Then they start to jump and I stop. One foot crush my toe and another and another and if I don’t start jumping they all going stomp till one by one they trample me down.

You doing it.

You telling them to close in and stomp down Babylon. Now me jumping to you singing to them ’bout me. You is the lion and now you is the cowboy, going to chase those Crazy Baldheads Out of Town. I look at the ground but the bass about to push me down so that the people can trample me. And the guitar coming through the crowd like a spear straight for me heart. Me did think it was one day since we shoot you but when me take a stop is two and me don’t know if me did sleep in the Garbagelands, or Duke Street, or the park and when evening turn to morning and then evening again for two days. And where me did gone for a whole day that me can’t remember. But me can’t think nothing right now ’cause you just ah attack me and everywhere me look to run the people just ah block me and maybe they should block me because Josey Wales must be here too, and Papa-Lo and me see that this is what you plan all along.

I look up and people still in the tree and one of them must have a gun aiming at me head. Now you got what you want, do you want more? you say and is me you a say it to, ah me you ah chat ’bout, and only me know what you really mean. You think you bad, pussyhole? You think you can come take this bombocloth? You think you can kill off the Tuff Gong? You think you can just snuff out His Imperial Majesty either? Jah Live, pussyhole, and Jah coming to cut out you bombocloth heart. Jah going point him finger like lightning to strike and burn you down to pile of ash good for nothing but for a mangy dog to lift him left leg and piss ’pon you so you wash ’way down drain.

Now you get what you want, do you want more? No. Me no want no more because me see them, the baby with bat wings, and the baby with two eyes but no mouth and more burning blue flame, and taking their time walking through the crowd and I want to shout people you no see them? You no see the demon them? But the people looking at you, only at you. Something slither over my foot and rub scales against my ankle. And then do it again and I scream but the guitar scream the same time and suck mine out. Maybe if me no run but try to walk me can leave. So me take foot, cut through, but everybody jumping and waving and grinding and singing and to the left is uptown, to the left me sight Wolmer’s Boys’ School and nobody would see me, so I head left but people keep singing and moving and singing and jumping so much me can’t see but me walking and walking and every time I think something, that I finally reach the end of the park another voice say You not going nowhere, pussyhole and then you sing So Jah say and make it official.